GRIM HISTORIES

A Spare Pair of Stockings - Just in Case

2021-06-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

The olden days of Remington typewriters, dual erasers, dark grey for ink, white for pencil, and the hard, orange typewriter erasers - how did we manage? Those orange erasers often made a hole in the paper, which meant a total retype, and this was devastating if it was a long and complicated letter.

And a bit later smart Adler typewriters and tippex, small rectangles of white paper, You slipped a piece behind the ribbon so the treated part covered the mistake, then you would retype the key to fix the letter that needed correction, and this would be obliterated by the magic white stuff.

Sometimes it was hard to type because the office budget required as little heating as possible. Then, more mistakes were made by fingers numb and frozen - all the same, mistakes were not tolerated. The letters had to be placed inside a blotter "For Signature" book, so the boss could sign with his fountain pen without danger of a smudge.

In those days, girls from the typing pool were fair game and groped by the men in charge, but secretaries were often luckier, protected by their higher status. But not if they had a predatory boss. It was no good complaining because it would always be your fault. "Can't you deal with that yourself?"

Every new typist learned the pangram, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" because it used every letter on the keyboard just once.

Then there was Pitman's shorthand. Pages and pages of it. If your boss was a fast dictator, and you were a new secretary, sometimes it was hard to read back your work. If you were a temporary typist visiting a company whose business you were not familiar with, you hoped for a patient, understanding employer.

Every letter required copies, sometimes five or six for various departments, and you had to check regularly that the last carbon was producing a clear copy.

But the City of London was exhilarating back in the 1960s - marching across London Bridge on a brisk winter morning, a wave of bobbing bowler hats of the men and the high bouffant hairdos of the young secretaries. Big umbrellas used as walking sticks just for show.

Sharp suits and shiny shoes, and every good secretary carried a spare pair of stockings in her bag just in case she got a ladder. (Horrors!)

PHILOSOPHERS OF ANCIENT TIMES - GET YOUR COPY!

2019-05-29T14:30:00.003-07:00

PHILOSOPHERS OF ANCIENT TIMES

Now almost all the hypotheses that have dominated modern philosophy were first thought of by the Greeks; their imaginative inventiveness in abstract matters can hardly be too highly praised,” said Bertrand Russell. Russell acknowledged that some of these theories, in their early days, were “somewhat infantile” – nevertheless philosophers have developed and refined them.

These theories gained influence over the last two thousand years, and we still feel their influence today. You will be stunned at how their work has filtered through to modern times. You will recognise modern thinking in their thought and ideas that sometimes seem crazy, and at other times, incredibly perceptive and far ahead of their time.

Most of these early philosophers are men but that's not because women were inactive - as we know stories about the work and lives of the few fortunate enough to access education were not always preserved for posterity. I have, however, included an amazing woman, Aspasia, who was a rhetorician, a philosopher, a politician and a teacher, and who spent time debating with than Socrates and Plato. You can find more great women in my other book, Eighteen Amazing Women Philosophers. But those ancient male thinkers were pretty smart too!

Ghost of the Old Grey Nun in the Sergeants' Mess

2019-05-16T01:11:00.002-07:00

Ghost of the Old Grey Nun in the Sergeants' Mess

A phantom nun from an ancient burial place terrifies the tough soldiers in the Drill Hall next door.

An article in the Brighton & Hove Gazette dated 21 May, 1949 tells the story of a strange paranormal vision emanating from the churchyard of St. Nicholas Church. The writer's name did not appear on the article; possibly they preferred to remain anonymous.

The incident happened in the Sergeants' Mess at Queen's Hall Square at the Drill Hall, and the article was aptly entitled: "Ghosts in a Mess."

While in the mess, the writer heard someone chanting: "Don't hang about or the old grey nun will get you." He asked the RSM (Regimental Sergeant Major) who the old grey nun was, and his colleague took him to talk to sixty-three-year-old Sergeant Welfare in the billiards room. Welfare threw open the windows, revealing below the graveyard of St. Nicholas church next door. This place of burial dates from Saxon times, and all the gravestones, where monks and nuns had been buried centuries before, looked eerie in the moonlight.

Sinister Experiences

"There was a saying in the mess, before my time, about the old grey nun," Welfare said. "There have been stories. One night I was working too late to go home, so I slept in the billiards room. Something woke me up in a fright. It felt like a cold, clammy hand touching my face. There was something uncanny about it."

Gravely, the sergeant continued with his story, explaining how, about two years ago, he was back from Germany, having spent a month in hospital recovering from his wounds. While in the Drill Hall workshop, late at night, he had a sudden peculiar feeling. The atmosphere became cold and clammy and something - he wasn't sure what - made him feel uneasy. Then, every door in the long passageway opened and closed as though some phantom presence was passing through. But - there was no human being present.

Sergeant Welfare decided to get out of the building immediately. But this was not the end of his ordeal, because in the passageway he fell over a life and force pump. This had clearly been moved by some unforeseen force, as he remembered it being stacked close to the wall when he walked down the passage to the workshop. No human agency had moved it - so what had? Sergeant Welfare was confused and scared.

"I am not superstitious," he said, "but I have not worked in that place since."

Sources:

· "Ghosts in a Mess", Staff Writer, Brighton & Hove Gazette, 21 May 1949.

· Adapted from: Cameron, Janet, Paranormal Brighton and Hove, Amberley Publishing, 2019.

Mary Lamb: Insanity and Matricide Among the Romantics

2019-04-30T09:07:00.001-07:00

By Janet Cameron

The life of Mary Lamb (1764- 1847) was an extraordinary one. This gifted writer and loyal supporter of her younger brother, poet, essayist and drama critic, Charles Lamb (1775-1834), was always subject to bouts of insanity, usually accompanied by a tendency to violence. This madness led to tragic results when she took a carving knife to her own mother.

At the time of this terrible incident in September, 1796, Charles Lamb worked at the East India House in London. It seems he returned to their home just in time to wrest the knife from her hand before she did further damage, but not in time to save their infirm mother.

Mary Goes Into the Madhouse

Charles and Mary Lamb’s father, John, worked for Samuel Salt, a Bencher at the Inner Temple, and Salt was instrumental in assisting Charles’ entry to Christ’s Hospital, where Samuel Taylor Coleridge was also being educated. The two young men formed a lifelong friendship. He and Mary also had contact with Wordsworth, Southey and Hazlitt.

Shortly after the tragedy of the carving knife, Lamb wrote to his friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge on 17 September, 1796. The letter, published in Romanticism, edited by Duncan Wu, acknowledges that Coleridge might already know about the terrible calamities that had befallen the Lamb family, possibly from the “public papers.” Lamb says:

“I will only give you the outlines. My poor dear dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, has been the death of our own mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp. She is at present in a madhouse from whence I fear she must me moved to an (sic) hospital. God has preserved me my senses. I eat and drink and sleep and have my judgement, I believe, very sound.”

Charles explains that Mary wounded their father in the attack and he needed care, as did his aunt, but that he, Charles, was feeling calm and composed. No doubt the poet found some consolation through his deep, religious beliefs.

A Bad Start In Life

Mary Lamb was born on 3 December 1764. Her father was servant to a barrister, and her mother, Elizabeth, the daughter of a housekeeper, had always been in service. In Kathy Watson’s book, The Devil Kissed Her, Mary is described as resembling the actress Mrs Siddons, being fairly attractive and with the same long nose and dark hair.

The main trauma she appeared to have suffered as a child was the death of her baby sister. She was around four years old at the time, old enough to have cuddled and played with the little girl. The grief of her loss remained with her throughout her life.

There were further trials when her father John’s sister, Hetty, came to live with the family according to Watson. Hetty and Elizabeth disliked each other intensely. Elizabeth was a gentle woman, and always anxious to please. Hetty was the opposite. She found Elizabeth’s attempts to get along with her tedious and oppressive, and suspected her sister-in-law of being deceitful.

Watson quotes Mary: “They [meaning Elizabeth and Hetty] made each other miserable for a full twenty years of their lives.” This, of course, must have resulted in a tense and unhappy household.

On the death of Salt in 1792, the Lambs had to move from the Temple into lodgings in Little Queen’s Street. The family was poor and had to struggle to survive. This compelled Elizabeth to work as a seamstress as well as bear and look after their children, although of the seven children she bore, only three survived.

Charles Lamb: A Loyal Brother

Mary endured onerous responsibilities, as Elizabeth became infirm and needed constant care and attention. Perhaps it was little wonder she was prone to awful bouts of insanity.

The newspaper report of her trial in The Times, on Saturday, September 24, 1796, expanded on the gruesome details, reprinted on the website Biographies: Charles Lamb:

“On Friday afternoon the Coroner and Jury sat on the body of a Lady, in the neighbourhood of Holborn, who died in consequence of a wound from her daughter the previous day. It appeared by the evidence adduced, that while the family were preparing for dinner, the young lady seized a case-knife laying on the table, and in a menacing manner pursued a little girl, her apprentice, round the room. On the calls of her infirm mother to forbear, she renounced her first object, and with loud shrieks approached her parent.

“The child, by her cries, quickly brought up the landlord of the house, but too late. The dreadful scene presented to him the mother lifeless, pierced to the heart, on a chair, her daughter yet wildly standing over her with the fatal knife and the old man her father weeping by her side, himself bleeding at the forehead from the effect of a severe blow he received from one of the forks she had been madly hurling about the room.”

After Mary murdered their mother, she was officially certified as insane, and sent to an Islington mental asylum. Charles, meanwhile, moved into lodgings with his sick father, as close as he could to the asylum.

Fortunately for Mary, as seen from his letter to Coleridge, Charles was a concerned and caring brother. It may have helped that he, too, had suffered a fit of temporary insanity in 1795, causing his confinement in an asylum for several weeks. On her release, he took her into his care and guardianship. Their father died in 1799, and so Mary moved into Charles’ lodgings with him.

Charles devoted himself to her welfare and the two became inseparable, although Mary was to continue to suffer from regular bouts of illness.

Charles’ Poem: The Old Familiar Faces

This poem, composed in 1798, was, perhaps, cathartic for Charles Lamb. This young man had to carry the burden of such terrible memories, while supporting his sick sister. It should be remembered that at the time of the murder, when Mary was 32 years old, her younger brother was only 21. Here are two stanzas, the first and the fourth.

“Where are they gone, the old familiar faces? / I had a mother but she died and left me, / Died, prematurely in a day of horrors – / All, All are gone, the old familiar faces.

“I loved a love once, fairest among women; / Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her – / All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.”

Literary Activities

It might be expected, after such dreadful trauma, the pair would live quietly and not attempt any further demanding projects. The opposite was the case. Charles wrote a poetical drama, John Woodvil, and a prose piece, Rosamund Gray. He attempted journalism around the turn of the century, and he wrote articles, criticism, articles and short, witty features for the Morning Post and for The Londoner.

Next, came a project the siblings could complete together. William Godwin, (husband of Mary Wollstonecroft and father of Mary Shelley) commissioned Charles Lamb to produce simplified versions of Shakespeare’s plays, and so Charles took on the tragedies and entrusted the comedies to Mary. He called the book, “Tales from Shakespeare.” Published in 1807, Tales was a great success.

For Very Young Children and Young Ladies

However, the book wasn’t just for children. Here is an excerpt from the original preface, reprinted in the Introduction to the author’s copy:

“It has been wished to make these Tales easy reading for very young children. To the utmost of their ability, the writers have constantly kept this to mind, but the subjects of most of them made this a very difficult task. It was no easy matter to give the histories of men and women in terms familiar to the apprehension of a very young mind.

“For young ladies, too, it has been the intention chiefly to write; because boys being generally permitted the use of their fathers’ libraries at a much earlier age than girls are, they frequently have the best scenes of Shakespeare by heart, before their sisters are permitted to look into this manly book…”

The Lambs continue by entreating boys to assist their sisters and to explain to them what was hardest for them to understand.

