I phoned my 91 year old mother this afternoon. She had been trying to remember the words to Polly Oliver which I asked her about last weekend. I had eventually found them on the Internet, but the words she remembered today were quite different to those on the net so I have written them down here for posterity's sake. The tune is the same though.
Oh Pretty Polly Oliver, one hot summer's day
To Milvern to market was making her way
With a basket of butter and eggs by the score
And cream from the dairy, a gallon or more.
Her basket was heavy so Polly sat down
To rest by the wayside a mile from the town.
She fell fast asleep there and woke with a scream;
Her basket was empty and spilt was her cream.
"Ah me!" cried Polly Oliver, "What now shall I do?
My master will beat me 'til I'm black and blue.
Kind powers befriend me and lend me your aid,
Take pity upon me, while fortunes are made."
From Bath came that morning the Earl riding by.
He sprang from his stirrup when he heard Polly cry.
Her story she told him; all of the strife.
"Oh pretty Polly Oliver, I'll make you my wife."
The day they were wedded she made him a cake
Of eggs cream and butter for fond memory's sake.
And every year after she made him the same
And that's how Bartholemews have come by their name.
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
History of the Twentieth Century: Up to 1913.
I'm continuing to read The History of the Twentieth Century and have so far reached 1913 which seems a sensible place to stop and have a think.
History was dominated by the machinations of the Great Powers - Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Austro-Hungary, Turkey, the United States and Japan. Between them they owned practically the whole world. There were small Portuguese and Belgian Empires, but the Spanish Empire had been lost to the United States. The sick man of Europe was undoubtedly Turkey. The Ottoman Empire, which included the Arab lands and the Balkans had once extended to the Gates of Vienna, but nationalistic fervor in Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Albania had meant that it had to withdraw its hegemony in the Balkans. Serbia, in particular, protected as it was by Russia as a fellow Slav state, was keen to gain its independence. Roumania did not involve itself in the first Balkan war but managed to mop up territory when it ended. The Greeks were the biggest gainers winning part of Macedonia, Thrace and many of the islands.
Austro-Hungary was itself beset by nationalist uprising. Poland and Czechoslovakia were weary of being part of the Empire. Meanwhile the Empire saw itself as protector of Roman Catholics outside its borders, so that Croatia and Slovenia sought protection from Turkish Muslims and Serbian Orthodox alike. They have long memories in the Balkans so that after the death of Tito the same towns involved in the 1900s were again prominent in the news; towns like Pristina and Sarajevo.
In Africa, the German colonies continued to be a drain on their economy, the British colonies were well controlled apart from South Africa, which was now running itself and had adopted racist policies of which Britain did not approve. Gandhi had emerged as a champion of both black and Indian races in South Africa, but after the Boer war Britain was reluctant to send troops on behalf of the Blacks. France had its own troubles in North Africa. While Egypt was under control, the same could not be said for the rest of North Africa. Morocco saw a succession of assassinations requiring French troops to restore order. In Libya the Italians sought an Empire of their own by fomenting discontent in both Tripoli and Benghazi, then as now, the centers of two different tribes.
In Russia the attempted revolution of 1905 left the Tsar in autocratic power. The Duma was a talking shop without much influence. It allowed subject nations like Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states to have their say without anybody listening.
Meanwhile the United states was growing in power so that its manufacturing output by 1913 exceeded that of Britain, France and Germany combined.
History was dominated by the machinations of the Great Powers - Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Austro-Hungary, Turkey, the United States and Japan. Between them they owned practically the whole world. There were small Portuguese and Belgian Empires, but the Spanish Empire had been lost to the United States. The sick man of Europe was undoubtedly Turkey. The Ottoman Empire, which included the Arab lands and the Balkans had once extended to the Gates of Vienna, but nationalistic fervor in Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Albania had meant that it had to withdraw its hegemony in the Balkans. Serbia, in particular, protected as it was by Russia as a fellow Slav state, was keen to gain its independence. Roumania did not involve itself in the first Balkan war but managed to mop up territory when it ended. The Greeks were the biggest gainers winning part of Macedonia, Thrace and many of the islands.
