Other Culture (film, media, fine art, exhibitions, other people’s writing etc.) – Page 21

The Free Bonus LP, A Reel-To-Reel Tape Gifted To Me By Paul Deacon, 26 September 1981

I have managed to rescue an old reel-to-reel tape, nearly 40 years after it was made and given to me by Paul Deacon.

I went through a process of digitising all my old reel-to-reels around 2008, but this small spool, which Paul named The Free Bonus LP, was accidentally missed out of that process.

I realised the mistake a couple of years ago, when Paul and I were corresponding about some other silliness of ours from an even earlier era:

Execution Scenes, Coin Tossers And Miscellaneous Silliness Recorded With Paul Deacon, 12 April 1977

Being me, though, I hadn’t scrapped the box of tapes, nor had I scrapped the trusty Sony TC377 tape recorder, I had merely decommissioned the machine and put all the stuff into storage in the City.

Then, a few weeks ago, my good friend John White asked me if I still had a reel-to-reel, as he and his sister Pippa had found some old reels while clearing his late parents’ house. In good pal mode, I went to the storage basement, rescued the machine and schlepped the weighty object back to my flat.

While in the storage room, I thought I’d have a quick look for the missing Paul Deacon spool which, for kind reasons of its own, had found its way to the top of the first box of spools I opened.

Fate.

The John White reel rescues have uncovered a treasure trove of stuff…

A Reel Good Evening With John White, 21 January 2020

…including, even more recently, a mystery third spool which turns out to be John & Pippa’s parents’ wedding.

Having completed the White stuff, I ventured this morning to The Free Bonus LP and what a treat it was to hear it again after all these years.

Side One comprises Paul talking me through some dreadful versions of well-known songs, out-takes, bloopers and the like. Some of it I still found very funny. The highlight…or are we talking lowlights here?…the lowlight, then, is towards the end of Side One. A gentleman named Paul Marks who was working with Paul at that time on the hospital radio station Radio Kings. Paul Marks’s blooper about a Renaissance dance troupe’s costumes is comedy gold, as is Paul Deacon’s seething interview with Paul Marks about it for a single listener, me, on The Free Bonus LP.

Ladies, gentlemen and children, I give you, Side One:

Side One in all its glory

Side Two is a collection of five comedic/novelty recordings.

I especially like the first one, Bo Dudley, while recognising today how very un-PC is some the language used.

Hearing this tape again also reminded me how very funny The Heebie Jeebies were…indeed still are.

So here it is….Side Two:

Side Two

Paul and I used to spend hours putting compliation tapes together for each other – Paul I think more prolific in doing so than me. I have digital copies of all of those and this is, I think, the only recording that had, until today (7 February 2020) remained undigitised.

I realise that this one in particular must have taken ages to pull together. I probably never thanked you properly or enough for those efforts, Paul…

…again, until today. Many, many thanks for The Free Bonus LP, Paul.

…and how do you know to date the thing 26 September 1981?…

…I hear you cry. Because Paul, helpfully, stuck a label with the date on the spool. Thanks again, Paul.

A Visit To Billingsgate Fish Market With Andrew & Fiona Levinson Plus Pen Friend Valerie, 20 August 1977

I was reminded of this 1977 impromptu summer holidays outing at a recent (November 2017) gathering of the old school clan – click here or the link below:

Rock ‘N’ Rajasthan Evening, Mostly Alleyn’s Alumni, 14 November 2017

Not only did both Andrew and Fiona Levinson come up in the conversation that evening, but I realised, when the 1977 Billingsgate visit popped into my head, that the venue, The Rajasthan Restaurant, is just across the road from the old Billingsgate Fish Market. Weirdorama.

Here is the relevant page of my diary. Not much going on at that stage of the summer…

..apart from England winning the Ashes! Happy days.

This was the first year I didn’t go away with my parents during the summer school holidays since I was a toddler. I don’t think dad had the money for a holiday that year – business was not good.

Still, it seems that, on the Sunday before, I:

won 1p at kalooky [sic] all OK

Why Jewish grandmothers liked to play Kalooki – Jamaican Rummy is a mystery to me. I think it explained to some extent in Howard Jacobson’s book Kalooki Nights, which I commend to you.

That 1p will have contributed handsomely towards my bus fares and stuff.

On the Friday, the diary notes that I:

went out with Andrew, Fiona and Valerie (pen friend from France). No 23 in evening.

No 23 was my grandmother (of kalooki fame)’s flat. There was a three line whip for the family to gather and no kalooki on a Friday night. Don’t be ridiculous. On the sabbath? No, no, no. Kalooki was a Sunday thing.

What Andrew, Fiona, Valerie and I did on that Friday is lost in the bowels of my mind, so unless one of the others reads this and knows (please chime in if you do) the nature of the Friday activity will be lost for ever in the mists of time.

The Saturday diary entry is more explicit:

went to Billingsgate first thing with Andrew, Fiona and Valerie.

I do recall making a very early start of it and venturing out to Billingsgate with my camera in hand.

