The Nursing crisis of 1949

Nowadays we are used to hearing of a permanent crisis in the NHS. If it isn’t ambulance waiting times it’s bed blocking. If it isn’t bed blocking it’s junior hospital doctors’ pay or the near impossibility of accessing a GP. But the lack of nurses is not always an issue today. But go back to the early years of the NHS and the shortage of nurses was a real problem, according to a report in an undated issue of Picturing Today.

‘Britain’s hospitals are facing a crisis. Doctors have protested to Health Minister ANEURIN BEVAN that sick people are being turned away. In one London region, 20,000 patients are waiting for admission to 100 hospitals; and all over the country our hospitals, through no fault of their own are suffering in varying degree from the same paralysis. The diagnosis: acute shortage of nurses. The cure: another 40,000 nurses—and quickly.

Yet there are 40,000 more today than ten years ago. Have we then become a nation of weaklings? No—but we do have wider and much improved medical services. Where once a case was considered incurable, it is now admitted to hospital for lengthy treatment. Where once people never went near doctor or clinic, now they go at the first sign of illness. And more patients need more nurses. Why don’t they get them. Ask any nurse—and her answer will be: ‘Conditions in the profession are appalling.’

No one, not even the most inspired Sister or Matron, pretends that nursing is anything but a hard life…The testing time is the first year. A raw recruit, after going through a preliminary training course of twelve weeks, goes on to the ward as a very junior cog in the rigid machinery of hospital life. She is 18 or 19, in many cases fresh from school. She has to adjust herself to working among rows of  beds with people in varying degrees of sickness and pain. She has got to work to time, and she is at the beck and call of a Sister and staff nurses who cannot permit mistakes. She has got to get used to emptying bed-pans, serving meals and doing a hundred and one chores that seem like sheer heartbreaking drudgery…

…Are the hours so terrible? Ideally, no—often in practice, yes. You can’t leave a desperately ill case just because your shift is up. Ideally nurses should work a 96 hour fortnight. In some hospitals this has been achieved by a shift system, the first shift from 7 a.m. to 3.30 p.m with an hour for meals, the second from 3.30 to 11.15 with 

half an hour for meals. Shifts are worked three days a week, and staff nurses have one free week-end a month. Night duty is from 11 p.m. to 8.15 a.m. with one and a quarter hours for meals, and two nights off duty in 14. But the shift system is not always popular. Nurses prefer to work with regular off-duty periods so that they can plan ahead. 

Pay ? This is one of the sorest and most debatable points. Under the Rushcliffe Committee of 1943, conditions and pay were improved. With the Whitley Council for Nurses and Midwives, set up to negotiate salaries and general conditions, even better have been achieved. The Council campaigned for nurses in training to be treated as students, and began by stepping up their salaries to £200, £210, and £225 for the first, second and third year of training, including £100 -£120 for emoluments for board, lodging and laundry. Now the Council is negotiating for better things for qualified nurses. At the moment, the bitter fact is that a qualified nurse gets very little more than a student—–£240, which again includes the £100—£100 – £120 for board.

To the old school, £140 and all found may seem pretty good. But a staff nurse has heavy responsibilities. Under a Sister, she may have charge of a complete ward. She is also young and a very human being with the normal urges to buy clothes and have as good holidays as she can. A Sister earns from £180 rising over a period of time to £260 maximum. A Sister Tutor can earn more, this post next to Assistant Matron, being one of the most lucrative. But none of these sums compares very brilliantly with , say, a women business executive whose work is less exacting, for whatever else she has to do she does not have from 20 – 30 lives on her hands.

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The Good Time Guide to London (1951) — a post-war perspective

Jot 101 London 1951 pic 001

 

Francis Aldor, author of a book on Hitler, and also a publisher, considered compiling his  unusual guide to the lesser sights  of London after meeting an American tourist from Los Angeles in Venice. When asked if he had visited the city’s ghetto, where Shakespeare’s Shylock was supposed to have lived, the American confessed that he had not. Alas, there was no time for Aldor to show him, as the American’s plane was due to leave the following morning, but the encounter did give Aldor the idea of a book on London, one of the cities he knew most intimately, that would uncover a city whose ‘attractions are innumerable, but notably shy and elusive’. Another reason to publish such a book in 1951, although Aldor doesn’t admit it, was, of course, to cash in on ‘The Festival of Britain’.