Obviously, this was a well-meaning and probably effective action, although it says a great deal about the shortcomings of society at that time – a society that excluded “young ladies” from pursuits that might be too hard for them!

However, the Tales are easy to read, and Shakespeare’s language can sound strange to the ears of those who are not familiar with him. The Tales are probably helpful to young men too!

Mary went on to write some successful stories for children, including Mrs. Leicester’s School in 1809. As ever, the siblings enjoyed collaborating and Charles contributed three stories of his own.

Emma Isola and the Lambs

A rather heartwarming addition to this sad story is that of Emma Isola, an orphan, whom Charles and Mary adopted. In 1827, the three of them moved to Enfield, and later to Edmonton. Charles’ contemporaries admired him for his gentle personality and his whimsical humour, which attracted many friends. When he died in 1834, he had outlived his friend, Coleridge, by six months.

Mary Lamb was fortunate is having such a man for her brother, a brother who supported her through terrible times, and who remained close to her and included her in everything he did. But for their close relationship, it is doubtful Mary’s legacy would be available to us. The following, touching passage appears at the end of Charles and Mary Lamb’s Authors’ Preface to the Tales:

“…it is the writers’ wish that the true Plays of Shakespeare may prove to them {e,g,young readers} in older years – enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity, for, of examples, teaching these virtues, his pages are full.”

When Mary Lamb died in 1847, at age 82, she was buried next to her beloved brother in a churchyard in Edmonton, Middlesex.

Resources for this article

Watson, Kathy. The Devil Kissed Her. (2004). Tarcher. Accessed on November 25, 2014

Wu, Duncan (Editor), et al. Romanticism An Anthology. (1994). Blackwell.

Lessing, Doris (Editor), et al. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. (1988). Cambridge University Press.

Lamb, Charles, et al. Tales from Shakespeare. (1953 (orig. 1809)). Collins.

Drabble, Margaret (Editor). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. (1987). Guild Pubishing London.

Bull-Baiting and Ducking Stools (not to Mention Third Nipples !) ~ Horrible Medieval England

2019-04-23T05:41:00.004-07:00

Sketch Copyright Janet Cameron

The beautiful city of Canterbury is a vibrant mix of old and new. But the city has seen its share of tragedy and persecution.

Fine craftsmen from medieval times to the Tudors and Stuarts have left their mark on Canterbury's architecture - but "makeovers" have always been popular. They were undertaken mostly for vanity and fashion and for making an impression on your neighbours. This makes dating buildings difficult, although there are clues to indicate which buildings are wearing a facade, and, for the experts, these are as easy to spot as a nylon hairpiece!

The emergence of the coaching trade during the late eighteenth century made it imperative to modernise the streets, so gradually existing thoroughfares were improved and new streets cut. As always, change demanded sacrifice, so all gates were demolished except for Westgate, the City Gaol.

Bull-Baiting in Canterbury's Buttermarket

Two hundred years ago, Canterbury's famous Buttermarket was called "The Bullstake." Here, in the special bullring, bulls were baited prior to slaughter. Bull-baiting was a popular medieval sport. It was believed that the distress of the animals tenderised their meat and, after the baiting, the animals were moved on to Butchery Lane for slaughter.

The idea of the Buttermarket was to provide an open-sided building in which local farmers could trade their wares. After the original building was taken down, it was replaced by a more substantial edifice. Later, this too was replaced by the war memorial, which now stands in a prominent position in the irregularly-shaped "square."

The 16th Century Weavers' Houses

St. Peter's Street crosses the River Stour at King's Bridge. To the left, along the riverbank, is a row of medieval houses known as the weavers' houses, which date from the 16th century. This was where Huguenot and Walloon weavers plied their trade having fled their own countries to escape persecution. The houses, which are now used as shops and restaurants, have been restored and have twentieth century beams on their outside facades.

A grisly relic of medieval times is the ducking stool which hangs over the river. It was used to see if a woman accused of witchcraft was guilty or not. If the accused survived, she was deemed a witch. If she drowned, she was innocent.

In this age, Canterbury's swans did not enjoy the protection they do today. They were fattened and killed for banquets, but as the river was often used as a public lavatory, some of the poor birds died from pollution. This was not a good time to be a swan or a woman with a third nipple!

Sir John Boy's House in Palace Street

Palace Street is one of the best-preserved streets in Canterbury and its name derives from the Archbishop's palace, which was replaced by Archbishop Lanfranc after a fire in 1067. The famous Sir John Boy's House, is named for its owner, an MP and recorder of Canterbury, and built around 1612. It leans over at an alarming angle to the northeast, the tilt apparently caused by a twisted chimney and fallen bricks. The house is now supported by a steel cage.

St. Augustine and Thomas Beckett

From swampy wasteland, Canterbury has been visited by St. Augustine in AD597, sacked by the Danes in 1011, swarmed over by pilgrims after the murder of Thomas Beckett in 1170, and survived through to the horrors of witch-trials. Canterbury has been through the mire - to become what it is today - one of the most fascinating cities in the world.

Victorian Inventions - a Triumph of the Imagination

2017-04-13T06:50:00.000-07:00

Queen Victoria, Public Domain

A train achieving an average speed of 55 m.p.h. and a top speed of 75 m.p.h was operating between London and Birmingham in 1847.

The typewriter appeared in 1867, the first telephone that actually worked was produced by Graham Bell in 1876, and, in 1879 London was the first city in Europe to have a telephone exchange. The phonograph (a talking machine) appeared in 1879. (Apart from its more obvious uses, it must have been a great wonder for Victorian children from wealthier families, as it was used to produce talking books and talking dolls).

By the end of the century, the automobile, the electric tramcar, X-rays, the cinema and the wireless were also making great changes to Victorian lives. Yet, in 1865, when the railways totalled around 100,000 miles in length worldwide, with their Pullman carriages, and great steamships carrying thousands of passengers sailed across the oceans, bicycles were still very basic contraptions.

In the late 1840s, Stringfellow built a model flying machine with a wingspan of 3 metres. Its light steam engine enabled it to fly around 15 yards. But, after that, despite meticulous research, determination and a great deal of financial outlay, little progress was made in constructing an aeroplane capable of carrying a man.

The only inventor who made any real progress was a Frenchman called Penaud who designed a monoplane with many modern features including an automatic pilot, but sadly he committed suicide while still very young and before his efforts reached fruition.

Dirigible airships were invented in the 1870s, but as we now know, did not achieve lasting success, as they were unreliable and dangerous.

Victorians began producing large quantities of cast steel in the 1860s, resulting in the construction of great bridges and structures, The Eiffel Tower, the Brooklyn and Forth Bridges were all completed by the late 1880s.

Electricity too, was a new excitement at that time, when Volta, in 1880 developed a source for electricity using acid and metals. Following this came electric motors, dynamos, the electro-magnetic telegraph and finally transformers, all of which came into general use by the mid to late 1880s.

There were also some rather curious inventions and these are just a few examples. Around 1870, the Pedespeed was a kind of skating apparatus, which had stirrups and foot pieces attached to wheels which operated on the outside of the leg and measured about 14 inches in diameter. Ladies had to use shields to cover the tops of the wheels to protect their dresses.

In 1883, a tricycle for two persons appeared, with two enormous wheels at the sides and one smaller wheel in front. Two people could ride in it side-by-side and one could imagine it would be a charming spectacle to see two ladies riding in it wearing their pretty dresses.

In 1869, people could cycle on the water in a strange boat-like contraption with a bicycle constructed at the back. But the most curious of all must be the Velocipide, a bicycle in a shallow tub attached to a shower contraption. The cycle actually worked the shower pump so Victorians could get themselves clean and have a morning workout at the same time.

The Victorian capacity for turning imagination into invention was truly an extraordinary thing.

Brighton, Murders and Misedemeanours by Janet Cameron (Amberley Publishing)

Religion in the Fifth Century - Plots and Power

2017-04-12T10:44:00.004-07:00

An actress, possibly Mary Anderson, in the title role
of the play Hypatia, circa 1900. Wikimedia

A cruel and fanatical patriarch, a founder of a great religious sect, the plotting of cunning bishops - in the fifth century, religion was power.

The end of the Western Empire and the death of St. Augustine in 430 preceded destruction and disaster as well as set the scene for the development of Europe. Central to church issues at this time was the complicated problem of the Incarnation.

St. Cyril was patriarch of Alexandra from 412 till his death in 444 while Nestorius was patriarch of Constantinople. The two could not agree on whether Christ was one or two persons, ie. one human and one divine. Nestorius was convinced that Christ contained both divinity and humanity - and that he had, therefore, two natures. Cyril took the opposite view, that Christ was one and one only.

Mary - Not the Mother of God?

The clash between the two patriarchs was furious and passionate. It was claimed, as quoted in A History of Western Philosophy:

"A secret and incurable discord was cherished between those who were most apprehensive of confounding, and those who were most fearful of separating, the divinity and the humanity of Christ."

This brought about further difficulties. Nestorius could not see how Mary the Virgin could be called the "Mother of God" when she was only the mother of the human element of Christ. As far as Nestorius could see, the divine part of Christ could have no mother.The bishops east of Alexandria agreed with Nestorius while those from the west thought that Cyril was correct. Cyril was enraged that Nestorius continued to lead Constantinople astray with his notion about the relationship between Christ's humanity and his divinity.

The Bishops Hatch a Cunning Plot

The Council decided to meet to discuss the matter at Ephesus in 431. But the bishops from the west of Suez had a cunning plan. They arrived early, then they barred all the doors to prevent "latecomers" from entering. Having eliminated the opposition, they decided for St. Cyril, who was presiding over the proceedings, asserting that Christ had only one nature and was only one person.

Nestorius, whose sect had a large following in Syria and throughout the East, was condemned by the council as a heretic but he refused to recant. It is said his tongue was finally eaten by worms for its eloquent seduction of others.

His religion continued to flourish in China centuries later, and adherents were discovered by missionaries in India in the sixteenth century. Sometime around 450, Ephesus began to favour the Monophysite heresy, maintaining that Christ has only one nature. In A History of Western Philosopy, Bertrand Russell says:

"If St. Cyril had been alive, he would certainly have supported this view and have become heretical.

"Hypatia - Tragic Victim of St. Cyril

St. Cyril's claim to notoriety, apart from his clash with Nestorius, was the brutal murder of a young female Platonic philosopher, Hypatia, who was dragged from her chariot, to be butchered and lynched. She had been falsely accused of preventing a reconciliation between Cyril and his friend Orestes, by influencing Orestes against him. Cyril was also know for his pogroms against Alexandrian Jews.

Sources:

· History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell, Routledge Classics, London, 2004.

· Feminine Singular, Roxane Arnold & Olive Chandler, Femina Boks Ltd. London, 1974.

Alfred Kinsey - Accused of Being a "Fifth Columnist" and Weakening American Morals

2017-03-26T05:15:00.000-07:00

Alfred Kinsey, 1955. Public Domain

Reformer, Alfred Kinsey, stated that homosexuality was not a medical condition, yet gay men were still thrown into prison or labelled schizophrenic.

Alfred Kinsey, (1894-1956) was born in Hoboken, New Jersey. In 1920, he was awarded a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and went on to teach zoology at Indiana University. In 1942, he founded The Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University.

Kinsey's Book - A Challenge to Freudian Beliefs

His enquiries into human sexuality led him to publish Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948). According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, "These reports, based on 18,500 personal interviews, received extraordinary publicity for their conclusions about contemporary sexual mores and behaviour." They certainly challenged Freudian beliefs that homosexuality was due to psychiatric disturbance.