Left to right: two fishmongers, Andrew, Fiona, Valerie

Andrew pondering the price of fish as we leave Billingsgate

Who would have thought back then that I would end up writing a book on commerce, The Price Of Fish, using a multitude of fishy examples, some of which were spawned all the way back then at Billingsgate – click here or below:

But I digress…

…let us return to the 20 August outing. We clearly did a little more sightseeing before we went home – click the link below for the whole photo roll, which is available for all to see on Flickr – click here or below:

As a footnote, I’d like to make it clear that our behaviour with Fiona’s pen friend from France was exemplary, showing her the sights, sounds and smells of Old London Town and generally being hospitable.

I feel the need to make this “good behaviour” point explicit, because some of our fellow Alleyn’s alumni took a somewhat different attitude to French pen pals. Messrs Wellbrook and Grant, for example, hang your heads in shame as I link any Facebook-enabled readers to David Wellbrook’s confession piece on the matter of Chris Grant’s French pen friend in the summer of 1976 – click here for Facebook or below for the Ogblog imprint:

Guest Piece by David Wellbrook: The Long Hot Summer Of ’76 – Recollections Of A 14-Year-Old With Special Appearance By A Lunatic Frenchman, c1 July 1976

Tish tish.

Execution Scenes, Coin Tossers And Miscellaneous Silliness Recorded With Paul Deacon, 12 April 1977

On this day in 1977, Paul Deacon and I recorded ourselves larking around, including, for some unknown reason, several takes of a scene emulating an execution at the time of the French Revolution.

I’ve no idea whether anyone other than me and Paul will find this four minute clip funny, but I laughed out loud many times on hearing it again.

I think my favourite bit is on take 4, when you hear my pseudo-Robespierre voice, once again, ask

“do you ‘ave anything to say?”

and you can hear my mother holler from the next room…

“yeh – shut up!”

…at which point Paul collapses in gales of laughter.

Some of the bits in several of the takes where Paul gets tongue-tied around his lines are pretty funny too.

I also laughed out loud at my third announcement of “take 5” – to announce two “take 5s” might be described as unfortunate, to announce three sounds like carelessness. The juvenilia of a numbers man.

Suffice it to say that the unintended humour works better than the rather mawkish intended humour.

The guillotine sound comes from an actual guillotine…

…no, really…

…a paper one, which looked more or less exactly like this picture, which I have borrowed from an ebay sale long since closed – I’m sure the anonymous photographer/seller won’t mind – fair use for educational purposes blah blah:

The sound of the drum roll was made on a genuine Southern African bongo drum, a gift from my mother’s dear school friend, “Auntie” Elsie Betts who lived (I believe still lives) in South Africa. For reasons unknown, I took a superb photograph of that majestic drum:

The sound of the aristocrat’s head landing was, if I recall correctly, achieved with a white cabbage being dropped into a wastepaper basket. My mother used to make her own coleslaw to my father’s specification – with a light vinaigrette sauce, no mayonnaise nonsense for my dad’s slaw – it was a sort-of cross between sauerkraut and coleslaw really.

But I digress.

Point is, there would always have been a white cabbage conveniently on hand whenever the need arose for a head removal sound effect. The cabbage will have looked like one of these:

Paul and I made quite a few silly recordings over the years, but I believe only the one tape survives. Most of our recordings were recorded on the trusty Sony TC377, which looked like this…

…the tape for which was expensive and in demand in the Harris household (mostly by me to be honest), so much of the silly stuff will have been wiped over with other silly stuff or, eventually, something someone wanted to keep.

I meticulously digitised all the reel to reel tapes that survived (a few batches of tape were deteriorating before digitisation, so those tapes couldn’t be saved) but, as far as I can tell, none of the survivors had larking about material on them. Sorry.

So how or why did the 12 April 1977 material survive?

The answer is straightforward and signalled in the following diary page.

The relevant passage is 2 January 1977 – Bank Holiday Monday:

Went to Comet cassette deck. Great.

On that day, our reel-to-reel family bowed to the inevitable and procured a cheap (this is the January sales, isn’t it?) “solid state” cassette deck. It was not a special one. I think it was one of the following or similar – I have borrowed the picture from an ebay sale long since closed – I’m sure the anonymous photographer/seller won’t mind – fair use for educational purposes blah blah:

While I think Paul and I probably recorded the coin tossers/execution scenes on the reel-to-reel (the clicks sound reel-to-reelish to me – Paul might know better), I at least made a copy or copies onto cassette following that 1977 reording session:

Below I have also embedded the 20 minutes or so of general larking around stuff that preceded the main takes. It’s not a particularly interesting listen; I think we must both have been in an especially silly mood that day. Paul might go through it and extract a few small snippets of value from it. I think there is a Cyril Vaughan impersonation on there somewhere and one or two other impersonations to boot.