Aldor gathered together some talented writers to help him lift the lid on the metropolis– people like navy expert Commander Trevor Blore, K. Kay, G. de Semley, Lee-Howard, Sheila Bridgeman, and Michael Pechel, among others. More extraordinary is the list of artists Aldor and the art editor Imre Hofbauer (1905 – 89), a Serbian immigrant whose brilliant expressionist vignettes had been published in many magazines, called upon to provide the text illustrations—including book illustrator Edward Ardizonne, Terence Bowles, M and V. Bulkely-Johnson, Ray Evans, the caricaturist Fougasse, art critic William Gaunt, Peter Jackson, the gifted painter Fortunino Martania, Francis Marshall, Feliks Topolski, Vertes and some of the best artists of the Grosvenor school of lino cutters. Many of the drawings had already appeared in other books or magazines on London, but their reappearance in this new guide was a stroke of genius.

Many followers of Jot 101 over the age of 75 might recognise some of the aspects of London described in the guide, but for much younger Jotters Aldor’s London of 1951 seems another world away. Take the description of the Dockland district. Aldor is quick to dispel the colourful and somewhat sensational   image of Chinatown painted by Thomas Burke in his Limehouse Nights (1916), the Fu Manchu novels of Sax Rohmer and films of the time:

‘Sinister Chinese slinking silently through luminescent fog, with the moan of foghorns in the background; shoreside sharks and tough dames skinning poor sailors home from the sea; ruthless smugglers shooting their way out of police traps; East End dives where” master-minds “ plan commando raids of crime and send out their swarthy plug-uglies to get the Crown Jewels. Continue reading →

The British rules of etiquette in the late 1930s

 

DONT cover 001

 

According to one of Jot 101’s favourite works of reference, Everybody’s Best Friend (c1939), these are some of the rules of etiquette that prevailed at the onset of the Second World War.

 

Should a man offer a seat to a woman ?

 

‘…a courteous man has no hesitation in standing so that a lady may be seated. The exception is that no one would desire an elderly man to give up his seat to a girl…When offered a seat a woman should always accept it readily, with a smile and word of thanks. To decline the offer is to slight a man who is doing the right thing…’

 

Should visitors smoke ?

 

Smoking is so general nowadays that men are inclined when visiting to light a cigarette without giving the matter a thought. But strictly, I suppose, a man should never smoke in another person’s house until he has asked permission to do so?

 

The real answer is that a man should never smoke in another person’s house until permission has been given him unsought…But if a guest asks permission to smoke it is difficult for a hostel to refuse it. Hence the considerate guest —especially when he does not know his hostess’s views on the matter—refrains from smoking until he is invited to do so.

 

Powdering in public.

 

It seems to be the usual thing now to see girls making up openly in tea rooms, cinemas and so on. But surely it is not accepted as being quite the right thing to do?

 

It is not a correct thing to do—and many a girl prefers not to reveal too openly how much her complexion owes to mart instead of nature !Some young men are not altogether guiltless in this respect, for not infrequently one sees them vigorously using a comb or nail-file even at table.

 

Escorting ladies.

 

Where should a man walk when escorting two ladies—near the edge of the pavement, or in the centre?

 

The man should walk on the outside, near the edge f the pavement, as when with one lady only. Where the ladies vary to any extent in age, the more elderly of the two should be in the centre.

One Hundred Years Ago

Jot 101 Ideal home mop 001In the current issue of the TLS Nicholson Baker reviews what was being published a hundred years ago. In this Jot we look at what was happening in the world of home appliances and gracious living, according to the May 1920 issue of The Ideal Home.

 

As always, it’s the adverts that entertain the most. The first that greets the reader is a full page colour ad for the O-Cedar Polish Mop which shows twenty or more tiny maidservants admiring the wonderful effects produced by a giant charlady manoeuvring this mop around a giant room. It makes one wonder how many middle-class supporters of the Women’s Suffrage movement employed female cleaners in their large, comfortable  houses. Quite a few, one would have thought.

 

In contrast, on the following page we have an advert meant, we presume, for male readers, who are urged to save  on average £30 by buying a machine designed to make concrete roofing tiles ‘ on the site’.

 

Mains electricity for lighting and power was patchy in this immediate post-war  period and relied on local council-run generating stations.  An Act of 1919 gave the go-ahead for a more nationwide supply system, but this wasn’t established until the National Grid came into being in 1935( remember that poem ‘ Pylons’ by Spender ?). For those who afford it in 1920, a petrol driven domestic generator was one source of electricity. Home owners would hide away their generator, in this case a ‘ Delco-Light ‘ available from F. S. Bennett of Oxford Street, in a shed or outhouse to minimize the noise and fumes produced by it. Continue reading →

eBikes: some Jottings

Ever heard of electric bikes? When it comes to ebikes I’ll be the first to ‘fess up that I was quite sceptical in the early days.

