Saturday, July 7, 2012

SING ALONG


Words by Thomas Moore
Musical arrangement by Sir John Stevenson
Although published here as a "Scotch Air", this is an Irish song

OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT

Oft, in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light 
Of other days around me;
The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimm'd and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus, in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain hath bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

When I remember all
The friends, so link'd together,
I've seen around me fall
Like leaves in wintry weather;
I feel like one,
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!
Thus, in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain hath bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

A SONG FROM THE NURSERY

Recorded in 1944.  So many boys must have remembered this song from their nursery days now that they had gone for soldiers everyone.  A knot in one's throat, a tear furtively swept, collective memories even for those of us who were no yet born.  

Sunday, July 1, 2012

WILD STRAWBERRIES - 8


"Just inside the door was an enormous upright mechanical organ, product of the Fatherland in its milder days.  Into this you inserted a large metal disc covered with perforations, and then turned a handle.  A huge metal roller, studded with spikes like some engine of the Inquisition, could then be observed in motion through the glass front of the upper part, and crashing melody poured forth."

Friday, June 29, 2012

WILD STRAWBERRIES - 7




"The nursery, which had been the home of Lady Emily's four children, was a large, sunny room made from several half-attic rooms thrown into one, with sloping ceilings in odd corners.  It was filled with the accumulation of many years of children.  A large dappled rocking horse with fiery nostrils stood in one corner."

Thursday, June 28, 2012

GUDGEON'S DELIGHT



"To sound the gong was, though he would have died than confess it, one of the great joys of Gudgeon's life.  The soul of the artist, the poet, the soldier, the explorer, the mystic, which slumbered somewhere inside his tall and dignified presence, was released four times a day to empyrean heights unknown and unsuspected by his employers, [---] and his underlings."

Saturday, June 23, 2012

WILD STRAWBERRIES - 6


"Rushmere Abbey was the meagre remains of a great Cistercian foundation.  Little of it was left but the broken arches of part of the cloisters and a fragment of the dormitories."

Thursday, June 21, 2012

WILD STRAWBERRIES - 5


   "The way to Rushmere Abbey lay at first by a shaded lane, then a footpath led through fields.
   "It isn't a good country for cowslips," said David, "but we have everything else.  Fritillaries are an absolute pest hereabouts.  Look there."
   Not far from the stream which bordered the meadow, a number of the snake-headed flowers, white and purple, rose among the grass.  Mary knelt down to look at them, fingering one or two, but not plucking them.
   "Do you know what I'd like, David?" she said, "I'd like a lot of shoes, exactly like these lovely snake-skin creatures.  White shoes and purple shoes."



Tuesday, June 19, 2012

WILD STRAWBERRIES - 4

"... she went to the window and kneeling on the window-seat looked out into the park.  Her bedroom was at the front of the house, overlooking the great meadow which lay bathed in warmth and peace."

Friday, June 15, 2012

WILD STRAWBERRIES - 3

"The large bedroom was crammed to overflowing with family relics, and examples of the various arts in which Lady Emily had brilliantly dabbled at one time or another."

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

WILD STRAWBERRIES - 2


"RUSHWATER HOUSE WAS A LARGE, rather Gothic house built by Mr. Leslie's grandfather.  Its only outward merit was that it might have been worse than it was."

Saturday, June 9, 2012

FASHION PLATES

What Lady Emily would wear.
Ascot, 1934
The hats have become more elaborate with time.  
Compare this to what they are wearing these days.

Friday, June 8, 2012

STICKER SHOCK

Well, this one isn't making it to Furball Cottage's well-stocked library.  Amazon is selling it for over two thousand dollars.  It would certainly be a great resource in our quest for Thirkellian images, but we'll have to be contented with snatching a couple of slanted photos and calling it a day.  Don't know anything about Bill Brandt, so this is the moment to learn about his career and his publications.  If ever someone comes up with a reissue of this book, and why not, look, after all, at what Moyer Bell has done, and if it sells for a reasonable price... In the meantime, ladies and gents, look in your bookshelves, check out your friendly second-hand purveyors; it may be there, waiting for you to bring it home. Happy hunting!

Thursday, June 7, 2012

WILD STRAWBERRIES - 1

"Through this gate the Leslie family had come to church with varying degrees of unpunctuality ever since the vicar had been at Rushwater..."



Sunday, June 3, 2012

SHUT UP!








Exasperating 'little boy'.  For those of us who grew up with brothers or cousins this is no fiction.  Skipped most of the dialogue while searching for some architectural kernel and hit pay dirt with the great description of Lord Stoke's castle.  Totally exhausted and glad it's over.  ♥

Friday, June 1, 2012

THE DEMON IN THE HOUSE - 1



"Rising Castle was situated on a hill at the confluence of the Rising and Rushmore.  It boasted a Norman keep in fair condition and a good deal of the original walls.  The fourth Lord Stoke had defended the castle against Cromwell, who had unpleasantly battered him into honorable capitulation.  After several generations of neglect the present earl's great-grandfather had built a comfortable mansion from the stones of the ruins.  The present owner had put such parts of the castle as were still standing into tolerable repair and allowed the public to visit them at sixpence a head."  ...   "Lord Stoke, with maddening slowness and infinite wealth of detailed explanation of what he and his architect had been doing, then  showed them the piece of Norman wall that he was rebuilding, the foundations of what might have been a chapel, and the room in which it was on the whole improbable that Charles II had slept after the battle of Worcester."