Austro-Hungary was itself beset by nationalist uprising. Poland and Czechoslovakia were weary of being part of the Empire. Meanwhile the Empire saw itself as protector of Roman Catholics outside its borders, so that Croatia and Slovenia sought protection from Turkish Muslims and Serbian Orthodox alike. They have long memories in the Balkans so that after the death of Tito the same towns involved in the 1900s were again prominent in the news; towns like Pristina and Sarajevo.
In Africa, the German colonies continued to be a drain on their economy, the British colonies were well controlled apart from South Africa, which was now running itself and had adopted racist policies of which Britain did not approve. Gandhi had emerged as a champion of both black and Indian races in South Africa, but after the Boer war Britain was reluctant to send troops on behalf of the Blacks. France had its own troubles in North Africa. While Egypt was under control, the same could not be said for the rest of North Africa. Morocco saw a succession of assassinations requiring French troops to restore order. In Libya the Italians sought an Empire of their own by fomenting discontent in both Tripoli and Benghazi, then as now, the centers of two different tribes.
In Russia the attempted revolution of 1905 left the Tsar in autocratic power. The Duma was a talking shop without much influence. It allowed subject nations like Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states to have their say without anybody listening.
Meanwhile the United states was growing in power so that its manufacturing output by 1913 exceeded that of Britain, France and Germany combined.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Nostalgia
DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN . . . ?
All the girls had ugly gym uniforms instead of leotards?
When it took five minutes for the TV to warm up and the picture was black and white?
When nearly everyone's Mum was at home when the kids got home from school?
When all dogs were mongrels? When pocket money was a shilling (a quarter) and you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?
When nylons came in two pieces and all your male teachers wore ties and your female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels?
When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time?
And you didn't pay for air? And, you got Green Stamps to boot?
When laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box?
When they threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed . . . and they meant it?
When boys and girls went steady?
When no one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?
When you could lie on your back in the grass with your friends and say things like,” That cloud looks like a ..."
When you could play soccer with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game or to argue with the referee, because there was no referee?
When stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?
When being sent to the headmaster’s office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home? Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.
When Saturday Morning Pictures showed Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers and Flash Gordon, and not extended commercials for toys?
And the long hot summers were filled with bike rides, pick-up games, Hula Hoops, swimming in the river, sucking sherbet through a liquorice straw, and sharing Tizer with your friends.
How many of these do you remember: sweet (or do you say candy) cigarettes, soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles, coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes, penny chews, home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers and newsreels before the movie? How about telephone numbers with a word prefix (Mayfair 601), party lines, peashooters, home perms, 45 RPM records metal ice cubes trays with levers, carbon paper, roller-skate keys, cork pop guns, washtub wringers, reel-to-reel tape recorders, slide rules, Hornby wind-up train sets, Meccano, lead soldiers, cigarette cards, best friends, wooden dolls houses, catapults, Airfix kits and five-stones (or perhaps you called them dibs).
I remember saving a penny by walking one bus stop nearer to home and spending it on an apple. I remember when a foot of snow was a dream come true. I remember when the fat kid was always the last to be picked. I remember fixing a card to the spokes of my bicycle to make it sound like a motor-bike. I remember when you’d see soldiers in the street in uniform. I remember sitting in a pub garden drinking Vimto with the mums who were drinking milk stout while the dads were inside drinking mild and bitter. I remember Dandelion and Burdock delivered by the Corona lorry. I remember the ice truck taking two foot cubes of ice to the ice cellar belonging to the big house on the corner. I remember chimneys catching fire. I remember giving up my seat on buses to ladies and being thanked by being told she would pray for me. I remember chimney sweeps with soot-black faces. I remember holding a newspaper up against the fire-grate to make it draw. I remember second-hand bikes and hand-me-down clothes. I remember bomb sites. I remember slums.