Way back in the late Nineties and early Noughties (when I first heard rumours about these fancy new-fangled bits of tech) I figured that they were most likely just a bog-standard pedal bicycle with a big old lawnmower engine welded on to the back end. Practical? Possibly. But I didn’t really feel that they were going to have the “Cool factor” that I craved.

But, fast forward a decade or so, and I began hearing more details about them and I thought to myself okay, maybe, they’re closer to motorbikes. Take off the petrol motor and replace it with an electronic motor? I reckoned that they’d probably look like those impossibly futuristic-looking bikes in the film, Tron. Very, very cool but, unfortunately, with a decent chance of getting me wrapped around a large oak tree.

Fast forward a bit further and I decided to do some detailed research on these intriguing new bikes and found they’re actually really incredible. Whilst they can absolutely do all that standard pushbike stuff, they can actually do a huge amount more.

Interested? Want more? Okay, let’s have a quick look to whet your appetite a bit more.

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Extracts from a soldier’s journal kept while visiting the British Zone in Germany in late 1948

Screenshot 2019-02-09 09.49.46

Immediately after the end of WW 2 Germany was occupied by Allied forces and divided into 4 zones. The eastern quarter was given to the Russians and later became East Germany; the Americans occupied the south, the French had a tiny section to the south west, while the British were allotted most of the north.

It was exciting, therefore, to discover among a cache of ephemera at Jot HQ, a notebook issued to soldiers by the Stationery Office in which one soldier had recorded his brief visit to Altenau, a ski-resort in Lower Saxony in the centre of the British Zone, a few miles from the Russian Zone.

Little can be discerned from the brief journal, dating from the 6th to the 14th November 1948, concerning this anonymous soldier, who intersperses his entries  with postcards of local scenery, apart from the fact that he seems to have been on a furlough for these eight days. When he is not relaxing at the ‘Holiday Inn’ in Altenau, sipping port and reading, he is exploring the local countryside. One of his aims seems to have been to penetrate the border into Russian occupied territory. He certainly appears to have regarded the Russians with a mixture of fear and curiosity, born perhaps of the stories that emerged about their cruelty and barbarity towards the Germans, both during the war and immediately afterwards. He regards the Germans themselves with less fear, although doubtless aware that the resentment felt by them towards occupying forces might be a source of danger, particularly at night. For security reasons all soldiers in the British Zone were under strict orders not to converse with any of the natives—a rule which our soldier assiduously observes.

The journal shows considerable literary qualities, which suggests that the soldier, who may possibly have been born in the early 1920s, might have become a writer or journalist at some point in the future. Take the entry for Saturday 6th November:

Ober: 2.15 p.m.

The blue dusk hid everything but the lights of the town and the black masses of the hills.

Tourist-like I climbed down the carriage-steps on to the six-inch platform. Where were all the other tourists ? In utter solitude I crunched down to the sub-way.

A waiting- room, its atmosphere thick with the smell of German humanity. One large T.C.V. ---one small sergeant. Was I to be alone at Altenau? Utter & sublime solitude?

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Etiquette as Great Grandmother knew it

Blackour book cover 001Found in The Black-Out Book (1939) are these rules copied out in her diary by the editor’s great-grandmother.

 

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices

 

When calling, do not enter into grave discussion. Trifling subjects are better.

 

It is rude to turn a chair so that your back will presented to anyone.

 

In company do not converse with another in a language that is not understood by the rest.

 

If it becomes necessary to break a marriage engagement, it is best to do so by letter. The reasons for your course can be given much more clearly than in a personal interview. All presents, letters, etc., received should accompany the letter announcing the termination of the engagement.

 

During a walk in the country, when ascending a hill or walking on the bank of a stream, and the lady is fatigued, and sits upon the ground, a gentleman will not seat himself by her, but remain standing until she is rested sufficiently to proceed.

 

A dispute about religion is foolish. When it is known that there are fifteen hundred millions of people on the face of the earth, speaking 3034 languages, and possessing one thousand different religious beliefs, it will be easily seen that it is a hopeless task to harmonize them all. Continue reading →

How should an escort conduct himself?

young-lady-in-1938-ukSome advice taken from Real Life Problems and their Solution by R. Edynbry, published in 1938 by Odhams Press.

