My own subjective view on War and the People at Home

 

This magazine article for Sussex Coast Talking News was first published in June 2026.

In the year 1917, the great poet, Wilfred Owen wrote: “My subject is War, and the pity of War”.

Like him, my own concern is more with the pity.

Humanity, or Mankind I should say, (there is a difference) has a marked propensity to start wars.  This has been going on for millennia, or even since the Dawn of Time.  Men will tend to go to war with each other at the drop of a hat.

Sometimes for a valid reason and sometimes not.  Such as the War of Jenkin’s Ear.  Which seemed to be about poor Captain Jenkins and his ear, but really was more about trade between Spain and Britain.  Most often wars will be for economic reasons: we need more money, or booty, or slaves or to seize the means of control for something or other. 

In the earliest of days, you could quite easily tell the opposing forces apart.  One “side” may have been big imposing fellows with perfumed hair and spade beards whilst their opponents might have been much smaller and clean-shaven.  And so, it continued and you could tell the warring parties apart fairly easily.  Then, what happens when you get more factions involved or one army tends to grow and grow in size?

Alexander the Great for instance, the victorious son of Philip of Macedon.  In his campaigns he often had large armies packed with soldiers from all over the place.  How to tell they were all together?  All under the same control?

Well, they managed somehow or other.

Then uniforms started to develop, over a long period of time.

Helmets first started off being leather straps or hats to protect the skull, then metal helmets took their place.  There would be a huge variety of these over the centuries.  Usually, a base metal would be used for the vast majority of soldiers.  Then precious metals and designs would be brought into play for esteemed warriors and commanders to show their status, prowess and superiority.  Nowadays, composite plastics are used to give the best protection for their wearers.

Soldiers, by their occupation bear the brunt of the damage of warfare, but since the earliest days of warfare, civilians and other non-combatants have suffered greatly when they get caught up or dragged into conflicts.

Now, when soldiers besieged a castle, fort, city or palace, then when they breach the defences, unlike in a Hollywood film, the work does not end right then.  Once the besieging soldiers had made their breakthrough – then they would have to fight room by room through all the buildings in the area to secure their position.

Women would be seized for slavery immediately, children likewise.  However, male children and adults over the age of ten (say) would be butchered on the spot.  Although this was not the case all the time; circumstances and the type of war determined how besieging soldiers treated the civilians they found.

If you are taking control of a building, you do not leave anybody alive behind you who could potentially stab you.  Brutal but practical.  And, Empires and great kingdoms depend on slaves (whoever owns them) to do all their dirty work.

Soldiers tend not to be well paid and will, therefore, seize any plunder that they can to supplement their pay.  Gold, silver and slaves tend to be very valuable.

Throughout history, taking slaves was one of the best ways for soldiers to make an income.   Let us look at a couple of slaves from Homer’s annals, both captured while their homes were sacked; to get an inkling of the awful effect this had.  The first was Briseis of Lyrmidon, whether she was a Princess or Queen is unclear from the myths.  The Greek troops besieging Troy were in a bad way, they badly needed money, wine, food and slaves.  So, while most of the armies kept the Trojans busy, a smaller force sailed rapidly down the sea to the next big city.  They raided so quickly, there was little time to make any resistance and the city fell completely.  The troops ransacked the area for all the goods they could seize.  Briseis, the rest of the females and all of the males who were spared, were taken into slavery.  The troops were impressed by Briseis’s beauty and presented her as a gift to their warlord: Achilles, prince of the Myrmidons.  So, from princess or queen to slave then sex-slave or concubine within the space of a few hours.

When Troy was taken, Achilles was shot dead by Paris so Briseis (being owned by Achilles) was passed on to one of his warriors and disappears from history and myth.

Then, the Trojan princess, Cassandra the seer was herself taken by Agamemnon, the chief general of the Greeks and he carried her back as a personal slave to Mycenae.  When they got there, Agamemnon was butchered by Clytaemnestra (his wife) then she did the same to Cassandra - just for being there.

Life was never good for civilians.

In early Biblical times, the tribes of the Israelites were taken into captivity and enslaved by the Babylonians.  Then, later by the Egyptians.  Both times they managed to make their escape and return to their homeland.  But they were often at war with the Philistines and others over the generations to keep their own sovereignty. 

Some years ago, I read the book: “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail”, which looked to me like a re-hash of various conspiracy theories rooted in events from Biblical times affecting France and the Holy Land.  One or two had a ring of truth though.  Moving forward in the book, therefore, to France in the 8^th or 9^th Century CE (previously referred to as AD), the King of France was having troubles with heretics in the South of his country.  He dispatched his army to wipe out the heretics.  Which they did, moving across the South of France until there was only one stronghold of heretics left, locked into one of the cities.  The siege of the city was proceeding well and, on the day, before the defences were expected to fall, a group of soldiers went to see their commanding officer with a problem they had.

Their quandary was, often they would take the citizens as prisoners to sell as slaves; the heretics and soldiery however would be killed.  How then to tell the heretics apart from the bona fide citizens?