It was a different world then – as different as the worlds of Isaac Asimov, James Blish and Theodore Sturgeon.
All the girls had ugly gym uniforms instead of leotards?
When it took five minutes for the TV to warm up and the picture was black and white?
When nearly everyone's Mum was at home when the kids got home from school?
When all dogs were mongrels? When pocket money was a shilling (a quarter) and you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?
When nylons came in two pieces and all your male teachers wore ties and your female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels?
When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time?
And you didn't pay for air? And, you got Green Stamps to boot?
When laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box?
When they threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed . . . and they meant it?
When boys and girls went steady?
When no one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?
When you could lie on your back in the grass with your friends and say things like,” That cloud looks like a ..."
When you could play soccer with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game or to argue with the referee, because there was no referee?
When stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?
When being sent to the headmaster’s office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home? Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.
When Saturday Morning Pictures showed Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers and Flash Gordon, and not extended commercials for toys?
And the long hot summers were filled with bike rides, pick-up games, Hula Hoops, swimming in the river, sucking sherbet through a liquorice straw, and sharing Tizer with your friends.
How many of these do you remember: sweet (or do you say candy) cigarettes, soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles, coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes, penny chews, home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers and newsreels before the movie? How about telephone numbers with a word prefix (Mayfair 601), party lines, peashooters, home perms, 45 RPM records metal ice cubes trays with levers, carbon paper, roller-skate keys, cork pop guns, washtub wringers, reel-to-reel tape recorders, slide rules, Hornby wind-up train sets, Meccano, lead soldiers, cigarette cards, best friends, wooden dolls houses, catapults, Airfix kits and five-stones (or perhaps you called them dibs).
I remember saving a penny by walking one bus stop nearer to home and spending it on an apple. I remember when a foot of snow was a dream come true. I remember when the fat kid was always the last to be picked. I remember fixing a card to the spokes of my bicycle to make it sound like a motor-bike. I remember when you’d see soldiers in the street in uniform. I remember sitting in a pub garden drinking Vimto with the mums who were drinking milk stout while the dads were inside drinking mild and bitter. I remember Dandelion and Burdock delivered by the Corona lorry. I remember the ice truck taking two foot cubes of ice to the ice cellar belonging to the big house on the corner. I remember chimneys catching fire. I remember giving up my seat on buses to ladies and being thanked by being told she would pray for me. I remember chimney sweeps with soot-black faces. I remember holding a newspaper up against the fire-grate to make it draw. I remember second-hand bikes and hand-me-down clothes. I remember bomb sites. I remember slums.
It was a different world then – as different as the worlds of Isaac Asimov, James Blish and Theodore Sturgeon.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Whale of a time in Bournemouth
Last week a Northern Bottlenose Whale washed up dead on the beach at Bournemouth. It had been spotted swimming in the shallows for several days and the Press had named it Gilbert, but on September 22nd when it beached at Boscombe it was identified as a young female. It had not been feeding for several weeks at least. There are sharp net marks on the beak and tail but further checks need to be made to find the cause of death.
This is not the first time that a whale has died in the Bay here, but it is the first time in living memory. The last whale landed at Alum Chine in 1887. This was a much larger animal, being some 65 feet long. The local newspaper wrote 'Boys took running jumps up its slippery sides, and tobogganed down them on the seats of their trousers gleefully. Earnest schoolteachers took parties of youngsters and gave lessons in natural history. Farmers poked the thick hide of the beast with sticks, and inland folk raised exclamations of astonishment at its length, its strength and its thickness.'
Children also used to recite a rhyme, one version of which went as follows: Have you been to Boscombe? Have you seen the whale? Have you stood upon its back And smelt its stinking tail?