The main “conceit” of the following preliminary piece is a spoof sports commentary on the world coin tossing competition. This appears to be a throw-back to an earlier, seminal event, in December 1974:

Breaking The World Record For Coin Catching With Paul Deacon, Woodfield Avenue, 30 December 1974

Anyway, here is twenty minutes of coin tossing, infantile giggling, some impersonations and some early attempts at the execution scenes. This recording is on the other side of the Execution Scenes cassette.

I have written all of this up in September 2018 at Paul Deacon’s request, as he is giving some sort of talk about careers to a women’s group in Canada, the country in which Paul and his family now reside.

Paul wondered if I had any relevant photos of us from that time, which I don’t really – sorry again. The only picture I can lay my hands on with both of us in it is the following, which Paul himself uploaded in our Alleyn’s alum group:

Paul on the right doing the bumping; me the recipient of the bumps. This might take some explaining to a genteel women’s group…

…but if they are instead a group of Canadian Women’s Ice Hockey players/supporters, the picture will look like childishly amateur violence, which it assuredly was.

While I denied all memory of this event when Paul first upped that picture, I have a vague recollection now of how those autumnal-looking bumps came about. I’ll Ogblog about that separately some other time.

This piece is about recordings of execution scenes and stuff. You haven’t yet listened to the four minute execution scenes clip? Here it is again for your convenience. Listen out for my mum as “best supporting actress” in take four.

A Tale Of Two Cartoons And An Historic Yet Cartoonish Cricket Match, 7 June 1975

Allow me to transcribe this diary entry as best I can. The verb pertaining to my father’s insurance claim I think reads, “blagged” but I might be mistaken:

Saw Prudential Cup. England Won. Old 51 not out. Dad blagged from insurance got two films: Jerry & the Goldfish, and Dr Jekyll & Mr Mouse

“Prudential Cup” that day was actually the very first match in the tournament that later became known as the cricket world cup, so I am rather glad to realise that i really have been following that tournament since the very beginning.

A strange match to say the least. Look at the scorecard:

England v India at Lord’s 7 June 1975

England’s score looks normal by modern standards, but 334/4 was a monster score in a one day match back then. My excitement about Chris Old’s performance was due to the fact that he was one of my favourite players, because he was from the Yorkshire team that I met when I was seven…

A Short Holiday In Brighton, During Which I Met Geoffrey Boycott & The Yorkshire Cricket Team, 3 September 1969

…therefore Chris Old was, to all intents and purposes, my friend. My friend scored 51 runs in 30 balls which was, in those days, a very unusual and exciting run rate.

In response, India crawled to 132/3, with Sunny Gavaskar responding to England’s huge total with what I can only imagine was an act of passive resistance: 36 runs in 174 balls.

I doubt if I saw the whole match through.

More likely, I was captivated by the Tom & Jerry cartoons dad brought home from the shop for me.

His shop window had suffered some serious water damage, with much stock completely written off, but those two Tom & Jerry cartoons (Standard 8) had damaged boxes but the film inside was salvagible.

Dad, being dad, asked the insurance man if it would be alright to hand the unsellable but still useable items to his son. the insurance man probably nearly fainted (or could hardly control his laughter) at being asked such a question and kindly acquiesced to dad’s modest request.

Dad told me that he had persuaded the insurance man to let me have the films and I was most impressed by dad’s negotiating skills.

I loved those films and watched them over and over.

I strongly suspect that dad got home before Sunny Gavaskar’s crease protest was over and that I abandoned the cricket match for the cartoons. The diary is silent on that aspect.

Here is the Jerry & the Goldfish, thanks to The Daily Motion:

And here is Dr Jekyll & Mr Mouse, also from The Daily Motion:

Ongka’s Big Moka, Television Documentary, 11 December 1974

Koteka by Billga, CC BY-SA 3.0

My diary entry for 11 December 1974 includes the phrase:

Disappearing World. Ongka’s Big Moka. Rather amusing.

In October 2016, while pondering the idea of Ogblog but before I had started the project in earnest, I uncovered this diary entry and vaguely remembered the television programme to which it referred.

I Googled the programme name and read the Wikipedia entry, which, at that time, reported that the programme was first broadcast in 1976 – probably when it received its first US airing. A bit more Googling enabled me to confirm 11 December 1974 as the first airing date so I (in the form of Ged Ladd who is an occasional but keen Wikipedia editor) corrected the Wikipedia entry.

At the time of writing this (November 2018), I am delighted to note that the Wikipedia entry for Ongka’s Big Moka retains my fine detective and editing work. I was reminded of this whole matter by a visit to see the Oceania exhibition at the RA:

Klimt/Schiele and Oceania, Royal Academy, 16 November 2018

Anyway, since my October 2016 detective work, someone has, helpfully, uploaded the Ongka’s Big Moka film to YouTube:

It might have been this television documentary that sparked my lifelong interest in the tribes and cultures of Oceania.

I do also remember being inspired by the exhibits from the Pacific South Seas in the Horniman Museum, on an Alleyn’s School visit, probably around that time, but I do not recall which of those inspiring introductions, television or museum, came first.