Their Captain thought for a moment and then responded: “Kill them all.  God knows His own.”

“Kill them all.  God knows His own.”

The troop went away, satisfied in their orders.  They would not make any money selling slaves this time, but their captain had issued his instructions and was very clear.

As I said, not a good time to be a civilian.  War was and continues to be a more and more brutal activity and peaceable civilians tended to be treated more and more badly as time went on.

“The only thing worse than a battle lost is a battle won.”  That was said by the Duke of Wellington after the Battle of Waterloo.  I do not know how many civilians got involved there, but the situation was truly awful and anybody too close would have precious little chance of survival, and, maybe this was one of the factors that led to later developments.

Then things started to change.  In 1861, moves to found the Red Cross started in Switzerland.  By 1864, and the passing of the first Geneva Convention, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) became fully operational.  The Committee, and its Members, is unarmed, international, humanitarian and fully neutral enabling it to speak and act on behalf of all peoples.

The Committee acts to support victims of armed conflict and other violence.  The Red Cross, Red Crescent or Red Crystal exists to protect wounded, sick and ship-wrecked members of the armed forces, prisoners of war and civilians.  Nowadays, about seventy-five percent of the states in the world are signed up to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Protocols.  If your country is attacked by one of the non-signatory states then you can expect pretty brutal treatment, but, otherwise, well, you are not definitely safe but the Red Cross will do their best for you.

It is a difficult role the Committee plays to use moral suasion to persuade States to follow international humanitarian laws to protect victims of international and internal conflict.

In the Red Cross’s first years in the nineteenth century, it became more and more involved.  More use was made of volunteers and their ambulances and hospitals became much more visible.

In the First World War period (1914 – 1918): the Red Cross first started visiting prisoners of war, supporting them and contacting their families to let them know that their loved ones were alive and (relatively) safe.

They made efforts to ban the use of many weapons that caused massive suffering and also started to support political prisoners.

Despite views that the world was getting better after the First World War.  People soon realised that various scenes of conflict showed the necessity of keeping the Red Cross going.

In the Second World War period (1939 – 1945): the Red Cross continued their valuable work.  They really stepped up a gear to carry out all their activities, acting and working on a number of fronts providing relief, support and supplies all over the globe.  However, they were not able to provide the support they should have as an international entity for victims of the Holocaust.  Red Cross rules have now changed to reflect this.

During the 19^th century, the Red Cross was a positive benefit to civilian victims of war and other conflicts.  However, the development of the aeroplane in the 20^th century swung the scales very much in the opposite direction.  The aeroplanes that were used for conflict in the First World War were relatively primitive but they still caused great disruption to civilian and military targets equally.

Now that slavery was largely abolished in most countries, military operations targeted civilians either to kill them or to take prisoners when it was possible.

Use of aeroplanes really expanded in their aggressive capacities during the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War.  It is not much use explaining that you are a civilian; aircraft may attack a focused area, but they are indiscriminate about the destruction they cause in that area.

Sadly, tit-for-tat behaviour is very apparent, if one side achieves a tactical advantage, the other must move to close the gap.  However, my father was not involved in the debate on this particular controversy as he was posted to the Far East to carry out his military service in the Second World War; he was a radio technician for the RAF working in the Pacific zone to help push back the Japanese.  Interestingly, my father only used his Service bayonet once during his time in the forces – but that is another story.  My father will appear again, in a little while.

After Dunkirk and still early on in the Second World War, the Nazi Luftwaffe attacked RAF bases and the City of London in attempts to break the Nation’s spirit. 

At around this time a new word entered the English language. 

In German, the word Blitz or Blitzen is a noun meaning lightning, or lightning-strike or lightning-flash; it can also be made into a compound-noun such as lightning-conductor.

This word slipped into the English language in late 1939 as Blitz.  I have never seen a dictionary definition of the word, but I have come up with this description, I hope you will find it fits the bill!

Our word Blitz is a passive verb meaning: I have been pounded into oblivion by a merciless aerial bombardment.

Well, I hope that you might agree with that.

Anyway, after attacking RAF bases and the City of London, the forces of the Luftwaffe turned their attention to cities around Great Britain.  It tended to avoid towns and villages because they did not have the same devastating effect.  But to Blitz a city really had an impact.

Portsmouth, Plymouth, Exeter, Kingston-Upon-Hull, York, Liverpool, Bristol – the list just goes on of cities being blitzed.  Some of these said that they were the worst hit during the War, and I whole-heartedly agree with all these claims, as being bombed was so atrocious.

But, one city does stand out and that is Coventry.  On the night of 14^th November 1940, a very large force of Luftwaffe bombers radio-navigated their way to Coventry and commenced bombing that night.  Some of the bomber pilots wrote afterwards that they could feel the heat from the fire-storm burning below even at their high altitudes.

Eventually, they finished dropping their bombs and the aircraft flew away, the “All-clear” sirens started to sound, the dust had settled and the survivors started to emerge from their shelters across the city.

