94. Napoleon Buonaparte, Joey the Clown and a Chariot for Sale - All in the Day's News: The Archaeology of a Box (9)

 

 

Among the treasures in my box I find a facsimile of The Times dated Thursday, June 22nd, 1815 (price 6pence ha'penny). I have no idea now of how or why I acquired this.

For me the distinctive feature of The Times in my youth was the small ads that filled the front and back pages, replaced since 3 May 1966 by conventional news stories.

The big news story of June 22nd 1815 was the defeat of Napoleon's army at the Battle of Waterloo.

 

I have always loved reading the small ads in newspapers as they usually turn up some items of curiosity. For example, when in Hawaii in 1985, I noted these down:

• Become legally ordained minister. Credentials sent for $3 offering. Mother Earth Church.
• Divorce $25.
• [On a T-shirt] Property of 3 Mile Island Nuclear Plant. Glows in the dark.
• [A picture of Uncle Sam and the text] Join the Army. Travel to exotic distant lands; meet exciting, unusual people and kill them.
• Australia – New Zealand. 50,000 jobs. Top pay. All occupations. Free transportation.
• Women Too Expensive? Stop Dating Ripoffs! Free details.
• Avoid Death and Holocaust. Free! Cassette tape, no obligation.

This 1815 edition of The Times doesn't disappoint. Along with the apartments to rent, the houses to buy, the jobs to be filled, the businesses to be traded or wound up, the notices of sermons and meetings, the horses, ponies and cows for sale, there's a yellow chariot at 150 guineas.

 

And there's some novel entertainment:

At the Freemasons' Tavern in Lincoln's Inn Fields, William Wilberforce MP, President of the African and Asiatic Society, is to preside over the Society's Anniversary Dinner.

 William Wilberforce was a key player in the long running parliamentary campaign to abolish the slave trade. Finally in 1807 the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act abolished the slave trade in the British colonies. But although the trading in slaves was now illegal, slavery itself was not. It was not until 1833 that the Abolition of Slavery Act passed its third reading in the House of Commons. Wilberforce died three days later.

 

So What's On? in London theatres in June 1815.

 

 

At the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Edmund Kean (1767-1832) stars in Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, a Jacobean comedy by John Fletcher. In 1814 Drury Lane Theatre was on the verge of bankruptcy and so employed Kean, England's leading Shakespearean actor. He opened as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice to huge audiences and followed up with the lead parts in Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and King Lear.

 

At the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden this evening Miss O'Neill plays the title role in Isabella or, the Fatal Marriage by the English actor, playwright and theatre manager David Garrick (1717-1779). Elizabeth O'Neill (1791-1872) was an Irish actress who, after causing a sensation in Dublin was employed by Covent Garden and made her debut there in 1814 as Juliet.

On Friday June 30th a special benefit show of opera, farce and 'other entertainments' will take place for Mr Brandon, the Covent Garden's box office manager and treasurer. The comic opera The Duenna, whose lyrics were written by Richard Sheridan (1751-1815), playwright and long-term owner of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, was described by Byron as the 'best opera ever'.

At the Royal Amphitheatre (Astley's) a variety show featuring, among other things, a real horse race and a real fox chace. Astley's in Westminster Bridge Road was the home of the circus.

At Sadler's Wells a dance, a comic song, a melodrama and a pantomime with the Clown of Clowns, Mr Grimaldi. Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1820), actor, comedian and dancer, was the most popular entertainer of the Regency period (1811-1820). He is buried in Joseph Grimaldi Park in Islington and each year on the first Sunday in February there is a memorial service for him. Clowns attend in their full costumes to take part in the service and then put on a show for the local community.

 

 

At Vauxhall, under the patronage of the Prince Regent, a Grand Gala and Fireworks Display. Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens was London's leading venue for public entertainment and attracted enormous crowds drawn from all walks of society. Each evening at dusk a thousand oil lamps would be lit so that festivities could continue into the night. In 1817 the Battle of Waterloo was re-enacted there with a thousand soldiers participating. Here is Thackeray's description in Vanity Fair of  'all the delights of the Gardens':

the hundred thousand extra lamps, which were always lighted; the fiddlers in cocked hats, who played ravishing melodies under the gilded cockle-shell in the midst of the Gardens; the singers, both of comic and sentimental ballads, who charmed the ears there; the country dances, formed by bouncing cockneys and cockneyesses, and executed amidst jumping, thumping and laughter; the signal which announced that Madame Saqui was about to mount skyward on a slack-rope ascending to the stars; the hermit that always sat in the illuminated hermitage; the dark walks, so favourable to the interviews of young lovers; the pots of stout handed about by the people in the shabby old liveries; and the twinkling boxes, in which the happy feasters made-believe to eat slices of almost invisible ham...