Perhaps I’ll find a reference to the Alleyn’s visit somewhere in my diaries, but it might be pre-diaries or during one of my irritating diary-writing-intervals in those early years.

One of my old school pals might just help me to date that school visit, although I suspect there were plenty of such visits on field days “back then”, as the Horniman was such an easy place to visit from the school. So unless I did something memorable on that trip…

…I dread to think what memorable thing I might done, but my lifelong interest in that part of the world does include a fascination with koteka.

Still, I suspect that the date of my visit to the Horniman is either in my diaries or lost in the mists of time.

When Grandma Jenny Took Me To See Living Flea…I Mean, Living Free, Odeon Astoria Brixton…Or Do I Mean The Ritzy, January or February 1972

Brixton Astoria / Academy by Fred Romero from Paris, France, CC BY 2.0

A friend mentioned Brixton Academy to me the other day (January 2022) which immediately triggered the memory/thought:

didn’t that used to be the cinema we knew as “The Flea Pit”?

Which triggered my one clear memory of going to that cinema – although I’m sure I was taken there several times as a child. I especially remember Grandma Jenny taking me to see the film Living Free there.

Cursory research on Living Free at IMDb uncovers the UK release date as January 1972, so I am writing this memory up almost exactly 50 years after the event.

I remember the experience especially clearly, as Grandma Jenny had loved the film Born Free. She was so excited that there was a sequel to Born Free and that I was now old enough to accompany her to the flickers.

Unfortunately, Grandma Jenny’s excitement turned to disappointment, as she felt that the film Living Free was only a shadow of the wonders that she had enjoyed in the film Born Free. Grandma Jenny felt bound to let me know that the original was much better.

Frankly, I don’t think I would have discerned much difference between the two films at that age. Lions are/were exciting charismatic megafauna to see on the screen. The humans waffling on about lions and each other was comparatively dull.

Even the theme music for Living Free was cheesy and disappointing for Grandma…

…who subsequently serenaded me with the theme from Born Free, in the hope I would thus discern the relative quality of the latter theme. Unfortunately, Grandma Jenny did not share her sister-in-law Marie’s wonderful BBC Singer singing voice.

But fifty years on, the thing I remember most about the experience was my dad wanting to have me checked over for fleas for the rest of the weekend, after I had visited The Flea Pit. And dad insisted on referring to the movie as “Living Flea”.

Postscript -Memory Corrected By A Four-Year-Old: The Flea Pit Was The Ritzy, Not The Astoria

Within an hour of me posting the above piece on the Streatham, Balham & Tooting (yes, as you’ll soon see, geography was not my strongest suit at school) Memories Group on Facebook, Paula chimed in with the following remark:

I went to see Living Free in Brixton too! I always thought it was the Ritzy… but I was only 4, so what do I know

As soon as I saw that comment, I knew that she was right, a fact confirmed within minutes by Paul:

I’m pretty sure the ‘flea pit’ was the ritzy, not the odeon( as stated in the article….)

In my own defence, I know that Grandma Jenny did take me to see movies at the Brixton Astoria as well as the Ritzy back then. I have a feeling that my first “date” with Grandma was to the Astoria, but that was to see an afternoon matinee of the Sound Of Music…

…something that Grandmas everywhere did with/for their grandchildren back then, before the days when such movies were shown on the TV every bank holiday and certainly before the days that you could stream those old movies whenever you like.

I can report that Grandma Jenny’s serenading with the Sound Of Music theme sounded no better than her rendition of the Born Free theme.

But I digress.

Yes, my memory from age nine has been bested by someone who was less than half my age at the time.

Grandma Jenny and I saw Living Flea at The Ritzy.

Original uploader: Secretlondon at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 1.0

Hare And Guy Fawkes, Daddy Reading To Me, 5 November 1967

This recording is the only clearly dated family recording I have. Little me proudly announces at the start of the recording that it is the 5th of November, 1967.

I am Ogblog-publishing the recording on its 50th birthday.

As it happens, both the original recording and its 50th anniversary fell/fall on a Sunday.

I have already Ogblogged Dad reading me The Gingerbread Man story – click here – and there are several other such recordings, one or two with mum, which I shall Ogblog in time.

But those others are, I believe, all quite a bit earlier than this Hare and Guy Fawkes one. I believe this 5 November 1967 one is the last of the readings tapes, not least because I think my personal interest in the tape recorder transformed at that time from passive listener to active recorder on our trusty Grundig TK-35. Another story – I’ll cover that story a little more below and separately later.

Grundig TK35. Photograph by Michael Keller, from Rad-io.de.

Before we made the recording, almost certainly we would have taken family lunch at Folman’s Restaurant in Noel Street – click here to see a photo of that place. It was an enormous restaurant which looked like a massive refectory inside.

Folman’s – scraped from : https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/534521049506003800/

Grandma Anne had, I think, fairly recently been widowed for a second time (my Step-Grandpa Nat I only recall vaguely from when I was very small), so it became our habit to take Grandma Anne to that strictly kosher restaurant in Soho for Sunday lunch.