I have recently made the acquaintance of a very refined young lady who, I feel, is vastly superior to myself in many ways. I must confess, I am more than a little in love with her, and I should be awfully sorry to do anything which should lower me in her estimation. I believe, if I asked her, she would consent to walk out with me; but before taking this step I should like to know some of those little courtesies which every man is supposed to know. Not that I am entirely ignorant, but I am aware some of these things have to be learned, and that mistakes are easily made.

‘There are a few rules which should be observed when walking with a lady in a public thoroughfare. Don’t allow your companion to walk on the outside of the path next to the gutter; always take that position yourself. If you want to smoke ask her permission first, but, better still, wait until she suggests it to you. When raising your hat in a salute, remove your pipe or cigarette from your mouth, and lift your hat off your head. If you happen to meet a funeral, also raise your hat. If you take a bus or a taxi, allow the lady to get in first, but you must be ready to help her step down at the end of a journey. When meeting her by chance in the street, don’t keep her standing, but accompany her in the direction she wishes to go.

Should this young lady invite you to meet her people, don’t remain seated while a lady or elderly person is standing. If you have been asked to tea do not stay on until supper- time unless you have been specifically asked. Take off your hat in a private lift if ladies are present, but retain it you wish in a shop or office lift. Dress neatly and never wear anything gaudy or likely to attract attention. Don’t mix the colour of coat and trousers from different suits. A last tip. Don’t do all the talking yourself. By proving yourself a good listener, and by asking intelligent questions, you should easily keep your place in her esteem. ‘

 

How to walk – The rule of the pavement

From Correct Conduct, or, Etiquette for Everybody (M. Woodman. London: W. Foulsham 1922) this piece about the etiquette of walking and pavements. This is the world of the early Downton series or for older viewers The Forsyte Saga. The gentleman has to know what to do in complicated situations ‘…a man who meets his parlourmaid in the street is in a quandary’ – here tipping the hat is suggested (but no nodding…)

hatsoffThe rule of the pavement used to be to walk to the right. The “Safety First” Committee is endeavouring to induce public opinion to favour walking on the left. Instinct suggests the right, common sense the left. Pedestrians should appreciate the fact that this change is being made, and act according to their own dictates. 

When walking with friends, do not proceed along the pavement more than two abreast, and then take to single file on passing other people.

Always give way to perambulators; they certainly are a nuisance, but a necessary nuisance. When a lady is walking with a gentleman, she should take the inside. This is survival of the days when all roads were muddy and passing vehicles splashed those nearest.

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Private Eye & ‘The New Satire’ 1963

IMG_1275Found in the short-lived early 1960s London cultural magazine Axle Quarterly (Spring 1963) in their column of complaints , rants and broadsides (‘Axle grindings’) this mild attack on the British satirical magazine Private Eye (still going strong with a circulation of 225,000). Axle is almost forgotten, it is occasionally seen being traded for modest sums on eBay, abebooks etc., It survived for 4 issues – contributors included Gavin Millar, Paul R. Joyce, David Benedictus, Michael Wolfers, Paul Overy, Roger Beardwood, Mark Beeson, Ray Gosling, Simon Raven, Tony Tanner, Richard Boston, Melvyn Bragg and Yvor Winters. This piece was anonymous.

Millions can’t be wrong aided by The Observer’s unerring flair for pursuing fads of its own creation, Private Eye’s achievement of a 65,000 circulation in just over a year is an interesting phenomenon. This is a figure comparable to that which, say, The Spectator has had to build up gradually over many decades. That Was The Week That Was has been even  more successful. It is estimated that it is watched by approximately 11 and a half  million people, or nearly a quarter of the population.

First of all why has Private Eye been so successful? It’s easy to read, of course, or rather, easy to skip through. Few read the extended written pieces like Mr. Logue’s boring True Stories. And what most people do read requires about as much effort as a Daily Express cartoon. It’s funnier, and cleverer, and more sophisticated, but all it demands is that one has skimmed the headlines and watched TV occasionally. It doesn’t require any mental effort to take it in (although it may stimulate it). 

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‘Good to look at, but bad to live in’— rural slums in 1934

Derelict cottages in England

          Copyright alamy.com (many thanks).

