Survival in a Nuclear Attack

A chilling piece of ephemera from the Cold War era - a  graphic 6 page folding pamphlet published in the UK by the Central Office of Information. Unsure of the date. Assume early 1960s. It advises "...stay in refuge until told what to do next" - but who exactly will be issuing orders at this point?

Wonders of the 1930s

Some amazing covers from Modern Wonder: the Pictorial Review.(Odhams, London 1937 - 1940)

An astonishing magazine of modern invention, science and future prediction (visions of the future) subjects include: photography (miniature), aviation & flying boats, trains, shipping, wireless, television, military machinery, car racing, world record speed attempts, deep-sea diving & submarines, power stations and manufacturing. Striking, colourful covers, mostly by Bryan de Grineau and Lashwell Wood. Most issues have stories, (thrillers and science fiction) by such writers as Clifford Cameron, Stanton Hope, W. J. Passingham, Peter Barr, and in the first issue, John Wyndham (writing as John Beynon) Issue 1 also includes the required supplementary booklet 'Marvels of Today'. Issue 105 sees the appearance of Alex Raymond's 'Flash Gordon' comic strip, for about 30 issues, mostly in colour.  From issue 134, as Britain moves into the war, it's name changes to Modern Wonders (War Pictures).

Sligo’s Markree Castle---a misdemeanour recorded

Markree Castle

An extraordinary memento of Ireland’s bloody Civil War (June 1922 – May 1923) is this blue crayon scrawl in a copy of John Scott’s Visit to Paris (1814). The book came from the library of Edward Joshua Cooper, M.P. (1798 – 1863), one of a long line of Protestant occupiers of Markree Castle dating back to 1663.

During the short war between the Anti-Treaty IRA and the Irish Free State forces, a battalion from the latter occupied the majestic Castle for a short time, presumably to consolidate their hold over County Sligo. No doubt, the Coopers wisely decided to flee their family home during this bloody period, which gave some of the Irish officers the opportunity to avail themselves of a splendid library. It is not known how much a certain Captain Cavanagh read of Mr Scott’s book on Paris, or what he thought of it. However, what we do know is that he found the blank pages a very convenient notebook, as made his mark on at least three pages.

The most interesting entry concerns Corporal George O’Mahoney Rogers who, Cavanagh notes, was found ‘drunk and disorderly in (a) Public House at about 9.45 P.M.’ Perhaps at some time, other records will divulge what happened to Corporal Rogers… Or indeed Captain Cavanagh.

Forum Club (Grosvenor Place)

Found-- this intriguing bookplate. It can be seen in many books deaccessioned from the club's library. Until I researched the Forum Club I thought it had some occult or theosophical connection, as the women look like priestesses witnessing some sort of vision or apparition. In fact it was a normal London club, but solely for women, with 1,600 members.

It was founded in 1919 as The London Centre for Women's Institute Members, and lasted into the early 1950s. A number of suffragettes and early feminists were members, including Elizabeth Robins, Mary Sophia Allen and Sybil Thomas and Viscountess Rhondda. As well as accommodation for members (and their maids), the club contained a dining room, a lounge, a photographic darkroom, a salon which could by hired for exhibitions, a bridge room, a billiard room, a library and a hairdresing room. Formerly it had been the residence of of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who was Prime Minister from 1905 to 1908. A blue plaque commemorates his residency. During World War I it was The Princess Christian's Hospital for Officers - a convalescent home with 35 beds, affiliated to Queen Alexandra's Military Hospital in Millbank. A website in 2012 reported it was now boarded up but it will probably re-emerge as an oligarch's palace or a hotel.

Eating Chinese in late 1940s Soho

Forwarded to us by a loyal jot watcher. One restaurant was favoured by celebrities - Johnnie Mills, Bobby Howes, Coral Browne, Sandy Powell, Ivan Maisky and Lady Cripps - probably impressive names in their day. I especially like the bit about Lord Tredegar bringing his own jade chopsticks...