 

 

 

 

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93. A Wedding in Luxembourg.

Note:
This blog is the sequel to blog 19, 'In London, In Love' (27th December 2011). The italicised text below is taken from the tape recordings made by Mary on our trip to the USA and Europe in 1981-82. The non-italicised text records some of my memories of Mary triggered by listening to her tape of a wedding we went to in Luxembourg in December 1981. Other blogs that include memories of  this trip are 5, 'Mogg's Bakery and Jack Blandiver's Clock' (5th November 2011) and 38, 'Here Comes the Can-Can. Oh, shit the tape's running out' (7th March 2012). See also blogs 15, 'Mr Oliphant's Tears' (5th November 2011) and 37, 'One Wedding, Two Funerals, Three Letters, Thirty Years' (2nd March 2012).

"It’s now Friday the eleventh. We’re still at Heathrow Airport although we did go back to John’s brother’s to sleep last night. We were all day getting from there to the airport, hanging around, and back again, and we’ve been up since six o’clock and we’re back at the airport. It’s now quarter to one. We’re hoping the Luxembourg flight will get off about two o’clock. Jan’s wedding is at six and the reception at seven. We weren’t going to go but she was so disappointed when we rang her last night that we’ve decided to make the effort and see if we can get there, but everyone at the airport’s looking pretty tired, the Christmas trees are beginning to look a bit sad and the snow is still falling down everywhere – it’s about six or seven inches deep out on the runways…

We’re in the Luxembourg aircraft now, waiting for take-off, and they’re spraying antifreeze all over the plane. It’s running down the windows like detergent suds. Meanwhile the snow is really thick and still coming down outside. It’s going to be quite an experience to take off in it.

I wish Anita and Neal could see this take off; they’d be absolutely having a heart attack. It looks like we’re going to make the wedding after all. It’s two o’clock and the wedding’s not until four and the flight will be an hour… no, the wedding’s not until six, we’ve got plenty of time. We’ll get there at what time?"

"Should be four, local time."

“Be there at four o’clock.

The runway’s absolutely covered in ice. We’re just taxiing out for our take off, piles of snow on the side of the runway where the tractor’s piled it all up. The snow’s still falling very heavily, it’s amazing we’re getting off the ground at all. There’s planes and trucks and passenger gear and walk-on things all absolutely covered in snow all over the place. The snow’s piled four or five feet deep in big piles on the side of the runway, it’s really quite scary. The snowplough’s shifting the snow on the runway, it’s going at least thirty miles an hour, really moving. One plane just landed in a cloud of snow. It looked like it was exploding.

Well, we’re taking off at last. What a terrifying experience. Still snowing. Runway’s all icy. S’posed to have an ace pilot, a grade two according to a lady at the airport, one of the best in the business. Well, the wheels are off, we’re up. Can’t see a thing. Snowing. I want to see what it’s like going through the clouds when it’s snowing. God, it’s white down there. Can see the ground, it’s absolutely amazing. There’s roads and outlines of houses and a few bits of traffic moving around and it’s, it’s just like someone’s emptied a flour bag over the whole place. I thought snow clouds would be thick and icy but they seem to be just the same…"

I’ve always preferred train travel to air travel, the relaxed pace of it. Gazing out at the passing landscape through the windows of a train has a sad but beautiful melancholy about it, like watching a sunset. But all forms of travel provide an opportunity for reflection, for looking back and planning ahead.

How would I describe Mary? In all my letters to Mum and Dad over the years, I don’t think I ever describe her to them. What could I tell them I wonder? The conventional physical things? Five feet four, curly headed blue eyed blonde (well, hairdressers’ blonde anyway), strong fingers from all that shampooing, the slightly overweight figure of someone who enjoys food and life and is not obsessed by fitness – round and cuddly isn’t it that Pat writes to Mum and Dad when she and I separate?

Perhaps I will describe the bumps on Mary’s head, as the phrenologists do in their search for character types. Has a round head so is at ease with strangers, makes friends readily and is naturally suited to sales work.