Today, most rural slums have either fallen into ruin or been gentrified by second home owners. In the thirties, however, some of the terrible privations characteristic of the urban slums described by George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier , were equally true of many rural slums. In an article entitled ‘Clean Up Our Country Slums’ in the April 6th 1934 issue of the news weekly Everyman, Orwell’s contemporary, the journalist Hamilton Fyfe (1869 – 1951), who was also a man of the Left, went behind the façade of a pretty country cottage inhabited   by some agricultural tenants and was shocked to find damp walls, cracked plaster, peeling wallpaper and a shared sink.

‘All their water they have to fetch in pails from a farm a couple of hundred yards away. They have no drainage, no light, no indoor sanitation ( as the house agents delicately put it); they enjoy none of the amenities that so may of us consider absolute necessities of life. And these cottage are not exceptional, They are typical of the homes in which our country folk mostly live…I could take you to a house where in two small rooms father, mother, grown-up son and four children ( thirteen to nine) sleep. I could show you rows of houses on the outskirts of little towns, where except for the fresher air, conditions are every bit as bad as in the black spots of London, Liverpool or Glasgow’

According to Fyfe, two Acts of Parliament:

‘make it possible for owners of cottages to borrow money on easy terms so that they may “ reconstruct and improve” their property, put in water supply, baths, light and more wholesome sanitary arrangements. Owners have been very slow, however, in asking for loans. The truth is that the farmer was badly stung over the purchase of his farm from the local viscount and is really not able to spend money on repairs. And he owes his bank so much that he shrinks from the idea of borrowing and more. The right solution, the only solution I can see, is that the community should take over the cottages and make them fir to live in. But most councils are as unwilling as most individuals to take advantage of the Acts of Parliament. 

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A to Z of Zowie (Hippy Slang)

Found in an old Sunday Observer colour supplement from December 1967 this glossary of (then) very recent hippy and 'underground' slang, apparently known as 'Zowie.' In Britain 'Zowie' is mostly associated with David Bowie's son Zowie Bowie (born 1971) now known as Duncan Jones...For a comprehensive online dictionary of hippy slang check out Skip Stone's Hippy Glossary. Since the Summer of Love some of the words below have entered the language (groovy, happening, trip, vibrations, riff) and some like 'Zowie' itself and 'grey' have had very little currency. Slang authority Eric Partridge imported most of Peter Fryer's glossary into later editions of his Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English.
A TO Z OF 'ZOWIE' Peter Fryer offers a selective glossary of the Underground.

acid/LSD. Acid-head/one who uses LSD.
be-in/hippy meeting.
bread/money.
bust/police search, raid.
cool/unruffled, admirable (but see groovy); not carrying illegal drugs.
crazy/admirable.
dig/understand. Diggers/idealist hippies undermining capitalist economies by giving away free clothes, washing-machines to needy.
drag/bore, dissapointment.
drop-out/one who opts out of society.
flip/arouse enthusiasm. F. one's wig/lose one's head.
Flower Power/from Flower Children or Beautiful People.
Revolutionary philosophy akin to ideas of Young Liberals, e.g. Make Love Not War. Characteristic: bell.
freak/arouse or share collective enthusiasm (freak-out).
fuzz/police.
gig/single paid performance.
grey/middle-aged, conventionally dressed/minded person (orig. US Negro term for a white).
groove/make good progress, co-operate.
groovy/admirable, sexually attractive.
happening/spontaneous eruption of feeling/ display.
hippy/product of Haight-Ashbury ('Hashbury') dist. of S. Francisco. Anarchic successors to Beat generation. Essential beliefs: protest, legalised drugs, opting out. Not to be confused with plastic hippies/mostly conventional youth who like to dress up at weekend.
hung up/annoyed.
love-in/gathering associated with groovy scene.
mind-blowing/ecstasy producing.
naturals/non-hip people.
plug-in/turn or switch on.
psychedelic/mind-expanding. Psychedelia/drugs, flashing lights, sound, colour, movies, dance – usually experienced simultaneously.
riff/repeated background phrase in music.
scene/Underground, or specific part of it.
stoned/very high on cannabis.
straight/conventional person, one who does not use cannabis.
teeny-bopper/anything from 11–16–average age of record-buying public.
think-in/poetry session, discussion group.
trip/LSD experience.
turned on/(1) accustomed to cannabis. (2) aware.
UFO/(pronounced 'yoofo'). Unlimited Freak Out – a hippy club.
vibrations/atmosphere; reactions, with sexual overtones.
Zowie/a new import from San Francisco, meaning hippy language.