For Kinsey, all individuals fitted on a continuum of sexual preferences - and might, during their lifetime, shift from one part of the scale to another. Men in category 1 had no interested in homosexual outlets, while category 6 men preferred nothing else. Men often moved between the categories during their lives. According to author, Andrew Wykholm, the book became a bestseller, while provoking controversy and dissent.

I Have a Right to my Life

Meantime, in spite of the Kinsey Report, homosexuality was still regarded as a medical condition or a disease that could, perhaps, be medically treated. A young man brought up on two indecency charges, reported in The Argus on 3 January 1952, was offered choices between becoming a voluntary patient at a mental hospital or being jailed. He had already been in custody for three weeks pending medical reports. It was claimed he needed treatment for schizophrenia. He told the magistrate that he had a right to a decent life and was sent to prison for two months. "I've got my life to live," he said.

"He never hid his sexuality. He was honest to himself in every respect," said the report.

Kinsey - Accused of Weakening American Morals

Some time later, in 1953, Kinsey's Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female appeared, and caused outrage when he said that lesbians were better at giving partners a climax than males. He also claimed that women who had premarital sex experienced more orgasms after marriage.

Andrew Wikholm adds that some congressmen suspected Alfred Kinsey of being a "fifth columnist" working to erode America's morals and weaken her against the communists.

Alfred Kinsey's research grant was withdrawn after his unpopular claims were published in Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female.

Sources:

· Kinsey, A. Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (1948)

· Kinsey, A. Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female (1953)

· Wikholm, A. Social Constructionist History Link, Last Accessed 14 February 2012.

· Staff Reporter, "Man Held on Indecency Charges," The Argus 3 January, 1952.

· Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (1994-2011) For more information visitBritannica.com

Murder in Cold Blood - A Belgian Widow Accuses England

2017-03-05T07:45:00.000-08:00

Wandsworth Prison, Wikimedia Commons

The strange account of a felon who became the victim and centre of an intense anti-capital punishment campaign masterminded by a wealthy Belgian widow.

Leonard Brigstock was obsessed with a passion for the macabre, manifesting in horrible, blood-filled dreams that drove him crazy. Brigstock had joined the Navy at seventeen years old, and at thirty-three, on Saturday 19 January 1935, he brutally slit the throat of Chief Petty Officer Hubert Sidney Deggan, aged thirty-six. What was particularly unsavoury about this murder was that it took place while the victim was sleeping on the gunnery training ship, HMS Marshal Soult, which was then berthed in Chatham Dockyard.

Previously, Brigstock had been in the King William public house drinking and playing darts. He left at 2.15 to return to his home in Nelson Road. Then, although he was on leave, he decided to return to the ship, where he waited till Deggan had gone for a nap in the mess room.

It was a vicious attack. The head of the CPO was almost severed from his body. Afterwards, Brigstock, coolly, went to a shipmate to report what he'd done. It was almost as though he was proud of himself. "I have cut the CPO's throat," he said, handing the man the dripping razor.

Later, it emerged that the mad stoker's motive was revenge. He had been reported for three disciplinary offences by the murdered man. Apart from these issues, his record was good and he was described as "conscientious." The offences involved negligence, such as absence and drinking tea at the wrong time and place, and were said to be of a "very serious nature."

Mitigating Circumstances - Insanity and the Devil's Mate

So why did Brigstock attract the concern of the wealthy widow, Mrs. Violet Van der Elst?
The stoker had experienced a traumatic life, suffering from the death of his first wife. Insanity ran in his family, as his grandfather died in a lunatic asylum and his niece was in a mental home. His childhood was disturbed by his father's violent attacks on the family. Brigstock, too, was often violent and once tried to cut his brother's wrist with a knife.

Some of Brigstock's dreams involved his dead wife. He saw her on the side of the ship trying to get away from an enormous figure - this was the Devil's mate. When he tried to save her he was choked and beaten by the evil, black figure.

A month later at the Kent Assizes, Brigstock denied malicious and wilful murder, pleading insanity. His plea was rejected and the jury found the ship's stoker guilty. Donning his black cap, the judge pronounced the death sentence and a subsequent appeal was unsuccessful. Brigstock's last hope was a reprieve which never happened. He was tried at Maidstone on 19 February 1935 by Judge Lord Chief Justice Lord Hewart and sentenced to hang on Tuesday 2 April 1935 at Wandsworth in London.

Mrs. Van der Elst Causes a Riot

On the day of the execution at Wandsworth, there was almost a riot outside the prison. Brigstock's case had been taken up by the widow of a Belgian shaving-cream magnate, Mrs. Violet Van der Elst. The wealthy widow waged an anti-capital punishment campaign from her Kensington home, having organised a petition totalling 65,000 signatures in favour of a reprieve. She maintained Brigstock was insane; therefore he should not hang.

Mrs. Van der Elst was unsuccessful and Brigstock was executed despite the widow's protests that an innocent man was to be hanged. There was a fairground atmosphere on the day of the execution. Planes zoomed overhead trailing banners STOP THE DEATH SENTENCE, while women prayed and men trundled around with sandwich boards saying STOP CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. Excited crowds milled outside the prison gates reading leaflets against capital punishment. Someone shouted, "England is about to commit another murder in cold blood."

The hangman was Robert Baxter assisted by Robert Watson, who ensured that the trap dropped beneath Leonard Brigstock at 9.00am that April morning. His death was reported as being instantaneous. At least, in some respects, society was beginning to become more enlightened about punishment and compassion since the darker days of Georgian and Victorian Britain.

Sources:

Adapted from Medway Murder & Crime, Janet Cameron, Tempus Publishing, 2008.
On the Gallows, Violet Van de Elst, Doge Press, 1937
http://www.medwaymemories.co.uk/murder_on_the_warship.htm

Poltergeist of the Butcher's Daughter in the Marlborough Hotel

2017-03-02T10:43:00.001-08:00

Artist's Conception of a Poltergeist, 1911
Public Domain

Ghostly activity at the Marlborough Hotel in Brighton, is claimed to be so intense that it received a visit from the Paranormal Society. One of the visitors, a psychic, said she could see the apparition of a woman in a black dress and wearing jet-black beads. This was thought to be the ghost of Lucy Packham, according to a report in the Argus dated Monday 30 October 2000, which described the brutal murder of a young woman by her husband in a fit of rage.

I cannot guarantee that the ghostly apparition tale is true, although the story of Lucy Packham has a firm, historical basis.

Thomas Packham, the publican at the Marlborough Hotel, was a thug and was violent to his wife and children. On 2 March 1900, a Dr. Ross was called to the Marlborough Hotel to find Lucy Packham dead. Lucy, the daughter of a butcher, had married Packham in 1888 and the couple had three children. The cause of death was found to be serious bruising to the head and body, and, as confirmed by the post mortem, cerebral haemorrhage.

Thomas Packham was charged with murder, and witnesses gave evidence of his brutality and verbal abuse towards his wife, for example, he had once even hit her with a heavy stewpot. It was reported how he had flung her into a seven-foot-deep grave-like pit before he ended her life. The jury was composed entirely of men and, after Thomas Packham reported how "dirty and idle" his dead wife was, he was found guilty of manslaughter instead of murder. He received four years' imprisonment and reportedly served only three, a paltry punishment for his crime.

Lucy's Poltergeist Prefers Female Company

Lucy was just thirty-two (or thirty-six in some reports) and it is no wonder if the poor woman still cannot rest. Many customers claim to have felt Lucy's presence, and witnessed the activity of the poltergeist she has left behind her. The manager, Sue Kerslake, detailed these activities as playing around with lights and switching off the gas on the beer taps.

It's said that the poltergeist of Lucy also sweeps bottles off a shelf behind the bar and twirls lampshades. The landlady often has a strong feeling of being watched. "I've never seen her properly," she said, "just fleeting glimpses when I've been on my own. When I thought about it, as she was beaten to death by her husband, she probably didn't like men too much. She's more comfortable with female company. It's not scary because she isn't nasty and she's been here a lot longer than me anyway."

Sue always warns new members of staff about the haunting and, although no one has yet declined employment, most are too terrified to enter the cellar. One employee, Paula, of St. James's Street, didn't believe in ghosts until she began working at the Marlborough Hotel in 1998. "I've known Sue for a long time," she said, "and she's not the sort of person to make things up. Sometimes you do feel there's someone in the bar with you, even if you can't see anyone else in there."

Originally, the Marlborough Hotel was a coach house. It was renamed the Marlborough Hotel and Theatre in 1850 and was once owned by someone called Henry Witch, who died in 1906.

18th Century Molly Houses: Secret Rituals, Tittle-tattle and Spies

2017-02-22T07:16:00.001-08:00

Men Cross-Dressing. Image by John Collet, Public Domain

In the early part of the eighteenth century, spies were used to search out and close molly houses, which were ale houses used as meeting places for homosexuals, although it would be some time before the word "homosexual" came into common usage. "Molly" was a derogatory word to describe a homosexual man and is derived from the Latin word "mollis" meaning "soft". Formerly, this word had been used for female prostitutes. The spies were organised by Societies for the Reformation of Manners.

The molly house provided a large room, where mainly working-class men could go for sex. There was cross-dressing and some of the men adopted female names, many of them highly exotic. This effeminacy was in stark contrast to the masculine rakes of the previous century. It's claimed that, during the 1700s, about twenty molly houses were closed down.

Mock Lying-In Ceremonies

In "The Mollies Club, 1709-10", Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England - A Sourcebook, Editor Rictor Norton, - original source "Of the Mollies Club", Chapter XXV of Edward Ward's Satyrical Reflections on Clubs, first published in 1709 - Norton quotes Ward describing the ceremonies of the molly clubs. Norton emphasises that the mock lying-in ceremony, when a man pretended to be a woman giving birth, was merely a gay folk ritual and, much later in 1810, several men were arrested in the act of performing such a ritual.

"The cross-dressing and lying-in rituals that Ward describes took place at specific times, called "Festival Nights". They were almost always associated with masquerade festivals, representing some kind of survival of folk rituals."

Although the lyings-in were only held at festivals, probably around the end of December each year, the men mimicked women at all their gatherings, dressing like women, gossiping, exchanging feminine confidences and lewd talk.

Role Play in the Brandy Shop

Edward Ward tells how nine gay men were arrested at a gay man's brandy shop, used as a regular meeting place. He describes these men "who fancied themselves to be women" and "fall into all the impertinent Tittle Tattle that a merry Society of good Wives can be subject to, when they have laid aside their modesty for the Delights of the Bottle."

The men called themselves "Sisters" and for the lying-in, one would wear a night-gown to give birth, attended by a "very officious Nurse" and when the wooden "joynted Babie" was born, the midwife would dress the baby and the men would carry out the Holy Sacrament of Baptism.

Then, the men would relax into their roles, tattling about their children, their genius and their wit. One would be extolling the "Vertues of her Husband", and declare he was "a Man of that Affable, Kind and easie Temper, and so avers'd to Jealousie, that she believ'd were he to see another Man in Bed with her, he would be so far from thinking her an ill Woman..." Another would be telling what a "forward Baggage Her Daughter Nancy was." Yet another would be wishing "no Woman to Marry a Drunken Husband, for her sake, for all the Satisfaction she found in Bed with him, was to creep as close to the Wall as she could to avoid his Tobacco Breath and unsavoury Belches." And so on...

Ward concluded with his belief that this effeminate gossip was meant to extinguish the natural affection due to women. After all this, the usual activities of the molly house would resume - that is, until the Reforming Society gathered strength and managed to put an end to their "scandalous Revels".

Mother Clap's

In 1726, after a tip-off, there was a raid on Mother Clap's, a famous molly house in Holborn, London. The woman who ran it, Margaret Clap, was sentenced to the stocks.