Click to read

Stanley Jackson’s brief but brilliant Indiscreet Guide to Soho is crammed with so much colourful reportage on the immediately post-war night life, petty crime, Bohemian characters and restaurants in this popular quarter of London, that it is difficult to choose what to Jot down. In the end, I opted for two pages on Chinese restaurants. Jackson attributes our ‘craze‘ for eating Chinese to our sympathy for the nation’s stand against the ‘Jap Fascists‘, but the trend must surely pre-date this.

Incidentally, what happened to the redoubtable ‘Ley-On’s ?’

The Air of Bloomsbury 2

The second part of an illuminating article found in a Times Literary Supplement from 1954 - a very lengthy anonymous review of J.K. Johnstone's The Bloomsbury Group. This part is good on the religious philosophy of the group and what gave them such strength and separateness. As the author says they enjoyed "..supreme self-confidence, superiority and contempt towards all the rest of the unconverted world." The Maharishi to the set was G.E. Moore and his Principia Ethica is still much in demand.

THE AIR OF BLOOMSBURY

…still they were hardly a group, Mr. Bell maintains. Yes, they met often and were intimate friends. Yes, they did like each other; also they shared a taste for discussion in pursuit of truth and a contempt for conventional ways of thinking and feeling. But, he asks, is there anything specific in this? Could not as much be said of many collections of young people in many ages? Here Virginia Woolf seems to chime in with him. ln Jacob's Room there is a tenderly mocking glimpse of her
hero as he sits reading in the British Museum. And Jacob surely suggests an early Bloomsbury figure ? Indeed, from the fleeting touches which convey so well the effect of his presence, those who can remember her brother Thoby,and a certain hewn grandeur in his appearance, are tempted to read him back into Jacob, thus giving Jacob an independent existence, which her characters rarely possess in their own right. "Life on the page," says Mr. Forster, she could always give her characters, "but rarely life eternal..She could seldom so portray a character that it was remembered afterwards on its own account as Emma is remembered for
instance ... "

..All the same, Mr.Johnstone succeeds in showing that when they happened to live in Bloomsbury they shared a common mystique, which really does entitle him to call them a group. But still Mr. Bell will not have it. "..Undoubtedly the Bloomsbury mind was permeated by what Keynes called "the fundamental intuitions of Principia Ethica. And what were they? A reviewer can only extract unmethodically a few relevant passages from Mr. Johnstone's able summary.

How to be Happy on the Riviera 1927

We are putting up an entire book on Jot101, a fairly early book on the Riviera. Very much of its time with local prices, information about the weather and sports facilities and recommendations for hotels and cafes and cabarets. Here are the first 4 chapters...

HOW TO BE HAPPY
ON THE RIVIERA

BY ROBERT ELSON

First published in August, 1927

Printed in Great Britain by J. W. Arrowsmith Ltd., 11 Quay Street, Bristol

Contents

Page
INTRODUCTION 7
CHAPTER I. THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CLIMATE 11
CHAPTER II. WHERE TO GO 22
CHAPTER III. A DAY IN CANNES 32
CHAPTER IV. A DAY IN NICE 47