Poetry and Jazz at the Festival Hall

A press-cutting for June 1961 found among the papers of Daniel (‘Dannie’) Abse, CBE, FRSL (1923 – 2014) well respected Welsh and Jewish poet who worked as a doctor much of his life. From the days of poetry and jazz, duffle coats and beards. The Tribune (a left -wing weekly) emphasises the youth of the audience, this is from a time when ‘youth’ meant under 30 – the youth movement didn’t really begin until 1963 (see Larkin’s poem Annus Mirabilis.) Another press-cutting notes the presence of the ‘irrepressible’ Spike Milligan ‘the eminent goon poet.’ Press cuttings, like Poetry and Jazz, are surely a thing of the past. Are there agencies still cutting up (and pasting) newspapers that mention their clients?

The Hampstead Poets and Jazz Group whose first recital was such a success at Hampstead Town Hall last February, greatly daring,took the Festival Hall on Sunday for another performance of their unique form of entertainment. Their optimism was well justified, as the hall was just about full; again the majority of the audience was under 30, and they were given the mixture of poetry and jazz much as before, although unavoidably, the intimate atmosphere of the first occasion was lost in the vast auditorium.

The one newcomer was Laurie Lee, himself a young poet in the thirties when the chief pre-occupation was the Spanish Civil War, as these young men, Adrian Mitchell, Dannie Abse, Jon Silkin, Pete Brown, and Jeremy Robson, the organiser, are poets of the sixties under the H-bomb’s shadow. Cecily Ben-Tovim’s drawing shows Mrs Harriet Pasternak Slater reading to the audience…her poems and her translations of her brother Boris Pasternak’s poems… created a sense of quiet lyricism and nostalgia among the young voices of protest and dissent. The jazz group, helped by Laurie Morgan and Dick Heckstall-Smith, added their own special contribution to the atmosphere.

Stewards at the Coronation of King George VI & Queen Elizabeth 1937

Found - a mimeographed 4 page typed set of instructions for stewards at the royal ceremony. It reveals the amount of detail and planning that goes into these occasions. It was found slipped into a book on George VI and must have belonged to a former steward. The mention at the end of fatigue and strain for this voluntary job is interesting. Stewards had to be at the stands at 5 a.m. wearing (in most cases) morning dress or uniform. Some were required even earlier. Still, refreshments came from Mecca Cafes Ltd (to be paid for by guests and stewards) and there were cigarettes, chocolates and sandwiches circulated by workers bearing trays. A phone service had also been specially installed...

The Coronation of Their Majesties King George VI.
and Queen Elizabeth.
Wednesday, 12th May, 1937

Instructions to Stewards.

1. Stand Stewards.

Each stand will be under the control of a Stand Steward, whose name will be indicated on the Steward’s pass. Stewards will report to the Stand Steward on arrival, will accept orders from him without reservation and will remain on duty until permission to leave is given by him.

2. Time of Attendance.

Stewards will be required to be at their stand, the number of which is indicated on the back of the pass, not later than 5 a.m. and should make themselves conversant with the general traffic facilities in order to ensure their attendance by this time. A certain number of Stewards on each stand may be required by the Stand Steward to be present at an earlier hour.

It is anticipated that in spite of the later hour of arrival which has been prescribed by the Police for seatholders, a large number will present themselves at the stands at a very early hour, and in order that congestion by seatholders and members of the public at the entrances to stands may be avoided it is considered necessary to arrange for Stewards to be present at that time indicated.

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The Library of J-P Mayer

Found among the papers of  J-P Mayer (1903 – 1992) – this appraisal of his massive library by his friend F.R. Cowell. Peter Mayer was  Professor Emeritus at Reading University and author of books on De Tocqueville, Max Weber, the sociology of films,  and French political thought. He fled to England in 1936 having been a leading figure in the anti-Nazi movement in Germany. He then worked for Britain in the Ministry of Economic Warfare.His library was acquired by us last year, many of the high price items having been taken by Bonham’s auction house. This included a presentation copy from John Stuart Mill to Alexis de Tocqueville and  signed material from Friedrich Engels which made £100,000 plus each. Oddly we (Any Amount of Books, Charing Cross Road) also bought in 2009 a large part of the library of F.R. Cowell another man with a very large and interesting book collection. Both men went on book hunts together, Paris being (then) fertile ground. Mayer also bought heavily while in America. F. R. Cowell was a historian and author of Cicero and the Roman Republic, The Athenaeum, and Leibniz Material for London and many other works on ancient history, horticulture, economics and bibliography. In the accompanying letter (shown) he invites J-P Mayer to join him for a meal at his London club – The Athenaeum (February 1962). It appears that Mayer was trying to sell his library to ‘Boulder’ -presumably the University of Colorado. Evidently the sale never happened and the books stayed in his house in Stoke Poges for another 50 years. The house was near St. Giles church where Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is believed to have been written. It took 5 large vans to move the books. F.R. Cowell’s book collection just two…