Local people savagely assaulted the unfortunate woman while she was in the stocks and it's believed she died shortly after from her injuries, although there is no written record. What is known is that sentencing to the stocks was a most cruel punishment. People had their bare feet whipped, a practice known as bastinado, and this was excruciatingly painful due to the cluster of nerve endings in the soles of the feet. Those subjected to the stocks were often left for days in all weathers and many died from heat and exhaustion. Sometimes those who were dragged back to jail were so covered in filth as to be unrecognisable.

Men who were caught on Mother Clap's premises were hanged at Tyburn on 9 May 1726.

Sources:

Norton, Rictor, "The Mollies Club, 1709-10", Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England - A Sourcebook.

Cameron, Janet, LGBT Brighton & Hove, Amberley Publishing, 2009.

The Grand Shaft of Dover and the British Class System Military-Style

2017-02-20T06:10:00.001-08:00

The Grand Shaft of Dover bears testimony to the late great British class system, military-style.

The Grand Shaft comprises part of the seaport of Dover's Napoleonic defence system. The important seaport of Dover lies fifteen miles south-east of the City of Canterbury on the east coast of Kent. The discovery of a Bronze-Age cargo boat in 1992 dating from 1550 BC indicates that Dover has been a port for at least 3,500 years, and to our knowledge, this is the most ancient sea-going vessel ever discovered. It's on show in Dover Museum.

The Misappropriation of the Grand Shaft

The Grand Shaft links the town of Dover to its barracks on Western Heights and consists of a 140 foot triple staircase, built between 1806 and 1809. The three staircases were spiral and made of red brick. They provided a shortcut for troops to the harbour in case of invasion, and also ensured a speedy retreat for troops from Dover Harbour, in case of attack. The moats, ditches and forts were mainly used during Napoleonic times when the threat of invasion was most feared.

The designated uses of the staircases appears to demonstrate the old class prejudices:

· Officers and their Ladies

· Sergeants and their Wives

· Soldiers and their Women

Work on the Western Heights began in the 1770s and then, with the threat of Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon 1) it became urgent. Later, in the middle of the nineteenth century, Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon III) gave Britain good reason for further improvements.

Although invasion never came, the shaft was put to regular use by the soldiers to reach the rowdy pubs and seedy brothels down below in Snargate Street and the pier district.

Sources:

· The Port of Dover

· www.dover-kent.co.uk accessed 12 June, 2006

· Dover, Margate and Birchington Libraries

William Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury: a Blot on the Biblical Landscape

2017-02-15T08:12:00.000-08:00

A disgraceful exhibition of bad behaviour happened at Guildhall Street in the City of Canterbury in 1832 - and the cause of the uproar? It was none other than William Howley, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. gentleman had been invited to a grand dinner with the Corporation members, but, unfortunately for them, William Howley had other ideas.

In any case, the local people were furious with the Archbishop because he had refused to be enthroned at Canterbury a few years earlier. He preferred to hang out at his two other homes, Lambeth Palace, and his country residence, Addington Park, near Croydon in Surrey. So he was not too keen on dragging himself away to dine with a bunch of boring Corporation people either, least of all to be a captive audience to all their tiresome complaints.

The cunning Archbishop got out of the commitment by sending a proxy, but this only caused further aggravation since it deprived his subjects of a fine, rowdy party. Some of them wrote angry letters to the local rag, the Gazette. But that wasn't enough revenge for the disappointed inhabitants of Canterbury. Soon, a mob began to gather outside the Guildhall and, as soon as the Archbishop arrived, they pelted him with stones and lumps of mud, yelling abuse and blasphemy. The frightened Archibishop leapt from his carriage and rushed inside the Guildhall.

This unhappy event was recorded as the Archbishop's first visit to the Guildhall - maybe also his last.

More Trouble at the Guildhall

The fate of the medieval Guildhall attracted a lot of controversy, but it was demolished around 1950 on the grounds that it was unsafe. The authorities decided, at the time, that it would be too expensive to renovate the building. Unfortunately, the demolition was carried out some time after it had infected its neighbour, Curry's, a large retailer of electrical equipement, with death-watch beetle. The 7mm long woodboring beetle is known for making tapping noises in the rafters of old buildings in order to attract a mate. So it hadn't taken long before there were enough death-watch beetles to give Curry's a severe headache.

The street where the medieval Guildhall was located is now named Guildhall Street. The original Guildhall was built in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century and was known as the Church of the Holy Cross.

Sources:

· Adapted from: Cameron, Janet, Canterbury Streets, Tempus Publishing, 2004.

· Canterbury Heritage Museum.

· The Beaney Institute

The Female Mandela of Burma - Aung San Suu Kyi

2017-02-14T11:08:00.000-08:00

Aung San Suu Kyi, Wikimedia Commons

An outstanding example of the power of the powerless, said her supporters. Aung San Suu Kyi was also known as The Steel Orchid or The Star of Burma

Aung San Suu Kyi was only two years old when her father, General Aung San, was assassinated in July, 1947, just six months before Burma gained independence from UK rule. In 1960, she went to India with her mother, Daw Khin Kyi, who was the British ambassador to Delhi, and four years later she travelled to the United Kingdom to study philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University. Here she met her husband, an academic, Michael Aris.

Pro-Democracy Protests by Students

The couple settled down to raise their two young sons in England, but then, in 1988, Suu Kyi received news that her mother was dying, and so she returned to Rangoon to be with her. This was a time of severe political unrest and there was a revolt among students and office-workers against the harsh military regime's dictator General Ne Win. Ms Suu Kyi was traumatised as she sat with her mother in the hospital by the constant movement of stretchers transporting badly-bleeding and wounded people. TV news footage at that time shows fierce, relentless fighting in the streets, so brutal that it is difficult to watch.

Negotiating with the Junta

As the daughter of a national hero, Suu Kyi was invited to lead the National League for Democracy. A film about her life depicted her reading a biography of Gandhi, an early indication that her entire philosophy was one of non-aggression and of devotion to Buddhist principles and concepts. This is a stance she has upheld consistently whatever the provocation. She became, according to the BBC, an "international symbol of peaceful resistance in the face of oppression." Suu Kyi handled her campaign with poise, intelligence and dignity; nevertheless, while she was speaking to the people, the military were removing them as fast as they could, and taking them away in trucks to be interrogated or tortured.

Victory - then a Cruel Blow

Her election victory in 1991 was swiftly quashed by the Junta but she had already been placed under house arrest. This was a difficult time, a painful time that she filled with study and exercise. At the ceremony on 10 December 1991, where his mother was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while still under house arrest, her son Alexander Aris spoke of her struggle against oppression in the face of terrible odds: “We must also remember that the lonely struggle taking place in a heavily guarded compound in Rangoon is part of the much larger struggle, worldwide, for the emancipation of the human spirit from political tyranny and psychological subjection.”

From 1989 to November, 2010, a period of twenty-one years, Suu Kyi spent fifteen years under house arrest. At one point, all of her colleagues were arrested and Suu Kyi went on hunger strike to try to persuade the authorities to treat them well. Michael acted as negotiator to try to achieve an uneasy agreement with the Burmese military, and he subsequently managed to convince his wife to take some nourishment, since she only had a day or two left to live.

Death of Michael Aris

Michael's visit to Suu Kyi at Christmas, 1995 was the last time the couple ever met. Sometime later, in 1998, Michael discovered he was suffering from prostate cancer and had little time to live. He was unable to obtain a visa to visit to be with his wife one last time, and gradually his health deteriorated, while Suu Kyi agonised because she could not risk leaving Burma to be with him. She knew the military would never allow her to return, and there was still too much work to be done. To her great anguish and sorrow, Michael died without her, in a hospice, on his 53rd birthday on 27 March 1999.

A Beautiful and Terrible Film about Suu Kyi's Struggle - The Lady

The personal struggles of Ms. Suu Kyi and her devoted husband and sons were beautifully documented in the film The Lady. The film was produced and directed by Luc Besson, and the screenplay was by Rebecca Frayn. Michelle Yeoh played Ms. Suu Kyi opposite David Thewlis as husband, Michael Aris. Jonathan Woodhouse and Jonathan Raggett played sons Alexander and Kim. The film showed how, for the sake of the people, Suu Kyi sacrificed her own and her family's personal happiness, but always with their brave and generous co-operation and encouragement.

Honouring a Great Lady

In 2007, the Government of Canada made Ms. Suu Kyi an Honorary Citizen, and she has the distinction of being one person out of only five to receive that honour.

Ms. Suu Kyi's life and work has also been used in the U.K. to inspire the Brighton Festival, 2011, while the winner herself has been granted the Freedom of the City of Brighton and Hove, an accolade which, according to the article in the Argus, has delighted her. Council Leader Mary Mears said: "This is something that is given very rarely as it is one of the highest honours any city can give to somebody. For the Festival to have her as director is amazing."

Power that Corrupts

Although Suu Kyi is now General Secretary of the National League for Democracy, Burma's government remains one of the most oppressive and cruel regimes in the world where torture, rape and corruption continue to rage throughout the country. "It is not power that corrupts but fear," said Suu Kyi in one of her speeches. "Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."

Sources:

· http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11685977 Accessed 28 February 2012.

· The Lady (film) Duke of York Picturehouse, Brighton, UK. Film viewed 28 February 2012.

· http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/toronto-film-review-lady-234193Accessed 28 Febuary 2012.

· "Aung San Suu Kyi granted freedom of Brighton and Hove" The Argus, 9 May 2011. Accessed 28 February 2012.

A Poor Reward for Goodness

2017-02-13T13:19:00.001-08:00

Photo Copyright Janet Cameron

A Rochester legend about a good Christian suggests that he did not get what he deserved for his kindness. Instead he was murdered for no reason - and then something magical happened.

William of Perth, sometimes designated William of Rochester, is the patron saint of adopted children. He was born in Perth in the twelfth century and died at Rochester in Kent after having his throat cut in 1201, an act which had strange consequences. William was, allegedly, a bad lot during his early years, but in young adulthood he reformed and converted to Christianity. He committed himself to God, attended mass daily and cared for unfortunate and neglected children. Working as a baker, he gave every tenth loaf to the poor.

One day, while walking to church, William found a small, abandoned child on the threshold and decided to adopt him and instruct him in the art of baking. William named the child David.

Williams's Kindness Brings Murder and a Miracle

Many years later, on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, William and David quarrelled just as they reached Rochester. We don't know what the quarrel was about, only that David, always a hot-headed youth, got mad. Unexpectedly, David turned on his kindly rescuer and patron, clubbed him, slit his throat and then robbed him before fleeing for his life.

A passing woman, who happened to suffer from madness, discovered the body. She was moved to pity and made a necklace of honeysuckle flowers which she placed on the dead Christian's body. Then she put the garland on herself and something very strange and magical happened - her insanity was instantly lifted from her. Some people said it was a miracle.

It was enough to impress some monks, who decided William's final resting place should be within the Cathedral. A shrine in the form of a tomb and chapel became a focus for pilgrims and its remains can still be seen near St. William's Hospital, although, unfortunately, William's relics were destroyed with the Cathedral in 1538 during Henry VIII's reign of terror.

William was canonised in 1256 by Pope Innocent IV, at the suggestion of the Bishop of Rochester, Lawrence de San Martino.

Sources:

· Hawkings, David T. Criminal Ancestor (1992) Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd.

· Lane, Brian, The Murder Club (1988) Harrap Ltd.

· MacDougall, Philip, Murder in Kent (1989) Robert Hale

A Brief Introduction to the Evolution of Washing

2017-02-13T11:34:00.005-08:00

Early 13th Century Bathing. Public Domain

Prehistoric man had only water for keeping himself clean, obtained from rivers and streams.

In Roman times, both bathing and clothes-washing were beginning to evolve and develop.