I recall liking the chicken soup and the chopped liver but not much else there. I also recall my father’s favourite dish being “boiled capon” – a large chicken cooked in broth. I don’t believe that the kosher restaurant capon was a castrated bird – I’m not sure that kashrut would allow even the circumcision of a cock of the poultry variety. I think it was simply a big old boiler chicken that would make a tasty broth; the slow cooking of the aged creature would soften what would otherwise be rather tough meat.

My Vietnamese-style dish, chicken cooked in its own broth, is an exotic and delicious variation on that theme, which Janie and I love as comfort food. I remember distinctly not liking the Folman’s version much as a child, it was nothing like as tasty as my mum’s chicken.

But I wildly digress.

On the recording, you can hear my mum in the background, in another room, having an argument by the sound of it. I’m not sure whether she is arguing on the phone or with someone else who is in the house who is talking far more softly than my mum. I might do some audio-forensics on the sound file one day and see if I can listen in on that aggro from 50 years ago.

The argument can only have been family stuff…probably family business stuff.

I’ll guess that the Hare and Guy Fawkes story-telling at that time was as much about getting me out of the way while the family argument played out as it was about anything else.

But I’ll also guess that my beady-little eyes were, at that time, working out how to make recordings, because the rest of that side of that tape is strewn with recordings from the radio. One of those recordings I believe was made the same afternoon/early evening; I’ll Ogblog that a little later today.

As with our other story book recordings, I ring a bell at the turn of the page. I think the idea of that was to help me learn to read by following the story in the book while listening to the tape.

I also interject with some questions at times, which is rather cute, but I interject less in this one than I did in earlier recordings. I guess the question I really wanted answered by then was, “how do I operate this machine so I can make recordings for myself?”

Here’s the Hare And Guy Fawkes sound file and book cover again.

Daddy Reading The Gingerbread Man To Me, Guessing Late 1966

Some bants on King Cricket today, 13 March 2017, in the matter of one of my Ged pieces as it happens – click here – have led me back to the very oldest tapes in the family collection.

Both of my parents, dad in particular, made recordings of my favourite books being read to me. This was mostly, I suspect, because they knew that I couldn’t resist fiddling with the old Grundig and so would listen to the recordings rather than nag them to read the book again. Fiendish, cunning and I very much approve.

Grundig TK35, ram-packed with thermionic valves. Photograph by Michael Keller, from Rad-io.de.

One of those wonderful recordings is The Gingerbread Man, the very book that Joe over on King Cricket was complaining about having to read three times a day.

Always keen to help out, here is the recording of my dad reading The Gingerbread Man to a very little me:

I don’t have a picture of me around that time with that book, but I do have a picture with a similar book, long since forgotten and I don’t think ever recorded:

A Very Little Me With the Big Brown Bear Book

Simply adorable I was; goodness knows what went wrong.

I do still have my dilapidated copy of the Gingerbread Man. Not too many of my children’s books survived the cull, but (probably because of the recording) I couldn’t bear to part with that one.

Thanks for triggering the nostalgia, Joe. I’d been trying to pluck up the courage to listen again and start uploading these recordings to Ogblog. You gave me cause.

Battersea Park Open Air Sculpture Exhibition, Spring/Summer 1966

It is one of my earliest memories. All I remember is having so much fun, climbing in, out, around, and through sculptures.

Playing hide and seek by dint of the artworks.

In my memory it was a Henry Moore exhibition, but on discovering a little pile of long-forgotten photographs (fiendishly mixed up with some of my parents’ late 1980s prints), followed by a little on-line research, I learn that it was a much wider exhibition, organised by the Greater London Council (GLC), that Battersea Park affair in 1966.

Not only Henry Moore & Barbara Hepworth but also F. E. McWilliam, Bernard Meadows, Robert Adams, Kenneth Armitage, Anthony Caro, Hubert Dalwood, William Turnbull, John Hoskin, Brian Wall, Phillip King, David Hall, David Annesley, Kim Lim and David Smith…apparently. I doubt if the three-going-on-four-ish version of me took all of that in.

The exhibition was thoroughly reviewed by Norman Lynton in The Guardian that May…

Norman Lynton on Battersea Sculpture Sat, May 21, 1966 – 7 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

…and by Nigel Gosling in the Observer the next day:

Gosling On Battersea Park Sun, May 22, 1966 – 24 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

My guess is that we, the Harris family, ventured to the exhibition the following weekend, the late May Bank Holiday, although it’s possible that it was later that summer, perhaps the August Bank Holiday.

The reason I suspect it was the earlier holiday is because the photos look to me as though dad wanted those pictures from that exhibition to use as examples for his photographic studio classes that spring and summer.

Dad’s shop and studio was in St John’s Hill, Battersea.

Such a photogenic exhibition up the other end of Battersea would have been too good an opportunity to miss in those days, when (as I understand it) the studio was still a key part of dad’s business.

Anyway, that was dad’s job. My job was having fun.