Introduction

  Riviera is an Italian word meaning coast, and the English were the first to apply it specially to the mountainous of the Mediterranean between Toulon and the Italian frontier, called by the French Côte d'Azur. In the middle of the last the winter climate of the Riviera was as favourable for invalids, but it lost its reputation in that respect instead a temporary refuge for sundry from climatic inclemencies and the Mecca of pleasure-seekers in winter time.
  Nowhere else in Europe can all the amenities found in one place between December and April; and if at home winter makes a of you, whereas in a dry and sunny climate you can do as others do, then the Riviera is the place for you.
  This book is intended to give you an idea of what you may expect to find, and how to get the best out of it. As to the expense, it is impossible at the time of writing to speak with certainty, because everything depends on the rate of exchange. If the franc remains at or near the present rate of 124, then it may be taken that estimates to be found in Chapter X. need not be exceeded, and the same will be true if the franc falls. What will happen if the franc should rise further in value–if it should go to 110, for instance, as some financial authorities seem to think it may–no one can tell. I have taken the only possible course at the moment–quoted the prices which obtained last season. On the average they were about fifty per cent. higher than during the previous season, and as the exchange rate was very little more, living was nearly half as dear again. Many people profess to believe that there must be a considerable reduction of the franc remains at its present level, the argument being that if there is not, visitors will not come in sufficient numbers to keep the Riviera going. That may be so, but there is no sign of it yet. In any case, it is well to be on the safe side.
  I have devoted a special chapter to a brief description of life on the Riviera in summer: all the rest of the book is concerned with the winter season. In the Appendix will be found some detailed information about the different places, in no way exhaustive, but intended to help the stranger over the first day or two: part of the charm of a holiday abroad is in exploring and finding things out for yourself.

Monte Carlo,
August, 1927.

HOW TO BE HAPPY ON THE RIVIERA

CHAPTER I

The Truth about the Climate

The climate in winter is incomparably superior to that of any other part of Europe, but it is often grossly over-praised, especially in the publicity of which the Riviera is subject. Nominally, the season begins but the gaities are crowded into the period between Christmas and Easter.

Edna Clarke-Hall - letters from Augustus John

The exhibition catalogue recently posted on Jot 101 just scratches the surface of Edna Clarke-Hall’s remarkable career. A gifted artist, whose work in many media has always been in demand, was the friend of so many colourful artists in the early years of the twentieth century—notably Gwen and Augustus John. She died in 1978 aged one hundred and may have lived even longer had the shock of being moved from Upminster Common, where she had lived for more than seventy years, to a retirement home, not played its part.

Some unpublished letters addressed to her from Augustus John just before the First World War, which a friend who knew her well, managed to acquire, reveal much about her relationship with the older artist who, like many other men, was captivated by her beauty. They also reveal John to be a deep thinker on art and society whose was capable of decidedly Lawrentian rants against convention. Two of these letters are worth quoting in full:-

Portrait of Edna by John

8, Fitzroy St, W.

Thanks for your letter. I am sorry for the boys’ sake you can’t have them longer. As for us, we have only one room available still—hardly big enough for seven children ! We have only Pyramus and Robin with us. The rest are planted about elsewhere. Why on Earth is there not some sane communal nursery farm one could send them to.  They only want fresh air, good food and play—nothing else till they find something else on their own account—except that those who look after then should be unsentimental, unprejudiced, uncorrupted beings, with eyes in their heads and not conscious-ridden , perverted, lachrymose & frivolous tools. Conventions are useful disguises, but the Soul observes none: your quotation is a psychological observation put into terms of poetic theology. I would like you to come and pose as soon as you like. Let me know what day and I’ll be sure to have the room warmed well.
I would like to be in the country. This town disgusts me. We surely have reached the lowest point of the most abject of all ages: what’s to be done—flee from the wrath to come, or what (no, welcome anything so definite, so respectable, so rare , as wrath !)  

Gentlewomen skiers in Edwardian Chamonix

Sixteen years before the first Winter Olympics was held at Chamonix on Mont Blanc the ladies in this press photo of 1908 were learning to ski on the slopes near the town. A note on the back of the photo tells us that the women were undertaking a ‘course de ski pour dames‘, which may indicate that back then etiquette demanded that ladies be taught in single-sex  groups. The numbers they wore may also suggest that they were formally scored by their instructor for their prowess on the snow. The three older women, including the grand dame with her flat hat and head-scarf, appear to relish their situation, while the little girl bearing number 9 seems utterly terrified.