There is a legend about how soap was first produced.  It’s claimed that Sapo Hill in Rome was a site for animal sacrifice, and rain washed the animal fat (tallow) and ash down the hill and into the river, soaking into the clay.  The women began washing their clothes using this clay and found it worked.

It is claimed the Chinese were the first to use hot metal to iron their clothes.  One thousand years ago, it is said, they filled pans with hot coals to make rudimentary irons.  In the past, irons were also known as a ‘goose’ or ‘tailor’s goose’ and in Scotland they were known as ‘gusing irons.’

An Italian town, Savona, manufactured large quantities of soap in the ninth century, and as a result, the French word for soap is ‘savon.’

During the Middle Ages, clothes were washed and beaten in a wooden tub, or sometimes trampled on, then the dirty water was released through a hole in the bottom.

The scrub board, or wash board was invented in 1797. In 1851, James King patented the first machine with a drum in 1851 but it was powered by hand. In 1858, Hamilton Smith patented the rotary washing machine.

So although doing the laundry in the early nineteen hundreds may seem rudimentary to us today, hygiene technology had made considerable progress.

Read more...
Bagwash and Reckitt's Blue - When Washing Day was a Monday

Bagwash and Reckitt's Blue - When Washing Day was a Monday

2017-02-13T02:50:00.005-08:00

Photo Copyright: Janet Cameron

Many older people still remember the weekly bagwash during the 1940s and 50s, when a housewife would leave out a bag of dirty washing for the laundry to collect. It would be delivered back to her door, duly washed and rinsed, but sopping wet, for her to mangle, dry and iron.

‘It was before most houses had a washing machine,’ explains Stan Dyson, who now lives in Newhaven in East Sussex, but grew up in London’s Docklands. Stan remembers his mother stuffing all those clothes, mixed whites and coloured, into those large, white canvas-type bags.

‘In our area it was collected by either the Sussex Laundry or, I believe, the Co-op, and it was returned the following week. On the odd occasion I had to run after the lorry as it went down our streets because they had delivered someone else’s laundry and Mum used to go absolutely potty when she was short of an item, or had someone else’s piece of laundry mixed up in hers – I wonder if someone just did that on purpose?’

If a housewife couldn’t afford the bagwash she’d put the dirty washing into the old copper boiler in the scullery, using either soap flakes or a huge bar of Fairy Household soap. She also used soda crystals and maybe Dolly Blues or Reckitt’s Blue. The latter were a kind of blue dye which brightened and made off-colour whites appear whiter, working on the same principle as ‘blue rinses’ for ladies, also popular in the middle of the century.

‘We used to curse Mum when she ironed the clothes especially if we were trying to read our comics,’ said Bob M. ‘We had a 3–way adaptor on our light, one was used for the bulb, another for the wireless and the third one to plug in the iron. It was when she did the ironing the light would swing all over the place and cast shadows. She used the Morrison indoor shelter as her ironing board.’

In some cases, though, the laundry wasn’t collected and returned and one of the children would be have to take and fetch it back. Some housewives used a bolster case and it was not a pleasant job for a child of eight or nine, lugging home a heavy bag of wet washing. Children were also expected to help their mothers turn the heavy handle on the mangle while she fed the sheets through the rollers.

Sylvia Kent of Billericay in Essex explains how, with seven children to wash for, her mother had to rise at the crack of dawn on a Monday morning to fire up the old copper in the kitchen. ‘The food had to be easy, so easy that day, so many people had something that would go into the oven, say a stew or rice pudding that didn’t need too much attention.’

My own mother’s washing machine, during the forties and fifties, was a basic affair although I can’t remember its make. She had to fill it up with water by using saucepans and then turn on the heat, finally pounding the submerged dirty linen with a sturdy wooden paddle to agitate it. Then the water had to be drained away and the machine would be refilled for the rinses. Mum was thorough, she always did at least three rinses. But first, my bricklayer grandfather’s detachable working-shirt collars had to be attacked with soap and a scrubbing brush using a corrugated washboard over the sink before being tossed into the machine.

One of my most vivid memories was of the old Acme mangle that reared up behind my mother’s washing machine, a source of great anxiety for me. I could imagine that my fingers might become trapped and then my whole body would slowly be squeezed between the rollers, flattening out like a sheet.

To dry her washing, my mother had a rope line slung between the back of the house and a tall pole, which she could let down and wind up via a pulley. Wooden pegs, simply constructed of two curved pieces of wood joined by wire, secured the clothes. Sometimes the line would break due to a worn rope or strong winds, and a whole line of clean washing would descend into the mud of the backyard and Mum would, understandably, be in a ‘mood’ as the whole complicated process had to begin again.

It’s strange to think that in the United States housewives were actually using the first electric washing machine, with its motorised agitator as early as 1908. By 1920 American housewives who could afford it could purchase a machine with a horizontal cylinder. Technologically-speaking, we in Britain were lagging behind.

As a young wife and mother in the sixties, I also had a rope line, preferring it to the new rotaries. I’d get it up as high as possible by using a forked wooden pole to hoist up the heavy load. I had better pegs than Mum, still wooden but with the spring action we’re familiar with today. However, I was luckier than my mother as I did have an automatic washing machine. The first top-loading automatic washing machines in Europe, swiftly followed by the first computer-controlled machines, were produced in the late forties and early fifties by Upton Machine Co whose name was later changed to Whirlpool.

If it was raining, clothes were dried indoors, sometimes on a ‘clothes horse’ or ‘clothes maiden’, a simple wooden rack which opened out from two central vertical poles joined by hinges. The term ‘clothes horse’ came into use in the 1800s and, of course, the evolution of language has now designated the term to describe a supermodel. Sylvia Kent remembers the trouble her mother had, drying clothes for seven children. ‘It all had to be hung on an overhead dryer, what a business! The whole event seems terrible in retrospect, but I think all working-class people like us did this.’

For some people, it wasn’t so hard though. Sylvia also tells the story of a lady who was asked about how she managed with her washing as a young housewife. ‘Oh, I know nothing of this,’ she said airily. ‘Dorothy the maid did it all – I think it was on Monday.

Read more:
A Brief Introduction to the Evolution of Washing

A Scandalous British Marriage that Shocked the Nation to the Core

2017-02-11T07:48:00.004-08:00

The Grand Hotel Brighton, Public Domain

A marriage proposal addressed to a young woman - by another woman posing as a man dressed as a woman. A marriage that profaned the House of God and outraged the decency of nature.

At the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the 1920s, Lilias Irma Valerie Arkell-Smith lived as "Colonel Victor Barker" along with her lover Alfrida Haward. Mrs. Arkell-Smith dressed and behaved like a man and was active in the Fascist party. She and Alfrida were married as man and woman, but the deception was exposed in 1929.

At the time, Mrs. Arkell Smith was thirty-three years old and, by then, notorious as the woman who, for several years, lived as a man, Colonel Victor Barker. When charged with perjury, she appeared before the recorder on the same morning as the report appeared in the newspaper. The case scandalised and titillated the general public and a crowd, most fashionably-dressed women, gathered, seeking entry to the public gallery. When the crowd was admitted to the court, there was a scramble for places and the gallery was full by 9.45am.

The Defendant Makes an Entrance

All eyes were riveted towards the door to the dock as Mrs. Arkell-Smith arrived. The newspaper report described her as: "A tall, upstanding figure, with her complexion deeply bronzed, she wore a red coat over a light grey costume and a felt hat was pulled down over her close-cropped hair. In the buttonhole of her coat was a bright red rose."

The charges were read out to her, the first charged her with committing perjury in an affidavit sworn on 29 June 1928 in an action in the King's Bench Division, and the second was for making a false statement in the marriage register on 14 November 1923.

"I plead not guilty to the first charge and guilty to the second," she replied.

Prosecutor, Mr. Percival Clarke said that in some respects the charge on which she pleaded guilty was the more serious. Mr. Clarke then set out the details to the court, saying that in 1922, Mrs. Arkell-Smith was passing as Mrs. Pearce Crouch. She was originally the wife of an Australian soldier and had married him in April 1918 in the county of Surrey, but they only lived together for six months. By the end of the war, Mrs. Arkell-Smith was running a teashop with a woman friend in Warminster, Wiltshire, where she met Australian soldier, Pearce Crouch. The couple lived together as man and wife; she took his name and had a son and daughter by him. At the time of the trial her children were nine and seven years old.

The Deception of Alfrida Haward

In 1923, Mrs. Arkell-Smith patronised a chemist's shop belonging to a Mr. Haward at Littlehampton, and although still using her husband's name, she dressed as a landgirl in riding breeches, open-necked shirt and coat. She lied to Alfrida, Mr. Haward's daughter, saying she was really Sir Victor Barker, Bart, and explained her father had died some years previously.

Her unlikely story was that her mother wished she should dress as a woman, but apparently Alfrida believed it. Then Mrs. Arkell-Smith proposed marriage to Alfrida, and the illegal ceremony took place in the parish church of Brighton on 14 November, where she entered the false details in the marriage register.

The Masculine Masquerade

Mr. Clarke set out before the court the deceptions used by the defendant. She claimed to have been a captain in the army and a member of the Distinguished Service Order. The name, rank and title enabled her to secure credit for clothing and, in May 1926, one of the firms to which she was indebted by about £40 brought an action against her, but the action was never pursued.

The recorder asked if the women were living together as man and wife from 1923 for around four years, and Mr. Clarke confirmed this. He mentioned that, at the beginning of 1927, Captain Victor Barker, DSO, joined the National Fascist Movement and was appointed secretary to one of the principals. A summons in 1927 for an offence against the Firearms Act led to Colonel Barker's prosecution, but eventually, the "Colonel" was acquitted. This was aided by the appearance in court of Colonel Victor Barker with his eyes bandaged while being led into the dock by a friend. The court was told that the Colonel had previously suffered temporary blindness from war wounds and the strain of the court case had brought on the trouble again.

At the recorder's amazed response to this account, Mr. Clarke said, "Not a soul in court - and I think I prosecuted her on that occasion - was aware it was other than a man in the dock."

Serious Debt Leads to Bankruptscy - and Worse

Mr. Clarke explained how, in 1938, a widow, Maud Roper Johnson, brought an action against Colonel Victor Barker in the sum of around £300. The prisoner swore an affidavit as Leslie Ivor Gauntlett Bligh Barker, colonel in His Majesty's Army, retired. The paper quoted the following affidavit.

"I have had experience in the time I was in cavalry I acted as a messing officer to various messes to which I was attached, for about eighteen months."

A Surprise for the Prison Doctor!

A bankruptcy order was made against Victor Barker on 13 October 1928. The "Colonel" did not put in an appearance, so tipstaffs were issued with a warrant for his arrest, which was carried out on 28 February 1929 at the Regent Palace Hotel. The tipstaffs found the defendant in masculine dress at a reception desk and conveyed him to Brixton Prison.

During a routine medical examination, the surprised doctor discovered that Colonel Victor Barker was a woman, and she was transferred to a different prison. She swore another affidavit now describing herself as Lillias Irma Valerie Arkell-Smithg, known as Leslie Ivor Gauntlett Bligh Barker, married woman. The exposure of her lies, said Mr. Clark, showed that the defendant had "a total disregard for truth or the sanctity of an oath." He was shocked she had chosen to perpetrate her deception by abusing the sanctity of the church, rather than using a register office for the marriage, and that the marriage was by license.

"You will realise how important it is that marriage registered should not be falsified."

The recorder commented that the maximum penalty for Mrs. Arkell-Smith's crime was seven years imprisonment.

D.I. Walter Burnby Explains the Transition from Woman to Man

The Detective Inspector summarised Mrs. Arkell-Smith's life. She was born on 27 August 1905 in Jersey of parents who were respected. She arrived with them, in England, in 1912 and went to a convent in Brussels for two year. At the outbreak of war, she was employed in various ways, and all of these occupations were undertaken as a woman.