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The Cavern – a view from 1964

Found in Arrows 87 (Summer 1964, edited by Roger Ebbatson) this amusing piece about 'Beat Music.' The magazine was produced by Sheffield University Union and had poems articles, graphics etc., This article was by Peter Roche a poet who was affiliated with the Liverpool Scene. He edited a 1960s anthology Love, Love, Love (The New Love Poetry) and is to be found in various poetry collections and anthologies. He was also a friend of John Peel and Cream lyricist Pete Brown.The article shows how, at the time, The Cavern (the club where the Beatles played and were discovered) was not universally loved...

Beat City by Peter Roche

Let me tell you all  a fairy story. Once upon a time, in a  city far away across the hills to the west, there was an old warehouse, in an alley off a side street. And underneath this warehouse was a cellar, where the local groups used to play their music far into the night. And people who lived on the banks of the river used to go to this cellar, because it was somewhere to go when the pubs had kicked out and you were half cut and there was nowhere else to go, and anyway there was a fair old chance of picking up a judy there. And everyone was fairly happy, minding their own business and having the occasional punch-up.

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Eviction of Adam and Eve

Found in Arrows 87 (Summer 1964, edited by Roger Ebbatson) this amusing piece about Adam and Eve. The magazine was produced by Sheffield University Union and had poems articles, graphics etc., This squib was by Peter Mottley (1935-2006) who became an actor, director and playwright.

Eviction by Peter Mottley.

Dear Mr. Adam,

I am instructed by my client to serve the enclosed eviction order concerning the property you now occupy.

He feels that he is justified in this action in view of your recent behaviour, which constitutes a breach of the terms of your lease.

You will remember the Clause 4 in your lease permitted you full access to the garden on condition that you undertook 'to dress it and keep it', and that my client generously allowed you to take for your own use any of the fruits and flower which grow there. However, he specified quite plainly that you were not under any circumstances to touch the prize-winning fruit tree in the south-east corner. This clause has been broken quite blatantly by your wife, who has freely admitted taking fruit from this tree. Her excuse, that she thought it would be all right, is considered by my client to be inadequate.

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Son of the Sixties

Found - in Axle, a short lived magazine, from June 1963 this amusing and intriguing portrait of a sixties type (or archetype.) It was written  by Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley the editors of the magazine. These 2 men, 23 at the time, went on to become successful pop music composers - hits included Dave Dee's Xanadu..In 1970 they even wrote a song for Elvis ('I've lost you'.)The reference to 'Dexadrin' is obscure- can find no trace of such a magazine, possibly ingested rather than read...