The “pictures for the studio” theory would also explain why I hadn’t seen the pictures before now. Dad probably rescued those prints from the shop when he closed down the shop in the mid 1980s and the packet got mixed up then with mum and dads holiday snaps from the late 1980s. The negatives, sadly, seem lost.

Still, it was quite extraordinary seeing these pictures when I discovered them in March 2021, nearly 55 years after the event.

I have such a strong memory of having a wonderful time that day in Battersea Park and the pictures bear that out.

I have a feeling that mum didn’t really approve of this “let the children play” style exhibition. I can imagine there was a view in a fairly large section of the public that such sculptural works are to be revered rather than toyed with by children.

Mum doesn’t look 100% sure. I look sure.

But I think such exhibitions are a superb idea.

Personally, I have always been drawn to sculpture. Perhaps my fondness for sculpture would have happened anyway. But something tells me that my love of sculpture was forged that day in Battersea Park, which I so clearly remember as being just the most amazing fun.

You can see all the pictures (there are only eleven, most are shown in this piece) in Flickr by clicking here or below:

George And Edith Corke’s Honeymoon Diary, 27 June To 11 July 1901

George & Edith Corke are John Burns (aka John Random)’s great-grandparents. (John and the diary are shown above). This is a blog version of their fascinating and charming honeymoon diary from the summer of 1901. The original is in fading pencil but was diligently transcribed by John’s mum into biro many moons ago. Notes in square brackets are mostly hers. John has now digitised the words. Additional notes, links and some insight into our editing process (May/June 2020) can be found through this link.

THURSDAY JUNE 27th 1901

Arranged to be married at Halewood [Parish Church]

John Lord / *St Nicholas’s Church, Halewood* / CC BY-SA 2.0

Left Widnes by 8.15 am train. Arrived Halewood 8.35 in company with Chris and Bella [her younger brother and his wife] Ned and Ann Butler. [Ned Franklin was the son of Hannah Franklin née Corke and Anne Butler a more distant cousin descended from Richard Houghton.] Clara Thomas, Sally Bradshaw and Jane, friends and employees from the shop. We all travelled first class and were a merry, happy party.

Arrived at the pretty church at 8.45. We were met by the rector the Rev. Gibson Smith who greeted us very cordially and performed the ceremony without any hitch. After signing the register Edie and I went to Mr. Millen’s in Wood Lane, so that I could change my suit for travelling. The others of the party were looking round the graveyard as the rector is very proud of it and has great care bestowed in the cultivation of flowers, especially roses.

From ‘A Centenary of Halewood Parish Church’ by James Eccles (1939) p.48
Halewood Parish Local History Pages, www.halewood.org.uk – with thanks to Mike Royden

We all met again and went to the station. The party returned home and Edie and I came on to Liverpool in order to catch the 12am train for London.

Called at Kardomah [Coffee House] and had light refreshments. Proceed to the London and North Western Railway Station and at 12am [noon] then started travelling via Runcorn Bridge. We could see our house in the distance.

Kardomah picture borrowed from https://sites.google.com/site/kardomah/ – permission for fair use assumed – would actively seek permission if we could work out how to do so.

We had very good places in corridor train occupying the seat solely all the way, which was very pleasant. No crushing whatsoever. We arrived in London at 5pm at Euston and took [a] hansom [cab] to 37 Bedford Place, Russell Square, which is kept by the Misses Dobson. After tea we went by bus to Strand and along the Thames Embankment over Westminster Bridge and on to Green Park through Pall Mall and then on home.

FRIDAY JUNE 28TH

We walked down Oxford Street to Regent St. to see the shops. On the way we saw a regiment of Horse Guards mounted, who were going as a guard to the Mansion House where Mayor and officials proclaimed the month for the coronation of Edward VII and his queen next year [August 1902]. After lunch, we went from Tottenham Court Rd. station in the two-penny tube to Bond St. and thence to Hyde Park where we saw the London society driving in their carriages and parading Rotten Row. There were hundreds of carriages mostly with two horses in each and the largest number of smart society people ever in our lives. The sight was one of great splendour.

The traffic and carriages were controlled by the police both mounted and on foot with such order that not the slightest accident occurred amongst the assemblage. We came home by bus to dinner and then to the Vaudeville Theatre see a comeditta entitled Sweet and Twenty in which Seymour Hicks and Ellaline Terriss were the principal actors. The piece was very well staged and played.

SATURDAY JUNE 29TH

In the morning we went through the Houses of Parliament. The House of Lords and Commons. The Lords was better fitted. All seats were covered with crimson. The gilded throne for the king and queen being at one end. In the centre were tables containing books and writing material. Also, the woolsacks were in the centre. We passed then to the House of Commons was arranged with raised seats on each side covered in leather with a desk in front, the Speaker’s chair and mace being in the centre. The walls of the buildings were covered with paintings and the grand staircase had a great number of statues of eminent men. After leaving the Parliament we came home by the Horse Guards after seeing the government offices and Downing Street.