The detective inspector then confirmed her family details, finally adding that she and Pearce Crouch were estranged in 1923, having lived together for about four years. After this, she met Miss Haward, and it was at this time she began passing herself as a man, and continued to do so until her arrest.

"I Must Hear Something of this Travesty of Marriage!"

There was some confusion between Mr. Clarke and D.I. Burnby about the marriage, although the question was not published in the Argus article. The recorder said, of Burnby's uncertain response: "The witness must not be as vague as that. If there is anything that ought to be said, let me see it in writing. I do not want anything prurient to stand in Court. Perhaps I can get it from Miss Haward." Mr. Clarke insisted he did not want to call Miss Haward.

Then the defence said, "I object to its being given in writing in this way." The recorder responded that he must learn something about "this travesty of marriage." The witness was examined, establishing that Mrs. Arkell-Smith had only one charge made against her in her life, of which she was acquitted. She had been consistently employed, had supported her children, including paying for her son to go to a good school. She was a genuinely hardworking mother-of-two."

As far as the bankruptcy charge was concerned, Mrs. Arkell-Smith said she never got it.

Alfrida Haward's Evidence

Alfrida Haward was called and the paper's reporter described her as follow: "A rather slight woman dressed in brown with a brown fur and hat to match, she appeared nervous as she entered the witness box." Mrs. Arkell-Smith hung down her head and avoided eye contact with Alfrida Haward. The recorder advised Alfrida not to be nervous.

Alfrida confirmed she had lived with Mrs. Arkell-Smith for about three years. When shown a blue-pencilled passage from a typewritten document by Mr. Clarke for the prosecution, she was asked if it was true.

"No," said Miss Haward, then adding that she didn't understand. "It was true and it was not true," she said.

Sir Henry, for the defence, then asked her if she thought it was true when the incident happened and she agreed that she did. She also agreed that she knew Mrs. Arkell-Smith as Mrs. Pearce Crouch when she first met her. "Did you understand the two children were hers," asked Sir Henry. Alfrida replied that she thought the boy was, but not the girl.

To Sir Henry's questions about Mrs. Arkell-Smith's appearance, when she first knew her, Miss Haward replied that her hair was cropped, but she couldn't remember whether it was long at first and subsequently cropped. Miss Haward confirmed that she believed Mrs. Arkell-Smith to be a woman at that time, which was around the beginning of 1923.

She also told Sir Henry that Mr. Pearce Crouch treated Mrs. Arkell-Smith very badly, including in her own presence. Arkell-Smith/Colonel Barker complained to Alfrida Haward that her husband consistently knocked her about and, in June 1922, she escaped from him and turned up at Miss Haward's flat.

Afrida Haward remembered the defendant checked in to a Brighton Hotel as Mr. Victor Barker in October 1923 and Miss Haward joined her there the next day, where she remained with the defendant up to the date of the marriage, sleeping in the same room, and bed. At this point, Miss Haward appeared faint and was offered a seat. She described how her parents, newly returned from their holiday, were told of her situation. Her father, believing Mrs. Arkell-Smith to be a man, insisted that, under the circumstances, they must be married.

Repeating again the question about her gender, and receiving the same answers, the recorder asked how the children were explained away. "He told me the boy was by another woman and the girl was Pearce Crouch's," explained Miss Haward. At the next question, she asserted that she did not discover Mrs. Arkell-Smith's gender until she saw it in the papers.

"Were you sleeping in the same room?" asked the recorder.

"Yes," said Miss Haward.

"You never knew from first to last?"

"Never, after she told me she was a man," replied Miss Haward and then added, "She left me some years ago for another woman." When asked how Colonel Barker kept up the deception, Miss Haward said, "I don't know." She said everything appeared perfectly normal and he appeared to behave as a husband would to a wife.

"After the form of marriage," asked Sir Henry, "did you always occupy the same bed?"

"Not always."

That was the end of Miss Haward's questioning and she was allowed to walk slowly to the back of the court to her seat.

The Greatest Punishment - Please for the Defence

Sir Henry Curtis Bennett began his speech for the defence, pointing out that in a case of this kind, the court would be surrounded with prejudice, but it should be dealt with on its merits alone, and he asked the court to put "those matters" out of their minds.

"One of the greatest punishments the defendant has already been made to suffer is that members of the public come to gaze at her wherever she moves. At the police court, she had to be got away in secret ways. Wherever she goes when she is out of doors, she is followed about. Today, even some people are taking an interest for sorry reasons in her having to stand in the dock. That is a very serious punishment for any man or woman."

Summing up for the Defence

Sir Henry said the defendant was a hard-working woman up to 1923, when she changed her sex to the outside world from woman to man. At nineteen she joined the Red Cross and was employed in Haslemere, Surrey. At the beginning of 1915, she went to France and drove ambulances right up to just behind the lines for twelve months. Early in 1916, she returned to this country as her nerve had broken. From summer 1916 to March 1917, she was head lad - although known as a woman - to the Shropshire Hunt. In Autumn 1917, she went to the Military Remount Depot in Bristol and there she dressed as a male, in fact, as a land-girl. (sic)

She was engaged in looking after and breaking in horses, and, in 1918, she met Mr. Arkell-Smith, whom she married in April, aged twenty-three. But the marriage was doomed from the beginning due to her husband's heavy drinking and his ill-treatment of her. It was so bad, she left him after only six weeks. During the marriage, she only ever received £25 from her husband, and had received no allowance from him since his return to Australia. Subsequently, serving as a driver for a mess officers, her duties included ordering for the mess herself.

After the war, at Westminster, she met Pearce Clarke, and after six months they began to live together. Pearce Clark was demobilised in April 1919, and went to work in Paris. Their son was born in February 1920.

The last thing the defendant wanted was to get married at all. Miss Haward was then twenty-seven and Sir Henry suggested that it was idle to suggest that Miss Haward did not know perfectly well she was living with a woman. But her father naturally believed the defendant was a man, and it was as a result of his insistence on the marriage that the defendant was placed in that position for so many years. "Today, she was going through the greatest ordeal of her life," he added.

The recorder said it was a case of unprecedented and peculiar characters. He need time before passing sentence, so the verdict was postponed until the following day.

Sentence is Passed

On 25 April, the Argus reported that "Colonel Barker" had been sentenced to nine months imprisonment in the Second Division. Again, the public gallery was full, although the paper reported "fewer fashionably dressed ladies." Mrs. Arkell-Smith, however, had now emphasised her masculine appearance. She was allowed to sit while sentence was passed. "You have had the advantage of being defended by one of the most able and eminent advocates at the Bar, Sir Henry Curtis Bennett," began the recorder. "He has made what I may describe as a masterly defence on your behalf."

Then the recorder voiced his rejection of the argument which, he said, might be relevant in a case of bigamy, but was irrelevant in a charge of perjury. He said Mrs. Arkell-Smith's situation was described as though she was on the "horns of a dilemma" because, having lived together with Miss Haward, she was forced to agree to the marriage due to Mr. Haward's insistence.

"In my judgement, you were on no such horns. You had merely to show that you were a woman. I cannot see how it could have put you in any difficulty. It may have disturbed your pride, but it was no such dilemma as it would have been, had you been a man."

The recorder continued that he was impressed by Miss Haward and her assertion she had believed the defendant was a man, and also believed the explanation about the children. Even so, disregarding the truth or falsity of Miss Haward's evidence, he said that in considering the case, he felt Miss Haward must have known the defendant was a woman even before the illegal marriage. He would, however, mitigate the sentence because of the morbid interest the case had aroused, which was part of the punishment for the defendant's "perverted conduct".

Scathing Remarks

Describing the defendant as an unprincipled, mendacious and unscrupulous adventuress, he added, "You have, in the case before me, profaned the House of God, outraged the decency of nature and broken the laws of man. You have falsified the marriage register and set an evil example which, were you to go unpunished, others might follow."

The maximum sentence to be imposed was seven years penal servitude, but using all leniency he could, the recorder passed sentence of nine months in prison in the Second Division. The newspaper report said the accused was unmoved by the sentence, rose to her feet, bowed to the recorder and was escorted by a warder to the cells below.

"At one point only did Mrs. Arkell-Smith display any emotion. This was during the scathing remarks of the recorder. The defendant had shrunk into her chair and lowered her eyes to the ground. She was in tears, but she pulled herself together, gradually regaining her former calm."

The couple had been married at St. Peter's, Brighton's Parish Church and they had honeymooned at the Grand Hotel.

Sources:

· Newspapers as mentioned in the text.

· Cameron, Janet, LGBT Brighton and Hove, Amberley Publishing, 2009.

Charles Darwin, Scorned and Derided for Being Right

2017-02-01T02:24:00.002-08:00

Downe House, Copyright Janet Cameron

Brief, anecdotal insights into an immortal of science - an out-and-out atheist who was also a good human being. Darwin showed us our origins but was scorned and derided in return.

Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury on 12 February 1809, son of a 24 stone, six foot tall doctor, acknowledged by his son "the kindest man I ever knew." His mother died when he was eight years old and he was deeply affected by her death.

The botanist, J.S. Henslow, an academic friend of Charles Darwin, was instrumental in obtaining for him the post of naturalist (unpaid) on board the Beagle, which set sail on 27 Decemer 1831. Darwin was to travel the world for the next five years.

The Christian and the Atheist

Captain Robert Fitzroy, illegitimate descendant of Charles II, was a devout Christian with a filthy temper, which was at its worst early morning. Fitzroy held grudges, was suspicious, quick to blame and slow to forgive. As a result Charles Darwin quarrelled fiercely with him, in particular about slavery. According to Darwin, Fitzroy "defended and praised slavery which I abominated." The arguments were so intense that, for a while, Darwin thought he might have to abandon ship. There seems to be a deep irony in the "Christian" man championing slavery, while Darwin, the atheist, abhorred it.

The Good Ugly House

In 1839, Darwin was married to his sweetheart, Emma - there was no honeymoon, he was too busy. Some time later, he bought Down House, Downe, just nineteen miles from London in the rolling North Downs. Here he could read and study in the home he called "a good, very ugly house." There was no running hot water or bathroom, but there was the special Sand Walk at the rear of the house, where Darwin could stroll and think. It's a strange feeling to walk in the great man's footsteps. Some of the staff who now take care of the house swear they have seen Darwin's ghost still traversing the Sand Walk, but the author looked as hard as she could for the old gentleman with the white beard and black cape, but without success!

Darwin wrote his Origin of Species here in 1859.

Darwin and Darwinism - Only Time will Tell

A musical comedy on Darwin and Darwinism, Time Will Tell, was composed and performed by university staff at the Univerity of Chicago. The final song, rendered by clergy, dons and undergraduates, went as follows:

"A hundred years hence / Will Darwin make sense / To the likes of us / Who are on the fence? / Will a century make a difference? / Only time will tell.

Unscrupulous Critics

Today, we know that we are, in fact, apes, that other apes are our cousins, not our ancestors, and that we and they are descended from a common ancestor. But Darwin was cruelly and unjustifiably demeaned and made fun of by those who claimed that he'd suggested man was descended from an ape. Darwin made no such suggestion.

Darwin's most insistent opponent was scientist Richard Owen, an anatomist and palaeontologist. Jealous of Darwin's success, he wrote a complex and deeply hostile review of The Origin of Species, and even Darwin had to admit it was both malignant and clever. It was also cowardly, as Owen published it anonymously.

One clergyman described Darwin as "The most dangerous man in England."

Body Language

Darwin was familiar with body language whether human or animal. He noted how emotional states like puzzlement are displaced by other actions, such as the scratching of heads. The same thing happens with animals, who indulge in "half-hearted preening." These reactions are a consequence of conflict situations, like display, competition for a mate, hostility, etc.

