Christmas Greetings

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I enjoy history and because of my research into my own family history have a certain passion for the Victorian era - the way they lived, their social history, the clothes they wore, their occupations etc. Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, and enables us to imagine how things were before we were born.

Several years ago I took a two year City and Guilds course called "Victorian Heirlooms" where I not only learnt the art of making different Victorian crafts and learning about their pastimes, customs and traditions as well as health and education, I was also introduced to  Victorian designers, The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Garden designers, Photography, The Music Hall to name but a few (more about that another time). A project that I was involved with during our winter break was to research the life and times of Sir Henry Cole and more particularly with his part in the creation of the Christmas card.

Until 1840 it was comparatively expensive to send a letter and only important mail was sent by the mail coaches; the ordinary people did not indulge in idle correspondence. However, in that year the Penny Post was introduced by Sir Rowland Hill, which made it possible for people to correspond with each other for a reasonable price. In 1843 it was Sir Henry Cole who asked a friend and colleague John Callcott Horsley, a well known artist to design a Christmas greetings card which depicts a large family group drinking a toast and wishing A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you. About a thousand copies of the card were printed but were not an instant success because at a shilling (5pence) each they were considered to be too expensive. However by 1870 the custom was slowly becoming established and eventually spread worldwide.

Look out for my new Victorian blog in the New Year!

Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat....

Only 11 days to go and I can't believe just how laid back I am. The presents are wrapped, the cards are sent and most of my meat and poultry have been ordered or bought fresh and in the freezer. All there is to do is make the mincemeat (recipe below) and apart from putting the tree up, it's all done! Normally I am running around in a whirling dervish trying to get things organised and panicking that I haven't bought enough presents, food, drink etc etc.  The tree has been standing in our garage for a few days now getting acclimatized so that it will be ready for bringing indoors. My grandchildren are coming around on Thursday to help decorate it along with my daughter, when I've no doubt we will indulge in a glass of Baileys or two!

Well here is the recipe for the Mincemeat - it was passed to me about 15 years ago and it's yummy!

450g cooking apples - finely chopped
120g suet
350g raisins
240g sultanas
240g currants
350g soft dark brown sugar
The grated rind and juice of 2 oranges and 2 lemons
60g flaked almonds
4 teaspoons mixed spice
Half teaspoon ground cinnamon
Half a nutmeg - grated
6 tablespoons brandy

Just mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl except for the brandy. Then cover with a cloth and leave for 12 hours. To prevent fermentation place the mincemeat in a cool oven gas mark 1/4 or 110c for three hours. Then allow it to get cold and stir in the brandy. Spoon into clean dry jars and cover with waxed discs and then seal.

Enjoy!

Snowfall

It was a fortnight before Christmas, and every one agreed that this would be a real Christmas, such as had not been seen for many years. There was a delightful cold nip in the air, as exhilarating as good news; the sky was grey and overcast, and the streets were covered with a thick layer of snow.

Few sights are more charming than that of a town covered with new-fallen, clean white snow; and how pretty it is to watch the tiny flakes drift downward through the air as if there were a wedding in the sky and the fairies were throwing confetti.

 At this time of the year the afternoons are short and the daylight quickly fades, so that the narrow streets which lead off the main roads of a great city like London assume an air more and more mysterious. The passer-by looks anxiously about him as his business takes him down some dark alley, for this is the season of goblins and pixies and elves - perhaps even the will-o-the wisps are in town.

From The Mysterious Toyshop by Cyril W.Beaumont, 1891-1976

Leonardo da Vinci - painter at the Court of Milan

; This exhibition was a much awaited visit and proved to be all that we hoped it would be. Our slot was 1pm and due to take about half an hour. It turned out to be two hours long in the main galleries and then we moved on to the Last Supper which was housed in another part of the National Gallery. Exhausted by the end,  but such a privilege to see this once in a lifetime exhibition of most of Leonardo's work.

Leonardo trained in Florence where his gifts as a painter and musician were soon recognised. He moved to Milan in the late fifteenth century and sought patronage of Ludovico Sforza, whose aspiration to create a perfect city inhabited by exceptional men of talent made Leonardo the ideal court artist.

Amongst the many paintings exhibited were The Musician, The Lady with an Ermine, Saint Jerome, The Virgin of the Rocks, The Madonna Lita, Christ as Salvator Mundi (the recently restored painting) The Madonna of the Yarnwinder. Lastly we viewed the full-scale copy of his Last Supper painted by Giampietrino about 1520 which includes details permantently lost in the original which was one of Leonardo's most celebrated works of art painted as a fresco on the wall of a refectory of the Domenican Convent adjoining the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.