No-one really knew what to do with it and it was eventually auctioned and bought by a Dr Stockley for £29. He intended to exhibit the skeleton in a travelling road show. However it ended up on Boscombe Pier. It was displayed for several years, and often used as an impromptu slide by local children; the skeleton was eventually removed and ground down as fertiliser. Although no-one remembers it we have a written record and a photograph. The story is published on a poster on Boscombe pier. At the time it was regarded as a novelty; nobody then alive could remember it happening before.
Beached whales in Bournemouth are a once-in-a-lifetime event. I know there was one last week because I saw it and I know there was one 122 years ago because I've seen a photograph, and while you can PhotoShop pictures today you couldn't then. Then there is the written record. You can read it for yourself here.
This reference also refers to the records of Christchurch Priory, which dates from 1094. We have this record: On 13th October, Wednesday after the Feast of St. Denys, 8 Henry IV [ie the 8th years of the reign of Henry the Fourth = 1406], wreck occurred on the Earl of Salisbury's estate of Westover near la Bournemowthe [ie the mouth of the River Bourne], namely a great fish estimated to be 18 feet long, which was brought into the Earl's manor called Wyke [Wick] at Westover and there cut up into forty pieces.A charter preserved among the records of Christchurch Priory reveals that in 1273 Isabella de Fortibus (then Lord of the Manor of Westover) made various gifts to the Priory, including: the right to dig 100 cartloads of turf a year for the Priory's kitchen, and two cartloads of heath daily for their brewery, from any part of her "field of Westestures". In addition to providing this fuel for the Priory, the heath of Westover was a major source of fuel for the inhabitants of the settlements along the banks of the River Stour. By ancient custom these people were entitled to take fuel from the heath for their own use - the common right of turbary [part of Bournemouth is known as Turbary Moor].
The Lord of the Manor of Westover was entitled to tithes of all fish caught, except of whales, of which he was entitled by ancient custom to the left fin. These rights had temporarily been assigned to Christchurch Priory by the then Lord, Isabella de Fortibus, in 1273. Anything that washed up on the beach was classed as "wreck", and this included not only driftwood but also the occasional whale. Wreck was the property of the Lord of the Manor (granted by royal charter as part of the Manor), but in practice appears to have been divided among the tenants.
This document is significant as the earliest known reference to Bournemouth - la Bournemowthe
This ancient document is 736 years old. There is only one copy. It has been preserved by Christian Monks. We find no reason to disbelieve it. The entry about the whale is later, being only 603 years old, but although it refers to an unlikely event, we still believe it.
How about this document: For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
This was written within 20 years of the events referred to and we have physical documents of the New Testament dating from 130 AD, some 80 years after it was written down. We have 8000 manuscripts of a Latin Translation and close to 5000 manuscripts in the original Greek. Compare that with our evidence of other pieces of history written about the same time. We have 10 manuscript copies of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars, written after 58 BC and before 50 BC. The oldest of these manuscripts dates from 900 AD. In fact we have very few roman documents that date from before 900 AD - the oldest are the histories of Pliny the younger which are contemporaneous with the New Testament. We have 7 copies, the oldest of which dates from 850 AD.
Luke, a gentile historian writing at the same time as Pliny has been shown by modern scholarship to be an accurate and careful academic. He wrote: After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.
and again: The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand.
and further: If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.
and finally: "What are we going to do with these men?" they asked. "Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it. these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name."
What is truth? Some things happen so rarely that we doubt that they can happen at all. Whales washing up on English beaches or a group of black swans flying by are certainly unusual. Dead men coming back to life seems impossible to us, just as it must have been to Dr Luke. Nevertheless there were plenty of witnesses and there is a written record - transcribed when many of the witnesses were still alive.
As a historical record it is unimpeachable. As a legal witness statement it cannot be denied. The only reason for disbelieving it is that we can't conceive of how it could happen. I am not so arrogant as to believe that we know everything. What I can say is that the belief in a dead man walking has turned the world upside down.
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