Bob, Darwin's dog, also provided him with material for the observation of animal behaviour and emotion. (An illustration of Bob indicates he might have been a collie.)

Carnivorous Plants

On holiday in Sussex in 1860, Darwin was fascinated to find a number of insects trapped in the leaves of the common bog plant known as the sundew. Thirty one little bodies caught by twelve plants. This set him off experimenting on other carnivorous plants. Any small object that came into contact with the sticky end of a carnivorous plant's tenatacles stimlated all the other tentacles to bend, and then close toward the centre of the leaf. They would emit a digestive juice to digest their prey.

Darwin found this operation was extremely sensitive and could even be set off by a fragment of a woman's hair.

No Pseudo-Copulation in Victorian Society

Darwin discovered that some trees are of one sex only, and that each individual tree bore either male flowers or female flowers. One reproductive situation that bewildered him was the lack of nectar in some orchids. Only recently it has been proved that the orchids are pollinated by "pseudo copulation", ie. male insects visit and mistake the strangely-formed flowers for female insects. In their ineffective attempts to mate with these false female flowers, the males are coated with pollen, which they then carry away to fertilise other flowers. It seems Darwin was unaware of this - it certainly would have caused an uproar in Victorian society and made the unfortunate Darwin even less popular than he already was.

The Importance of Worms

On 1 May 1881, Charles Darwin wrote that he had sent off the manuscript of a little book called The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms. He said, "This is a subject of but small importance and, and I know not whether it will interest any readers."

This so-called "unimportant" little book sold 8,500 copies in three years, and has since been reprinted.

An Astonishing Man

Charles Darwin's heart began to give trouble in the winter of 1881-82, and on his seventy-third birthday, 19 April, he died of a heart attack. Between the publication of his earthworm book and his death, a period of around six months, he produced the following, very diverse papers:

cuckoo-like brood parasitism of cowbirds.
the action of ammonium carbonate on plants.
the disperal of freshwater bivalve molluscs.
the effects of sexual selection on Syrian street-dogs.

Charles Darwin now lies in Westminster Abbey, side-by-side with Sir Isaac Newton, another great English scientist.

In summary, it cannot be said better than by Julian Huxley and H.B.D. Kettlewell: "What strikes one most forcibly about Darwin as a man is his passion for truth, his devotion to his self-appointed task, his extraordinary modesty, his hatred of cruelty and injustice, and his essential goodness."

The scorn and ingratitude with which Charles Darwin was treated is a matter of great shame in English history.

Sources:

Huxley, Julian and Kettlewell, H.B.D. Charles Darwin and his World, Book Club Associates with Thames and Hudson Ltd. 1965.
Partly adapted from: Cameron, Janet, Haunted Kent, The History Press, Reprinted 2011, formerly published by Tempus Publishing, 2005.
Philippa Coulthard, trainee gardener, Downe House, September, 2003.

Evolution: When Our World Changes, We Too Must Change and Adapt

2017-01-31T03:19:00.001-08:00

The only life on our planet around 3.5 billion years ago was bacteria. 600 million years ago, animals appeared and began to evolve. Then, we humans arrived a mere 200,000 years ago. In the overall timescale, we have only just, this very minute, emerged into existence. The big question, for Dr. Alice Roberts of Horizon, is: "Have we continued to evolve?

Evolution, we now know, is responsible for the great diversity of life forms on our planet. Dr. Roberts travelled to Devon, where she learned about a very special kind of earthworm that had evolved and flourished in spite of the arsenic-poisoned earth around an abandoned copper mine. This earthworm looks fairly ordinary, maybe a little paler at one end than your common-garden type worm. But this little creature is far from ordinary: it is a brand new species.

Worms from our gardens, transported to the location of the old Devon copper mine, would die of arsenic poisoning, and so the genetic differences between the two worms are immense... "they are more different to ordinary earthworms than we are to mice," a scientist told Dr. Roberts, although Tim Dowling, who reviewed the programme for The Guardian, was understandably cynical, saying, "I believed him at the time, but now I've written it down it looks silly."

Yet, the fact remains, the worms have, in 170 years, evolved by adapting to such high levels of arsenic poisoning that they are now a distinct species.

From African Beginnings to a Victorian Cemetery

60,000 years ago, humans began spreading out from Africa and over the planet. We began to use clothes and fires for protection, and we fashioned tools to make our lives safer and easier. Does this mean that technology gradually began to prevent us evolving through natural selection? Dr. Roberts went to Oxford to meet Revd. William Buckland who showed her the oldest bones in the whole of the UK. These were of a male pelvis, radio carbon dated from 33,000 years ago, well before the peak of the last ice age. Dr. Roberts could see nothing in the bones to indicate that they had changed in any meaningful way.

"The raw material of evolution is dead babies," said one geneticist, as he accompanied Dr. Roberts through a Victorian cemetery and they studied the tombstones. Only one in every two babies born in Darwin's time reached the age of 21 - literally, the survival of the fittest, so that only the healthy humans manage to reproduce. In other words, reproductive success is what alters genes. Today, 99% of children make it to 21. Evolution should, surely, be at a standstill.

Evolving in Fundamental Ways

On the other hand, in the past we were all dark-skinned, but not now. Those of us who moved to cooler climates and did not need to develop pigmentation to protect us from extremes of weather gradually evolved a lighter skin. This, as Dr. Roberts pointed out, is a superficial difference. She wanted to know if we had evolved in more fundamental ways than those apparent on the surface.

Are we protected from natural selection by medical progress, technology and a wide and varied diet? It might seem so, but evolution can still be seen at work in the following ways:

The sickle cell gene protects against malaria.
Europeans have evolved to digest lactose. (Apart from those who have allergies.)
Adaptations to blood circulation have enabled people to live at high altitudes, according to research conducted by Prof. Cynthia Beall.

Testing Evolution in Areas of Extremity

Cynthia Beall, who is a Professor of Anatomy and Global Health, was studying Nepalese Sherpas in the Himalayan mountains. She explained how the mountain air was dangerously low in oxygen and that this was normally physiologically stressful for human beings. There have been cases of people dying when exposed to this oxygen-deficient air. Her research revealed that the Sherpas had developed a unique system of blood circulation with wide blood vessels and many intricate twists and turns, a system that was sophisticated enough to cause them to be unaffected by the poor air quality.

One of the scariest stories exposed by Dr. Roberts was that of the chicken virus that caused appallingly large and fatal tumours. At one time, this same virus was merely a minor irritant and then a chicken vaccination had been developed - but this changed the selective landscape. The virus evolved a resistance to the drug, a change exacerbated by modern factory farming methods, and so the virus became stronger. The virus can now kill a chicken in just ten days. Of course, bacteria was on our planet long long before we arrived and no doubt, it will still be going strong when our species has disappeared.

Meantime, there's still genetic engineering. In the US, on the West Coast, people can choose the gender of their babies and although no one is permitted to select their child's hair or eye colour, it is certainly possible to do so.

As Tim Dowling says, this was a see-saw programme, with one scientist's work supporting the view that evolution had come to a halt, and yet another confirming that it continued despite our technological progress.

The conclusion is that in the end, when our world changes, we have to change and adapt or we cease to exist. The greatest threat to our survival is probably that of disease.

"Are We Still Evolving?" Dr. Alice Roberts, Horizon, BBC2, 1 March, 2011.

"Last Night's TV," Tim Dowling, The Guardian, 2 March, 2011.

The Cult of James Jershom Jezreel and the Fallen Queen Jezebel

2017-01-27T09:16:00.001-08:00

James Jershom Jezreel was born in 1851. His birth name was James Roland White. He enlisted in the British Army on 27 July 1875, and joined the sixteenth Regiment of Foot in Chatham, in Kent. The young man became obsessed with a religious sect known in England as the Jezreelites.

Jezreel was convinced he was the “Messenger of the Lord” and he was responsible for the erection of Jezreel's Tower in Gillingham in 1881. The Tower stood 120 ft. high until it was demolished in 1961. After the Tower was razed to the ground, a sealed bottle was discovered under a foundation stone containing details of the sect. The bus stop, which now occupies the site, is actually known locally as the Jezreel's bus stop.

The strange sect was founded by Joanna Southcott who believed she would give birth to the new Messiah – even though she was sixty-five years old! Joanna Southcott died in 1814, childless, of course.

Armageddon and Jezreel

The name, Jezreel, is a real place in the lower Galilee Region and is found in the “The Revelation to John” which refers to Armageddon and the battle between good and evil. In Jezreel, the Phoenecian princess, Jezebel, a powerful and influential woman, persuaded her husband, King Ahab, to give up his Jewish god and instead worship the Phoenician god, Baal.

Jezebel’s husband was eventually killed by his enemies in war and was succeeded by his sons. Elisha, the prophet, anointed Jehu to be king and to overthrow the monarchy.

Queen Jezebel dresses to die at Jezreel

Jehu commanded that Queen Jezebel, whom he described as a witch, be killed by defenestration, which meant she was to be flung from the window. “When Jezebel heard about it, she painted her eyes, arranged her hair and looked out of a window.” There she waited for her fate.

“When Jehu arrived, he told his eunuchs: “Throw her down.” So they threw Jezebel down, and some of her blood spattered the wall and the horses as they trampled her underfoot. Jehu went in and ate and drank. “Take care of that accursed woman,” he said, “and bury her, for she was a king’s daughter.” But when they went out to bury her, they found nothing, except her skull, her feet and her hands.” Jehu was content, saying, “Jezebel’s body will be like refuse on the ground in the plot at Jezreel, so that no-one will be able to say, “This is Jezebel.” From then on, “Jezebel” was a derogatory term for “fallen woman” or prostitute.

James Jezreel and The Flying Roll

Jezreel wrote a book, “The Flying Roll” which was a collection of three sermons. Its flyer was headed, “TIME IS RUNNING OUT” and continues: “Current events clearly indicate that it is God’s purpose to overthrow the present order, which has run nearly the allotted 6000 years, to be replaced by the glorious reign of the Lord Jesus. This will bring unimaginable peace and happiness to mankind.” The book cost £4, which was a great deal of money for any book at that time.

However, its author, the sect’s founder, James Jezreel, was not the upstanding pillar of church and society that his position implied. Although insisting that his followers abstain from drink, Jezreel was continuously drunk - unseemly behaviour for the leader of a religious sect who was supposed to set an example to his flock.

Eventually, Jezreel became an alcoholic and he became ill and died on 2 March, 1885.

Sources:

Murder & Crime, Medway, Janet Cameron, Tempus Publishing, Gloucestershire, 2008.

“The Tower of Mystery Surrenders its Secrets” Stephen Rayner, the “Memories Page” Medway News, May 2006.

Holy Bible – New International Version, Hodder and Stoughton, London, Sydney, Auckland, Toronto, 1979.

Upnor Castle – The Gun Fort with a Short Career

2017-01-26T04:04:00.000-08:00

Upnor Castle, Copyright Janet Cameron

Upnor Castle dates from 1559 and is located at Frindsbury on the River Medway - but eventually it proved unfit for purpose. The River Medway was used for the building and repair of warships, and Queen Elizabeth's intention of building a castle here as a gun fort was to protect Chatham Dockyard and the fleet on the River Medway from attack. Stone was taken from the outskirts of Rochester Castle. William Bourne, who was a master gunner, drew up a memorandum claiming that the large guns were inadequate to protect the castle, and although invading ships might be damaged or demasted, they would not be sunk.

First defence - the chain across the River Medway

It was decided to draw a chain across the river between Hoo Ness and Gillingham to help prevent enemy vessels from approaching the castle. Action was taken in 1585, during the war with Spain and it cost £80 a year to maintain.