Thursday, May 31, 2012

HIGH RISING

















Ah Laura, you mock me.  Your paths are beyond me.  
You raise mediocrity to genius."                                                       George Knox to Laura Morland

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

HIGH RISING - 10

"High Rising was a pretty, unpretentious village consisting of one street, whose more imposing houses were vaguely Georgian.  Laura's house stood at the end, so that she had no more than a mile to walk to Low Rising, which was only a church, a vicarage, a farm, and a handful of cottages."

Sunday, May 27, 2012

HIGH RISING - 9


"But on hearing that Mr. Brown of the garage was going to jack the car up that afternoon, he temporarily forgot about trains and rushed off to make arrangements with the vet to take the foxhound, whose leg was nearly well, to see the fun."

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

HIGH RISING - 8


BLOOD SPORTS III

"Luckily the hounds met twice during the week, which faintly distracted Tony's attention from railway systems, and he was able to give her a mass of authoritative and mostly erroneous information about hunting."

Saturday, May 19, 2012

HIGH RISING - 7













BLOOD SPORTS II


"... Sibyl, before she went, invited Tony to come and help with a little rough shooting on the following day..."

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

HIGH RISING - 6

BLOOD SPORTS I


"... she pulled out a foxcub's tail, mounted on a handle, with the inscription, 'Risings Hunt.  November, 1828', which was a mistake of a century on the part of the local naturalist, but Laura had never liked to have it altered.  On this cub Tony had been blooded, at the instigation of Gerald and John.  He hadn't enjoyed the ceremony at all, but another and smaller boy had been frightened and cried, which had made Tony boast quite unbearably of his superior pluck and true blueness."

Saturday, May 12, 2012

HIGH RISING - 5

"As she sat before her glass, she looked into it, to see what Anne Todd looked like, who had refused a lover.  Anne Todd looked much the same, except that her eyes were misty, and her face blurred."

Thursday, May 10, 2012

HIGH RISING - 4










 "'Stop crying, Mrs. Morland, and I'll tell you something.  What do you think I love most in the world?'  Surprised by this curious attempt at consolation, Laura did stop.  Pushing her dishevelled hair off her tear-sodden face, she thought for a moment, and then said: "Your mother."  "No," said Miss Todd.  "Clothes."'
  

Sunday, May 6, 2012

A GEM OF A BOOK

This is one of those books one buys in order to salivate over shabbily perfect interiors, dogs in baskets, raggedy rugs, crooked pictures, muddy wellies, musty bedrooms and slightly mildewed bathrooms.  The nostalgic essence of a Thirkell novel.  Just the two prefaces, by the author and the photographer, are well worth the price of admission.  

Friday, May 4, 2012

HIGH RISING - 3

"Low Rising Manor House still looked like the farmer's home which it had been for several hundred years..."

HIGH RISING - 2

"The Knoxes' house stood apart, down a turning of its own which led nowhere in particular, and behind it fields stretched away to the slopes of the hills".  ...   "At the far end stood the Knoxes' house, lonely among the water-meadows, often surrounded by thick white mists, a little sinister...  ...The front door, ordinarily left open, was shut this evening, and Laura had to ring".

Thursday, May 3, 2012

THE AUTHOR















Angela Thirkell and the three reasons why she wrote.

HIGH RISING - 1

"Music!" shouted George Knox, emerging from his teacup, which was a special cup of Gargantuan size with FATHER in Gothic lettering on it, one of those presents given by his loving child before her taste was formed, and which had outlived all more valuable crockery."

SING ALONG!

Although Angela Thirkell's Bartsetshire novels are mostly set in 'normal size' country houses and even some cottages, there are some old piles to contend with and this song is a good depiction of their plight after WWII.  This song became a great favorite with the beleaguered upper classes.  "...the post-war stately homes were 'rather in the lurch'.  Many had been requisitioned in the war, invaded by evacuees from London and the big industrial cities, occupied by schoolchildren transferred from public boarding schools in vulnerable areas, used as military headquarters and hospitals and finally, towards the end of the fighting, taken over as billets for the foreign troops temporarily based in Britain.  ... "Requisitioned country houses were always knocked about a bit.  Judging by the horror stories circulating in the fifties of Van Dycks used as dartboards, Grinling Gibbons carvings ripped out and burned for firewood, Parham Park was relatively lucky.  The wartime depredations in many other English country houses had been even worse."
                                                                                               Fiona MacCarty, Last Curtsey
                                                                 
 "One thing is for certain.  The country-house way of life as some of us have known it, will never be revived."
                                                                       James Lees-Milne


WELCOME TO THIS SPECIAL WORLD

The stately homes of England
How beautiful they stand
To prove the upper classes
Have still the upper hand.
Though the fact that they have to be rebuilt
And frequently mortgaged to the hilt
Is inclined to take the gilt
Off the gingerbread -- 
And certainly damps the fun
Of the eldest son.
But still we won't be beaten,
We'll scrimp and screw and save.
The playing fields of Eton
Have made us frightfully brave -- 
And though if the Van Dycks have to go
And we pawn the Bechstein grand,
We'll stand by the stately homes of England.
                                                                                                                           Noel Coward