After dinner to Hyde Park via Piccadilly to see the swells again and this time we saw the Queen (Alexandra) who drove with only one lady. They were both dressed in black. We had a very good view of her twice. Bus home to dinner (7pm) and stroll round the Square. Bought new white felt hat 7/6 in New Bedford St.

Sunday June 30th

Morning Westminster Abbey to service. Thence to Hyde Park, Rotten Row to see the Church Parade. Ladies and Gents in all the latest London and Paris style. Dinner at 1.30. Then to Albert Hall Sacred Concert. Great Organ. Royal Artillery Band. 80 performers and lady and gent for solos.

Tea at Kensington. Passed Palace. Statue of Victoria put up at Jubilee by her daughter Princess Beatrice. Kensington Gardens and park by the lake and home via Hyde Park where military band played in evening. Rain came on, home by bus and escaped the wet.

© Guillaume Piolle / CC BY 3.0 – with thanks to Guillaume Piolle

Wrote ten letters between us.

P.S. Walked to Marble Arch through park and home down Park Lane on Sunday morning.

Monday July 1st

Bus to Paddington via Edgware Rd. Train from Bishop St. to Richmond via Hammersmith. Very busy little place. Good shops. Bus on to Hampton Court via Twickenham, Teddington and Bushey Park. The drive is lively, well-wooded, especially the park in which were numerous deer, quite tame.

Stephen Williams / *Deer in Bushy Park* / CC BY-SA 2.0

Andy Beecroft / *Private Gardens, Hampton Court* / CC BY-SA 2.0

Hampton Court 1.45. Had lunch. Then to Hampton Palace. Picture galleries, apartments of former Eng. kings and queens. Courtyard, corridors, apartments let to ladies in reduced circumstances. Changing guards. The magnificent gardens: orange trees. The vine. Fountains and goldfish. The lake or canal. The maze. Beautiful avenues of trees. Swans. Dull morning. Beautiful afternoon. Started home 6.15 by bus to Richmond. Pretty place very busy. Pleasure boat in river and beautiful scene looking from the bridge. Tea at Richmond and look round. Train home 8pm to Bishop St. Bus home arriving 9pm.

Tuesday July 2nd

Bus to Strand. Called at Sharp Perrins. [wholesalers to the drapery trade. The bride and groom ran a draper’s shop in Victoria Rd. Widnes.] Mr. McIntyre not in house. Asked for Mr. Freeman who took us into private office. Was very cordial and said he would do his best for us. Edie bought some things to be sent on. Up in lift. People all very nice. After lunch Burlington House to see the pictures. Very fine collection. Entrance and catalogue 1/-. Special picture Queen’s funeral. Portraits of King and Queen. Duke of York. Roll call etc. The statuary very good also. Rained very heavily. Tea in Piccadilly. Home for dinner 7pm. Strand Theatre in evening. HMS Irresponsible. Mr. Arthur Roberts very clever actor. We thoroughly enjoyed the piece which has many absurd situations presented.

This original page from The Sketch is available from Vintage Edition – click link

Borrowed from The British Music Hall Society Facebook Group (linked) where this is image is unattributed; assumed public domain and/or fair use

Wednesday July 3rd

Bus to Strand, Fleet St, Cannon St. to Bank and Exchange. Went through both places. Fine painting round Exchange Walls. Lunch. Then to Mall and saw Buckingham Palace, Marlborough House, St. James’s Palace and saw company of Horse Guards who looked so bright and interesting in their pretty uniforms and trappings. Walk up Piccadilly and home by two d. Tube. Dinner 7. Bus to Earls Court Military Exhibition. Various types of soldier in life-size wax models. All kinds of guns. Hotchkiss, Krupp, Howitzer, Maxim, Field etc.

Public Domain, with thanks to the Getty Research institute & Hathi Trust Digital Library

Beautiful grounds and gardens. Several military bands. Canadian water-chute very exciting. Electric launches. Canton river. Had sail around; water kept in motion by water-wheel driven by steam. Big wheel. Oriental market. Egyptian coffee saloons. Chinese soldiers. Endless staircase lift. You stand still and it takes you to the top for 1d. Refreshment room. Ladies band. Home by Rails Underground.

Thursday July 4th

Bus to Piccadilly. Then to Regent St. and Bond St. Beautiful shops. Called at Paris Bank re more money. Far East café. Strawberries and cream 1/-. All decorated in willow pattern blue. Girls’ dress Oriental style. Yellow bandolier, fans etc. in hair. Very pretty effect. Lunch. Steamer upriver (!) to Greenwich Hospital and Observatory.

Home by tram over Westminster Bridge. On tram nearly 1 hour for 3d. Bus over halfpenny. Westminster Bridge from Trafalgar Square only a halfpenny. Wrote letters and stroll round Russell and Bloomsbury Squares.