The process of drawing was vital to Leonardo's investigation of the world and the evolution of his compositions and many of his sketches are exhibited alongside his paintings as well as sketches of anatomical studies. Other works by Leonardo's pupils and followers reveal his tremendous impact and are included to explore issues of attribution.

The National Gallery have many upcoming events in the form of courses,workshops, talks and lectures and more exhibitions planned for 2012 including Turner and Titian.

www.nationalgallery.org.uk

A walk down memory (Pottery) lane

On a recent trip to London I headed for Notting Hill where I knew my great grandmother Fanny had been born. She had lived in the Pottery Lane area, historically known as the 'Piggeries and Potteries' owing to the many pig-keepers and brick makers who had migrated from Ireland to the area during the 1840s because of the potato famine. In fact the actual kiln still remains. During Fanny's time this area was known as 'laundry land' because of the many hundreds of housewives, including Fanny's mother and grandmother who had to take in washing and ironing for the families in the posh houses at the top of the hill in order to earn a shilling or two to help out with the family income.

Fanny was born in 1873 and after many years of searching I discovered that her mother had given birth to Fanny 'out of wedlock' in the Kensington Workhouse a stigma that must have remained with her all her life and was never talked about amongst the family, in fact I doubt that even her daughter, my grandmother knew the circumstances of her birth. Fanny's mother Elizabeth was just 17 years of age at the time and it is unsure why she was in the workhouse. Her own parents were living in very overcrowded conditions in streets of tightly packed houses and where over the years with an increasing family, they relentlessly moved from one set of crowded rooms to another, paying about two shillings a week for the privilege. The family consisted of eight children who  slept at least four, top-to tail in one bed and this maybe the reason that Fanny's mother ended up in the workhouse. Often there were another three or four other families living under the same roof, where sanitary conditions were appalling and in turn encouraged rats to roam freely in the filthy and polluted streets. When Fanny was three years old her mother married and they went on to have several children of their own. Fanny however, at aged seven years old was found to be living nearby with her mother's parents in 1881. For how long, no one knows but it is possible that she was either abandoned by her mother or there simply was no room for her at home. It was not uncommon at that time for an eldest child to live with their grandparents. She attended the local school which cost one penny a week.

When she was twelve years old she was 'put into service' where she worked as a scullery maid doing very menial tasks including scrubbing floors, stoves, sinks and dishes for a mere pittance of about one shilling a week and a room in the attic and where she would have only had a few hours off each week. By the time she was 18 she was working for a household in Earls Court Road as a cook. She married in 1894 to Charles, a carman (another story for another time) and raised ten children of her own in slightly more improved but similar conditions to that of her own childhood in the same area around Pottery Lane. She was supposedly estranged from her mother in later years - was this because she  couldn't forgive her mother from keeping her illegitimacy and the workhouse from her? or maybe that she never knew who her father was (I do!) - but this is all conjecture and we will never know the truth. Fanny died aged 90 years old in 1963.

My discoveries and trip gave me a snapshot of the lives of those who went before me and an insight into what life would have been like in 'Dickensian' London.     

Bleak House

If anyone missed the BBC series of Dickens' Bleak House back in 2005, this is definitely one to buy on DVD. It's one of those feel good dramas that I indulge in annually at this time of year when the cold winter evenings are drawing in.

Bleak House was Dickens' ninth novel published between March 1852 and September 1853 and thought to have been one of his finest. A story of dark secrets and forbidden love involving many sub-plots. The story revolves around a lengthy court case at the Court of Chancery in London - Jarndyce and Jarndyce where John Jarndyce's two wards Ada and Richard are pinning their hopes on a princely inheritance.

John Jarndyce takes Esther Summerson  (Anna Maxwell Martin)  a girl without a past, under his wing as a companion for Ada, but then falls in love with her. Meanwhile, Esther's mysterious connection with Lady Dedlock may bring ruin to them both  As ever Dickens bases his characters on people and situations well known to him. A cast of many well known actors include Gillian Anderson, Dennis Lawson, Alun Armstrong, Warren Clark, Matthew Kelly, Charles Dance and Pauline Collins, to name but a few.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/bleakhouse/welcome.shtml

Some quotes from my collection of favourites

"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to

be useful, or believe to be beautiful"

William Morris (1834-96)

"The essentials to happiness are:

something to do;

something to hope for;

and something to love.

William Blake (1757-1827)