Son of the Sixties

Build: Tall; slim; muscular without exercise. Complexion: clear; permanently bronzed without sun or Man-tan; never sweats...Seldom laughs (but rare smiles are planned and dazzling - he was born in natural fluoride area). Hair: Black; well-combed, no dressing; styling suggests but never quite descends to more obvious fashions of the day (Frost, Como, etc.) Clothes: by John Michael and Marks and Spencer. Can wear white shirt for whole week. General appearance: Air of masculine competence cunningly offset by one or two ambiguous touches (name-bracelet, St. Christopher chain, pastel denim shirt); usual expression, mixture of Come-Hither and Come-Off-It; can appear alternately boyish and authoritative, a trump combination arousing maternal and subject feelings in women simultaneously, rendering him irresistible. Looks at best after all night party. Background: only son of fashionably separated parents (White Russian mother, Franco-Jewish father) whom he visited alternately in school holidays; discreet fostering of their sense of guilt won him ample allowance and Porsche at 18. Education: Attended Bedales where he swam on summer nights in nude and was encouraged extracurricular activities; he in turn encouraged extra martial activity of master's wife who fondly imagined she had done the seducing. Always the centre of any group, without responsibility of actual leadership...Scraped 3 G.C.E. passes and entered St. Martin's Art School where... he gained undistinguished diploma. Occupations: rejected father's suggestion that he should 'work his way up from the bottom' (in three years) in his costume jewellery business. After spell as bar steward on Azores run where he cut dashing figure in whites, found (with friend of girl friend's help) tailor-made niche as London P.R.O. for obscure but loaded mining venture in Pretoria which enables him to indulge twin ambitions of luxurious living and complete independence. Residence: From liberal expense account was able to set up basement flat in renovated Earls Court terrace, where he frequently throws lavish (but informal) parties that are unexceptionally tremendous successes and are usually raided. (But he has a way with The Law). Clubs: Discotheque, Le Gigolo, Muriel's National Film Theatre, La Poubellle, Rockingham, Ronnie Scott's (offer drinks at, but has never joined The Establishment). Takes: The Observer, Peace News, Dexadrin. Glances at: The Times, Daily Express, Izvetzia, Private Eye, Encounter, Town, Playboy, Paris-Match, Sight and Sound, his horoscope. Went through novel and poetry reading stage at 15; still studies reviews quite carefully. Listens to: Today (2nd edition), Pick of the Pops. Watches: Panorama, Tonight, Compact (for laughs and because he knows some of the cast very intimately), Points of View. Outlook: Intellectual inferiors regard him as unassumingly highbrow, while academics find his 'untouched originality' refreshing. Remarkably adaptable, is equally at home in company of Soho villains and company directors, pop singers and clergymen. Mixes everything from sex to drinks and generally likes neither straight. Believes in experience (hash-smoking, etc.) as a right rather than as anything wildly off-beat, but demands best in everything. A self-confessed dilettante, seeks to avoid type-casting; likes to confound admirers of both sexes by appearing in public with wholly atypical companions. An agnostic, takes pleasure in arguing case for Christianity and was cynical at attempts at compromise in Honest to God. Politics: Wouldn't vote in next election even if he were 21. Occasionally supports Committee of 100 demonstrations, but no longer marches ... Future: Middle-age. And then…? (Excerpt)

The A.A. Gunner’s creed

A.A. RAF team in Normandy.
Many thanks Histomil
Found in The Journal of the Royal Air Force Volume 15, no. 2 Autumn, 1935. pp 229-230 The A.A. Gunner's Creed, by H. W. H. The journal preface the creed by stating "…the origin of this creed is unknown, and the Editor publishes it hoping that he is not infringing any copyright" - a sentiment we also echo. HWH shows considerable wit and was probably a formidable gunner. A.A., as every WWII buff knows, stands for 'Anti-Aircraft.'

Whosoever will be saved: before all things it is necessary to hold the A.A. Faith.

Which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled: without doubt he shall miss the target everlastingly.

And the A.A. Faith is this: that we worship Calibration and the Mean of Three Height Readings.

Neither confounding the Height-takers: nor cavilling at their marvellous discrepancies.

For there is one Height of the Mirror, another of the Altimeter: and another of the U.B.2.

And yet there are not three Heights; but one Height.

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Hiroshima and Nagasaki seventy years on–a naval officer’s visit to Japan in 1946/1947

To mark the terrible events of seventy years ago in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, here are some postcards bought by my late father while visiting Japan, late in 1946 or early in 1947, as a commander in the Royal Navy. They were found interleaved in the first volume of a two volume guide book entitled We Japanese, first published in December 1934 and June 1937,by H.S.K Yamaguchi, the managing director of the exclusive Fujiya Hotel at Miyanoshita, situated in the mountainous region of Hakone, eighty miles SW of Tokyo.

The first and second volumes of this four hundred page guide to ‘many of the customs, manners, ceremonies, festivals, arts and crafts of the Japanese’ were reprinted in October and December respectively. A third and final volume appeared in 1949. My father probably bought his copies while staying at the hotel, which was established in 1878 by a member of the Yamaguchi family, and today advertises itself as the oldest ‘Western-style’ hotel in Japan. He wouldn’t have met the guide’s author, who had made great improvements to his hotel in the thirties, because he had died in 1944, but he might have rubbed shoulders with some of its famous guests. During the war one of these was the loathsome ‘Butcher of Warsaw’, Joseph Meisinger, but he had been captured by the Allies in September 1945. At other times celebrities staying at this exclusive hotel included Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Charlie Chaplin, and the Emperor of Japan himself. In 1978 Yoko Ono took John Lennon here.

Today, at £133 pp per night, the Fujiya Hotel no doubt trades on its exclusive reputation, but it is still cheaper than a less famous rival nearby. If you do decide to visit it, the receptionist may let you consult the final issue (1950) of the guide to Japan that my father bought nearly seventy years ago. [RMH]