The heavy-duty winter clothes of the men operating the horse-drawn sleigh in the background contrast remarkably with the dress chosen by the women skiers, which seems more fitted to a ‘promenade‘ around the town.

The Grosvenor House Ice Rink

Best known as the venue for the most prestigious antiques fair in the world, the Great Room of London’s Grosvenor House Hotel (opened 1929) began life as a vast ice rink, where the rich and famous refined their skating skills. It is said that in 1933 the present Queen learned how to skate here. She must have been around the same age as some of the little girls being taught the basics by their elegantly dressed coach in this press photo dated 18th September 1931.

Unfortunately, under pressure from rival (and probably cheaper) establishments in the metropolis, the Grosvenor House Ice Rink was forced to close in 1935, after just six years of use. The space was then used as a grand ballroom, and afterwards as a conference venue. However, all the refrigeration machinery was left in situ underneath the present floor, where it can still be inspected.

Petulengro 'King of the Gypsies'

Found in the Frederick Warne published children's magazine The Merry-go-Round of October 1937 this piece by (Xavier) Petulengro, who was known as 'King of the Gypsies.' Kooshti Bok, sometimes spelt Kushti Bok is Romany for 'Good Luck.'
Wikipedia says of him '...a British Romanichal horse trader, violinist, businessman, writer and broadcaster, known as the "King of the Gypsies". He frequently broadcast on BBC radio in the 1930s and 1940s, and later wrote regular astrology columns in magazines as well as publishing his autobiography and several books on Romany

lore... His funeral at the age of (about) 97 was arranged in traditional Romanichal style, with about 100 mourners in traditional costumes and some 1,500 sightseers.'

This piece was written for the boy and girl readers of Merry-Go-Round -some of whom had attended this ceremony. 'Chavvies' = children.

Kooshti-Bok, Chavvies,

Well, this has been an exciting time for me. As many of you know, I was crowned King of the Gypsies at Baildon in Yorkshire on August 28th. I hope you saw the ceremony on the screen at your picture-house, but I am going to tell you all about it here.

This rare event, the survival of open-air ceremonies performed by Romanies throughout the ages, took place in the town that was once the great stronghold of the gypsies, Baildon Moor. First there was a long procession of gypsies and other folk, descendants of gypsies who had eventually settled down in the district. I led the procession mounted on a grey horse, and behind me came the Gypsy Prince and Princess, also on horseback. Thus we travelled to the spot where the ceremony was to be performed. There an avenue was formed of Gypsy Chis and Chals (boys and girls), and my band of Hungarian and Gypsy players heralded my approach. The tribes assembled in crescent form behind the Coronation Throne, to which the Prince and princess then led me.

Next a big black glove was thrown on to the grass, and the Prince called out the Challenge. Twelve Gypsy maidens bearing coloured goose-quills filed past and touched my forehead with the quills, then planted them in a circle round the throne, and themselves formed a horse-shoe behind me.

Then a handsome young gypsy who represented the different tribes offered me a horse's bit, which he laid across my feet. He then picked up the black glove and shouted: "The challenge is not accepted. There is none here to deny that Petulengro the Zingari be our chief. Do you who are assembled here swear with uplifted hands that Petlengro shall be our King?" And twenty thousand voices shouted: "We do, we do! Long live Petlengro!"

Stephen Tennant - a note on a scrap of paper

Found - a scrap of paper from a book on America maritime history - this note by the eccentric /decadent writer and artist Stephen Tennant (1906 -1987.) He often used pages of books for notes, poems, rants and observations. He made many hundreds of pages of notes for his projected novel Lascar; A Story of the Maritime Boulevard but it remained unfinished at his death. He produced a few slim volumes and some superb drawings. The writer mentioned is anonymous but being rich and eccentric and talented ST knew many writers including Willa Cather, Siegfried Sassoon (a former lover) V.S. Naipaul (a neighbour) and W.H. Auden (who praised one of his poems.) The scrap reads thus:-

There is no element or trait in human nature that a writer can ignore - But to give prominence to the Noble profound, to the calm, the wise, the Beautiful- the exquisite, the sacred is surely his proudest need? June 1976 S T

But he is no prude or evader of odious things.