What they found was almost unprecedented, from the very centre of Coventry right out for a huge distance in all directions: the City was demolished.

All the buildings there were destroyed, the Blitz attack had hit everywhere.   A few walls were left standing, but no structures remained.

The City authorities had to move swiftly.  At the time, there was no “Government Task Force” that could be dropped in wherever it was needed to carry out re-building, and sadly to say, there still is not one.  So, they had to get together carpenters, builders, electricians, plasterers’ etcetera locally to re-build the most important parts of Coventry.  Housing (of course, as almost everybody was made homeless by the Blitz), hospitals, factories and war work buildings, and the official Guildhall (the City Hall).  Non-essential buildings had to wait of course.   Eventually, most of the precious, medieval buildings were re-constructed but this was a pain staking process.

And this process included the Cathedral, although the Church authorities started thinking about a new building right from the beginning.  The original building was too badly damaged in the Blitz to rebuild safely and they intended to use this as a calming and contemplative entrance to the new cathedral. 

The remnants of the old cathedral were “made good” and left in place.  Whilst clearing inside the “old” building, one of the Wardens saw that three nails from the original roof had fallen together in the nave and landed forming the shape of the Cross.  These were kept together and conserved on the High Altar of the new Cathedral.  They became the focus of a new organisation: the Community of the Cross of Nails.

This Community is dedicated to fostering peace and reconciliation between all peoples.  In the beginning, this was particularly between Britain and Germany, but now many nations are involved in the Community.

One of the abiding principles of the Community is: learning to live with difference and celebrate diversity.  This, in my opinion, is one of the fundamental bench-marks in stopping people from going to war with each other; as Winston Churchill once said: “Jaw-jaw is much better than War-war.”

The new Cathedral was itself built on land just to the North of the old one and used the old cathedral as an entrance point.  The architect chosen for this new edifice was Basil Spence (later Sir Basil).

This, new, Coventry Cathedral is unique in one particular way.  It is the only Christian church or cathedral in the world, as far as I know, that is built with the congregation facing to the geographic North.  All congregations everywhere else face to the East, to the morning’s Rising Sun.  Instead, Coventry Cathedral’s geographical North wall has an enormous tapestry behind the High Altar that is the object of the congregation’s focus.  This is “Christ in Glory” and it is huge.  The tapestry is, I believe, the largest in the world and was designed and created by the artist Graham Sutherland who lived from 1905 to 1980. 

(Graham Sutherland lived part of his life in this area in Sea Road, Rustington and I do hope he was happy living so close to the coast).

Finance for the re-building came mainly from the people of Coventry.  Money did not come centrally and the Diocese had to raise almost all of the money by collections from the people of Coventry and gifts from elsewhere.  But eventually, the Cathedral was completed and the dedication service was held in 1962.  The congregations for the dedication services were, mainly, drawn from the citizens of Coventry, plus a number of royal guests and dignitaries, plus representatives from all the Church of England Dioceses across the country.  My father was, by this time, a Licensed Reader for the Diocese of Wakefield and was privileged to be selected as one of the ticketed representatives for his Diocese along with the Bishop of Wakefield at one of the full dedication services.

The service also included the first performance of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, which drew heavily on the First World War poetry of Wilfred Owen.

On principle, the Cathedral authorities made strenuous efforts to forge links with the people of Germany, regarded by many as the aggressors in the recent conflict.  But the Church wanted to build bridges not erect barriers.  The words: “Father, Forgive” are inscribed above the altar of the destroyed Cathedral.

Whilst Communism was still in control of East Germany after the War, a group of young parishioners of Coventry Cathedral travelled to Dresden to help re-build one of the city’s main hospitals.  This was a gesture of reconciliation and solidarity not recompense to the city of Dresden which had been systematically destroyed by Allied fire-bombing near the end of World War Two, similar to the experience of Coventry earlier.

And so, when Communism collapsed and the Berlin Wall was smashed down.  The Diocese of Coventry sent helpers to Dresden.  The local people, who had secreted some of the stones for the re-building of the Frauenkirche (the Church of Our Lady) were now ready to start their process of re-building.

This started in 1993 when all the stones were gathered together, cleaned up and sorted out.  The completion of this monumental work took place between 1996 and 2004.  The work was eventually finished and they held a rededication service for the Frauenkirche in October 2005.

The Frauenkirche itself joined the Community of the Cross of Nails very shortly after its rededication.

Together, all the cathedrals, churches and organisations around the world that are members of the Community of the Cross of Nails pray regularly for peace and for forgiving one’s enemies.

They pray and hope collectively for peace.

We all want peace between Nations and we continue to pray for peace.

Will we ever get true peace?

Well, we must continue to pray and hope.

 

I would like to express my thanks – among others – to Ms Dianne Morris MA Archivist Curator, Coventry Cathedral and the welcoming team in Coventry Cathedral, to the websites of Coventry Cathedral and also the International Committee of the Red Cross for providing me with much useful information.

 

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)