Friday July 5th

Walked to Covent Garden Market. Enormous quantity of fruit and vegetables and flowers. Then on through Strand to Victoria Gardens, Thames Embankment and sat for about an hour. Bus home. Lunch. Oxford St. afternoon bought bag and brooch. Ices and then to Covent Garden Theatre to Leon Italian Opera Company in Carmen. Madame Clave. [Emma Calvé] Finest music and opera singing we ever heard.

Emma Calvé as Carmen. Click picture for Internet Archive source book.

Below is a YouTube with the voice of Emma Calvé singing the Habanera in 1902.

Three tiers. Boxes all filled. Jewellery and dresses of ladies magnificent and the carriages after the performance was wonderful. Ices 6d and 9d each.

Saturday July 6th

St Paul’s cathedral interior views, c. 1870s
Author whatsthatpicture from Hanwell, London, UK

Bus to Sharp Perrin’s to give small order. Bus to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Right up to the altar and sanctuary. Splendid view. Bought paper dish covers. Home. Lunch. Bought tickets for Paris. £9 12/- 6d. Ordered box to be called for while Edie packed. Paid Mrs. Dobson. Wrote letters. Dinner 7. Hansom to London Bridge Station at 8. Left at 9 for Newhaven. Arrived 10.30. Left Newhaven 10.45. Arrived Dieppe 3 a.m. Slept most of the time in berths. Fairly rough passage.

Met Daisy Jarnke on board just arrived at Dieppe. We travelled together to Paris arriving 7.30. Bus to Hotel Rapp et Duphot.

That address is now rue du Chevalier de Saint George 75001 Paris
Above from the 1900 Baedeker Guide, available in full on the Internet Archive – click here.

Sunday July 7th

Place de la Concorde, Paris, France c1900 From the United States Library of Congress‘s
Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID ppmsc.05197.

Breakfast café au lait, bacon and eggs. Hotel close to Madeleine. Walked through streets. Hôtel de Ville and into Notre Dame. Iced lemon. Rest in afternoon. Walked through Place de la Concorn [Concorde] and Champs Élysée. Saw carriages and people promenading. The Hyde Park of Paris. Dinner at 6.30. Walk along boulevards, café au lait. Home at 10.p.m. Very tired after travelling.

Monday July 8th

Camille Pissarro: The Tuileries Gardens, 1900, Hermitage Museum

First drive in Cook’s four in hand coach as per programme. Lunch. Palais Royale Café. Gave each a rose. Had bottle of wine each. Home 5.30. Diner 6.30. Walked through Tuerilles [Tuileries] Gardens and then by steams up river to Café Charitant. Home by steam train. Then to Place de La Concorn [Concorde] 10.30

Tuesday July 9th

Coach to Versailles Trianon. State coaches. Bois de Boulogne. Longchamps St. Cloud,]. Lunch. Versailles. Gardens. Grounds. Fountains etc. State rooms. Picture. Furniture. All very beautiful. The day’s drive was really fine. Home 5. 30. Dinner 6. 30. Walk through Tuilleries [Tuileries] Gardens. Sat by Monument. Rue de Rivoli. Tea 9.30. Home 10.p.m

Paris – Rue de Rivoli (c 1900) Source: Les anciennes rues de Paris

Wednesday July 10th

Coach drive as per programme. Louvre pictures and sculpture. Mint workmen leaving. Through Luxury magazine (magasin = department store). Bought buckle. Very large business place. Moving staircase. Coach to Gobelin Tapestry. Church of St. Etienne du Mont. Palace of Justice. Gardens and galleries of Luxembourg pictures and statuary. Panthéon. Resting place of great men of France buried in vaults underneath. Names on tablets inside. Very large building formerly used as a church. Visited morgue. Home 5pm.

Walk round streets. Home dinner 6.30/ Another walk round shops. Lemonade bottle 1 Franc. Weather today and each day very hot. Cloudless sky.

Thursday July 11th

Claue Monet : *La Cathédrale de Rouen*, 1901

Breakfast 9.30 Fiacre [a French horse-drawn cab] to Station St. Lazare. Left at 10.00am. Arrived Rouen 12a.m. Saw cathedral. Fruit 1 Franc. Arrived Dieppe 1.00 close to steamer. Left Dieppe 1.45. Found it much colder on the steamer. Slight fog at sea. Horn blows.

c1910 Publisher: Eugene Le Deley. Paris.

Epilogue

GEORGE CORKE BORN 1857 ST. HELENS LANCS, DIED 1913 WIDNES

EDITH ELIZA WILKINSON BORN STOCKPORT 1862, DIED 1935 WIDNES

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Postscript -Memory Corrected By A Four-Year-Old: The Flea Pit Was The Ritzy, Not The Astoria

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THURSDAY JUNE 27th 1901

FRIDAY JUNE 28TH

SATURDAY JUNE 29TH

Sunday June 30th

Monday July 1st

Tuesday July 2nd

Wednesday July 3rd

Thursday July 4th

Friday July 5th

Saturday July 6th

Sunday July 7th

Monday July 8th

Tuesday July 9th

Wednesday July 10th

Thursday July 11th

Epilogue

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