On 12 June 1667, Dutch vessels approached up the Thames to Gravesend, then made their way towards Chatham. On the way, they burnt a fort at Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey. They gained access despite the heavy chain. No one knows for sure if it was broken by a Dutch vessel, or set loose from the riverbank. What is known is that the Dutch were assisted by English soldiers, who were on low, or non-existent pay. They were also angry about bad conditions at the castle. It's entirely possible aggrieved military men may have been responsible for the loosening of the chain. (At this time, the reigning monarch, Charles II, was almost bankrupt.)

Warships destroyed at Chatham Dockyard

When the Dutch reached Upnor Castle on 13 June, they were greeted by fierce fire. Several warships were lost, as well as lives on both sides. However, the English had been badly provided for and although they did their best, eventually their munitions ran out. There was no resistance from Chatham Dockyard, due to the anger of the men at their low pay and conditions. HMS Royal Oak and several other ships moored at the Dockyard were destroyed.

The Dutch were forced to return to Queensborough on 14 June, before setting sail for home. It was decided that chains were a bad idea and so the castle was strengthened and more forts were built, primarily at Cockham Wood and Gillingham.

But Upnor Castle's opportunity to prove its mettle was lost and its career as a gun fort was over.

Sources:

Adapted from Murder & Crime, Medway, Janet Cameron, Tempus Publishing, 2008.

Upnor Castle staff and museum.

The Ruthless Rabbit Robbers of Rochester

2017-01-25T04:35:00.000-08:00

Five young rascals tried to steal some rabbits from a frightened lad - and then lied about it on oath. They almost got away with it.

Walter Chatters, Charles Moore, Charles Warren (yes, Warren!), Sucker Gough and Joseph Brown were accused of assaulting a boy, George Merrit and stealing three rabbits on 31 December 1869. The offence took place on the Rochester to Maidstone Road.

The pilfered bunnies belonged to Mr. E.R. Coles, who was, according to the Chatham News dated 7 January, one of the magistrates on duty that day. Mr. Coles retired from the Bench for the duration of the hearing.

A Cunning Subterfuge

Young George Merrit described how, the previous Friday, he was taking eighteen dead rabbits along the high road, leading to Maidstone. They had been left in his care by some gentlemen, who were still out shooting small animals, as men of that period liked to do.

On reaching the second milestone, seven men approached George, asking him the way to Chatham. But that was a subterfuge. Instead, they surrounded him.

"Who do these rabbits belong to?" they demanded. George informed them they belonged to gentlemen who were out shooting in the woods.

"Let's have some," said the men, but George explained, with great patience, that the dead rabbits were not his to give away. The men ignored him. Several of them picked up rabbits from the ground. George began to shout for help, then Walter Chatters struck him violently on the back with a stick.

Frightened, George ran away, and when he returned, he found the men had disappeared - and so had five of the rabbits although later he found two on the ground nearby.

George Merritt confirmed that he recognised the prisoners as five of the seven men who had accosted him. All the men, he said, had sticks and this was confirmed by an eye-witness. The assistance of Sergeant Hinds ensured the eventual apprehension of the five men. The newspaper noted that six nets and a rabbit were recovered from Charles Warren at the police station.

We Never Touched No Rabbits, Sir!

Walter Chatters insisted that the boy, George Merrit, had spoken falsely on oath, while Moore declared he had never touched a rabbit, and had told the others not to touch them or they would get into trouble. Charles Warren said he picked up a rabbit, but put it down again quickly after Moore's warning. Gough and Brown also denied touching the rabbits.

The Bench retired and when they returned, the mayor said the charge of a felony against the prisoners was withdrawn, but they would be "proceeded against" on a charge of assault of a boy. The prisoners pleaded not guilty, and again, the evidence given by George Merrit was read out by the clerk. Chatters repeated that the boy spoke falsely because he had never, would not even think of, striking him!

The mayor considered the evidence and decided that there was a violent assault on the young boy. Chatters was fined 30s. including costs, or one calendar month's hard labour. The other men were fined 1s or, in default, fourteen days' hard labour.

Prostitution in Victorian Times – The Plight of the Working Girl

2017-01-23T02:11:00.000-08:00

Medway Slums, from Murders and Crime, Medway, with permission

In Victorian times, there was a vigorous upsurge in prostitution, in particular from Star Hill, Rochester to Sun Pier in Chatham. Trade around the River Medway and its dockyard brought many young soldiers and sailors as well as military and engineering workers. All were far from home and looking for sex and excitement. There were many slum areas, many transients employed on river work, and terrible poverty. At the height of its bawdiness in the mid-1800s, Chatham was a riot of soldiers, sailors and prostitutes high on booze and sex. The police, at this time, were inadequate to control the situation.

Pubs and brothels, seedy street bars and the backs of shops and alleyways provided venues for every kind of adventure. Apart from the regular prostitutes, there were poor, working-class women, eager and desperate enough to provide what men wanted. They had little choice. There were few jobs available for them in an area dominated by masculine pursuits of ship-building, engineering and other fields pertaining to Medway's military presence. They must work - or starve.

If anyone was arrested in the 1880s, it set off a chain reaction. "All it took to spark off a riot was for the police to arrest a drunk and take him up to New Road, where the police station was, and they would be followed by a stone-throwing mob, who would try to climb over the station walls," says Brian Joyce in The Chatham Scandal.

Government crackdown on brothels

The Tudor Rose pub at Upnor was once a brothel, serving soldiers from nearby Upnor Castle. The Castle, dates from 1559, and the pub is almost as old. It was formerly known as the King's Head. It's easy to imagine how pretty little Upnor village became a den of vice during Tudor and Victorian times with its close proximity to the Castle.

Eventually, the Government cracked down in an attempt to halt the spread of VD among servicemen. In 1869, the Contagious Diseases Act permitted the police to register working prostitutes, ensuring they had regular medical examinations. Those tested positive were detained in hospital for nine months. (It is reported that in 1864, Supt. Radley attempted to shut down several pubs, the Lord Nelson, the Bear and Staff, the Five Bells, the Flushing, the Homeward Bound, the Duke of Gloucester and the Maidstone Arms. The Magistrate disagreed, perhaps fearing a street riot.)

There were nine brothels in Chatham and around three hundred prostitutes in 1870, but eleven years later, the number had halved to 150 due to the Government crackdown.

A refuge for prostitutes

Eliza Hook was a trial to her mother, Frances. Shortly before Christmas in 1889, she abandoned her position as a maid and ran away. Later, she lived in Greenwich, and learned the laundry trade. During this time, she had a sexual relationship with a man who falsely offered to marry her. She ended up in a refuge for prostitutes in Chatham. Her mother always denied Eliza's profession, but poverty made prostitutes of many unfortunate, working-class women.

While at the Chatham House of Refuge, Frances visited Eliza only once, claiming her daughter seemed happy. The refuge, run by local clergy and businessmen, kept the girls and young women virtual prisoners. In principle, the women could discharge themselves at any time, but they had nowhere else to go. They had to attend church regularly and learn the laundry trade.

Poor Eliza paid dearly for her spirited unruliness with her own death. Before she died she put her mother right about the terrible treatment she had received at the hands of the matrons.

given only dry bread to eat.
shut up at weekends.
dipped in a cold water tub and made to work in a wet chemise.
held down in a tub for so long she thought she would drown.
threatened with beating if she complained to her mother or anyone else.
made to stand twelve hours a day in steaming heat, elbows deep in washing.
made to work barefoot.
beaten if she was too weak to do her work.
nicknamed "the long lamp post" by the other girls because of her scragginess.

The doctor who attended Eliza at the infirmary was shocked at her condition, caused by starvation and torture. One horrific manifestation of her neglect was a dead bone, sticking out from one of her toes and giving off a terrible stench. There were ulcers on her ankle and a painful swelling on her hip. Her hair was rife with vermin and she weighed just 5 stones, less than most eight-year-old children of the time.

The postmortem reported death from pneumonia. The matron, Jane Davey, denied all charges, saying the other girls never complained. Her assistant, Eliza Brown, denied ducking and almost drowning.

The jury decided the matrons had been careless, but this carelessness was not sufficient to embark on criminal proceedings. The matrons escaped with a caution. The people of Chatham were furious and mobbed the women's coach as they left court, throwing stones and rubbish. These two matrons needed police protection from the crowds, even when they were back inside the refuge.

Sources:

Murder & Crime, Medway, Janet Cameron, Tempus Publishing, 2008.

Medway Memories

The Chatham Scandal, Brian Joyce, 2009.

Militant Women and the Cat and Mouse Act

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A suffragette called Marian Wallace Dunlop (1864-1942) was the first woman to go on hunger strike while in jail in July 1909. She was force-fed, a horrible, painful process involving gags and nasogastric tubes. Soon, other suffragettes were also subjected to this humiliating process. The Bishop of London visited the women in prison and claimed there was no cause for concern and that the whole thing was done in a spirit of kindness!

The suffragettes had been frustrated by lack of progress, which they addressed by employing more militant tactics. Continuous disappointment only fuelled the anger of the Women’s Social and Political Union who embarked on even more explosive action, causing some ministers to harden their attitude to the indiscriminate violence. For example, the most militant women resorted to damaging National Gallery paintings and setting buildings alight as well as biting and scratching policemen whose job it was to apprehend them.

It was in this bitter maelstrom that the women began to retaliate by refusing to eat and hostility towards them increased. They were frequently represented as ugly, wizened, unpleasant old spinsters. In 1912, Sir Almroth E. Wright, the bacteriologist, wrote to The Times saying the women’s frustration was due to the excess of the female population over the male – it’s said there were over a million more women than men. They should go abroad to seek mates,” said Sir Almroth E. Wright. They should be kept away from politics, he claimed, because of their physical and intellectual deficiencies as well as their lack of moral standards.

According to Great Events of the 20^th Century, Mrs. Winston Churchill retaliated with an ironic reply, reflecting back to the hostile gentleman his own ridiculous accusations: “After reading Sir Almroth Wright’s able and weighty exposition of women as he knows them, the question seems no longer to be, “Should women have votes?” but “Ought women not to be abolished altogether?”

The “Cat and Mouse Act” Becomes Law

In 1913, the Prisoners’ Temporary Discharge for Health Bill was passed, and became known at the “Cat and Mouse Act.” The forced-feeding stopped, but the act allowed the authorities to release a woman when she became weak and ill, so she could recover and then be re-arrested when she was well. In this way, the Government, under Asquith, could not be blamed if she starved to death because it would be her fault – on the other hand, if she did wrong, then she would be hauled back to prison. In this way, the possibility of martyrdom would be avoided.

The act became known as the “Cat and Mouse Act” because it symbolised the way a cat plays with a mouse, torturing it for a time without actually finishing it off. Worryingly, class also came into the equation according to a suffragette, Jane Wharton, who wrote a book claiming that working class women were more likely to be force-fed than upper class women. Women were, in those days, defined very much in terms of their gender and their class.

In the end, the act actually undermined the Government’s position. The suffragettes who were released to get well, did their best with the help of friends and sympathisers to elude capture by the authorities. The Government lost face and it was seen as a violation of human rights, as indicated by the naming of the Act as The Cat and Mouse Act. Prime Minister Asquith was regarded as the enemy.

The philosopher and philanthropist, Bertrand Russell, left the Liberal party and wrote pamphlets against the Government and in support of the suffragettes. Someone wrote this extremely patronising short verse about him:

Although we may oppose the plan

Of giving womenfolk a vote,

Still to the ordinary man

Few things are more engaging than

The Russell of the Petticoat.

Sensibly, the poet preferred to remain anonymous, and finally suffragette activities ceased with the onset of War in August 1914.

Great Events of the 20^th Century, Multiple Contributors, The Automobile Association, 1989.

LGBT Brighton & Hove, Janet Cameron, Amberley Publishing, 2009.