Design for a cover for 'Lascar'

'Ah, Marseille, - c'set le Vrai.'
A writer said this a propos my novel Lascar.

Stephen Tennant's possessions were dispersed in a big Sotheby's sale at his home Wilsford Manor, Wiltshire in 1987.

This was bought there in a van full of books. Some of the books appeared to be scented, some had letters loosely inserted including one from Willa Cather. The catalogue itself

is sought after, at Ebay a copy recently made £100 although it is not uncommon...

ST with David Hockney at Wilsford Manor

At a Lounging Club

From The Microcosm, a periodical work, by Gregory Griffin, of the College of Eton. (Windsor 1788) this piece about a real, or imagined, Loungers Club. The first 40 numbers of The Microcosm were published at Eton between 1786 and 1787. Among the subjects discussed are language, genius, poetics, novels, affectation, translation, imitation, government, genius, etc., 'Gregory Griffin' is the pseudonym of, inter alia, George Canning, Charles Ellis, Hookham Frere, and John and Robert Smith. Written by a group of friends it includes essays on the conduct of life and other cultural and philosophical topics, written as letters from pseudonymous or imaginary correspondents. One cataloguer notes that 'the journal attracted sufficient attention to induce  the publisher, to pay the young editor fifty pounds for the copyright - in all probability the first copy money ever yet paid to a schoolboy.' This probably refers to the most illustrious of the bunch George Canning -his time at Eton has been described as "a triumph almost without parallel. He proved a brilliant classicist, came top of the school, and excelled at public orations".

DEAR GREG. You were in a plaguy hurry to fill up the vacant seat in the lounging club. I should have disputed the pretensions of Narcissus myself, and I am confident there is not a single member of our non-chalance  society, but better deserved the distinction; - Hear, and judge for yourself. - You must know we are a firm CON, who regularly spend our Saturdays in recapitulating the business of the week, and the lucky rouge who proves himself to have done the least good, who has taken the most effectual pains to evade every purpose of his education, to affect indisposition with the greatest art, and loll away his hours with the most perfect indolence, is chosen PRESIDENT for the ensuing week; with many privileges that I may possibly acquaint you with hereafter.  The immediate peals of applause that follow the promotion, would do your heart good, and has made me take more pains to arrive at the honour, than the closest attention to my education would have cost me. 

I proved to the satisfaction of the whole society last Saturday, that all the races of my abilities, discoverable for the last week, were those before them on the chimney piece, from a hot poker. What shouts of applause! and I was actually hustled one foot into the chair, when an unlucky member discovered, that I had taken too much pains in burning the initial letters of my name, and that they remained an indelible proof against me. He sprang into the chair with the anonymous voice of the whole club, for it was proved in his favour, that in the whole course of the week he had done nothing, except indeed throwing a cravat into the fire, because it had been ill washed, and was not brought the moment he ordered it. There was exertion in this, added to some abuse he had given the servant, and voted to dispossess him; but it appeared, that his Tutor, with a mildness peculiar to himself, had taken great pains that very morning to convince him of his errors; that his idleness and extravagance deeply distressed an indulgent father; was ruin to the hopes of his whole family; and a melancholy waste of abilities that he might some time lament, but never have the power to retrieve. To this, and much more, dictated by virtue and friendship, he turned an ear...

Whether a loungers club actually existed or not or whether this is whimsy is anybody's guess. The description seems true; the paradox of the lounger (and idler) is that very little, or no effort must be put into it. 200 years later we have the excellent Idler magazine, which probably takes real work to keep going..

Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde

From a large spiritualist collection this curiosity Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde (Psychic Book Club, London 1924) published 24 years after his death and purporting to be spirit communications from purgatory with the great writer. Why Oscar was in purgatory and not heaven is not explained (although he famously said 'I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.') One of the communicants, Eric Dingwall (described online as '...a man of many parts – psychical researcher, librarian, book and antique collector, anthropologist, sexologist, intelligence operative) was no mere gullible spiritualist and occasionally they get Oscar's tone...his damning opinion of Joyce's recently published Ulysses is interesting, but it seems more likely Oscar would have approved...

COPY OF AUTOMATIC SCRIPT OBTAINED MONDAY,

JUNE 18TH, 1923.

Present.-Mr. V., Mrs. Travers Smith, Mr. B., Mr. Dingwall (Research
Officer of the Society for Psychical Research), Miss Cummins.

Mr. V. was the automatist, Mrs. T.S. touching his hand.

Oscar Wilde. Being dead is the most boring experience in life. That is,if one excepts being married or dining with a schoolmaster. Do you doubt my identity? I am not surprised, since sometimes I doubt it myself. I might retaliate by doubting yours. I have always admired the Society for
Psychical Research. They are the most magnificent doubters in the world. They are never happy until they have explained away their spectres. And one suspects a genuine ghost would make them exquisitely uncomfortable. I have sometimes thought of founding an academy of celestial doubters...which might be a sort of Society for Psychical Research among
the living. No one under sixty would be admitted, and we should call ourselves the Society of Superannuated Shades. Our first object might well be to insist on investigating at once into the reality of the existence of, say, Mr. Dingwall.

Mr. Dingwall, is he romance or reality?

Duleep Singh—Prince of Suffolk

A rare find—a letter written in English from the last Sikh Maharajah of India. Duleep Singh (1838 – 93), came to power at the age of 5, with his mother as regent. When she was deposed and jailed, he was made a ward and finally was exiled to England in 1853 at the age of 15, having been converted to Christianity. On his arrival, he was lionised in the London salons and became a particular favourite of Queen Victoria. He lived in Roehampton and Wimbledon for a while and then bought estates in Yorkshire and Scotland, where he was known locally as the Black Prince of Perth. His mother having joined him in 1861, he was now firmly established as a country gentleman, with the reputation as the fourth best shot in the land. His final purchase was of a 17,000 acre estate at Elveden, near Thetford, where he proved to be an excellent landlord and a generous local benefactor. Though he later died in Paris, he chose to be buried here.

Elveden was an ideal purchase for Dukleep. Just eighty miles from London, its open situation in the heart of Breckland enabled him to pursue the life of a hunting and shooting squire while remaining in touch with metropolitan life. The deep forest may even have reminded him of the jungle he had left behind.

He continued to visit his Scottish estates at and it is from Loch Kennard Lodge that he wrote this letter, which is dated in pencil July 27th 1868 by its recipient, John Norton, the celebrated Gothic architect, who had just completed the astonishing Tyntesfield, near Bristol. It is characteristic of the ostentatious Duleep, then aged just 30, that he should engage one of the most trendy architects in the land to remodel the rather old fashioned Elveden Hall. In the letter Duleep acknowledges receipt of the latest plans of the proposed alterations to the Hall and asks Norton to send the earlier ones so that he can 'compare the accommodation and their costs '.

According to Pevsner, Duleep enlarged a Georgian building of moderate size into 'an Oriental extravaganza unparalleled in England'. Though the external style was Italianate, the interior incorporated  'a central domed hall with a glass lantern, with the walls, pillars and arches  covered with the closest Indian oriental detail, all made of white Carrara marble and carved in situ by Indian craftsmen'. Work was completed in 1870. In 1899 – 1903, following Duleeps’s death, Lord Iveagh of Guinness fame, enlarge the Hall still further. Today, Elveden Hall remains in the Guinness family, and though empty and a shadow of its former glory, it remains  a popular location for filming. Among the movies shot here was Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.  [RMH]