Or I will describe Mary in the conventions of a lovesick swain, some lunatic Don Quixote in thrall to his divine Esmerelda (or was that his horse?) or Launcelot singing the praises of the mystical Guinevere – the softness of her lips, the caress of her smile, the sparkling laughter in her eyes, the peaches and cream complexion. But none of that captures Mary.

I could tell them how glamorous she looks dressed to kill in her gold lamé evening jacket, how professional in her two piece cream business suit, how homely in her pale blue smock and faded jeans, or describe how sweet and serene and vulnerable she looks asleep at night with, in the words of Air Supply, her hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden dawn, or is it a sleepy golden storm - something like that – or is that from one of our favourite Roberta Flack songs?

But that won’t capture Mary either. I need to be a poet to convey the warmth of her personality and her infectious gaiety in spite of all the dramas of her past – even the broken nose, an inheritance of her disastrous short-lived marriage, is, in my eyes, as cute as cute. But all that does is tell them how much I love her and nothing about herself.

"Landing in Luxembourg. It’s still snowing. There’s a lot of trees around the place but the snow doesn’t look as thick as at Heathrow. About an inch thick here, but it’s foggy and very dark. Hope there’s someone to meet us because we haven’t got any money…

I’m whispering because we’re in the church in Luxembourg waiting for Jan and Nico to come back from their civil ceremony, which they have before the church wedding. The clocks advanced an hour so we weren’t as early as we thought. We caught Jan on the phone just as she was going out to the civil ceremony, so all she could do was send the wedding car for us, a big Mercedes, which was hilarious because it was all decorated with white ribbon. The chauffeur, Benny, was like a character from a Walt Disney film. He had actually been a circus performer and was only about four feet six high, greyish hair and very quick moving, like a little elf around the place. We pulled in for some petrol on the way and the garage attendants congratulated John and I, thinking we’d just married! We barely had time to change, race out and get to the church.

Jan has arrived. She’s wearing a white lace top and a black skirt and a bowler hat that’s silver sequins, with a grey velvet sort of bowler edge on it and an apricot flower at the back…"

I could tell them she is a Taurus with a ruling planet in Venus, the goddess of love, and if they believe in that astrological stuff, which I know they don’t – well, how could they? – it might give them some clues to her personality – earthy, dependable, compassionate, enjoying every moment to the full, loving luxury and the creature comforts of life – jewellery, fur coats, cooking and eating and dinner parties and buying expensive beautiful things for the home, soft cushions and floral chintzes and solid rosewood furniture and flowers everywhere (in Sydney we filled our hotel room with roses) and a mulled claret with chocolate gateau in front of a cosy log fire – and (I particularly like this bit about Taureans) – cherishing and nourishing and spoiling her partner with grand romantic gestures and unexpected little tokens of affection. But that, true as it all is, won’t capture the essence of Mary either.

"I’m recording over some of the wedding ceremony stuff because the voice isn’t easy to hear and you can’t hear the service.

The church was very big, magnificent windows, really modern sculptures of bronze and brass, beautiful Madonnas and saints all round the place. It was a Catholic service and the priest celebrated mass. None of the guests seemed to know quite what to do. When Jan arrived we all walked up the aisle behind her, which was a bit tricky. She told me afterwards that she thought everyone would have been seated.

I could tell of Mary's family. Fred, her gruff kiwi jack-of-all-trades Dad, who she loves dearly and who is miffed that, now I am the new man in Mary’s life, he has to do his weekly grocery shop on his own. Her elder sister Anita, co-conspirator in many of Mary’s business ventures, the red haired party girl who, in her mid thirties, marries Neal, her flying instructor, and now, on the cusp of her fertility, is desperate not to miscarry yet again. Chrissie, her mentally ailing mother, who trains her teenage girls in the family salon in Shirley Road (though Mary really wants to be a florist) and, as children, makes them sit in the car in their underwear in case they spoil their dresses on their way to visit family friends. John, Mary’s son, apprenticed as a motor mechanic, who flats round the corner with his trainee seamstress girlfriend Lynette and sits outside the Big I on his motor bike whenever his mum goes for a drink with a strange man. And that might tell them something more of the Mary I love.

"The wedding reception was held at the Airport Hotel. The most magnificent spread of food was put on. All the guests had soup and then there was a buffet, then sweets with liqueur ice-cream, fresh fruit salad, oh, there was chocolate mousse, and then a special sort of very thick coffee and liqueurs. And plates of bonbons, biscuits and chocolates came round, then a whole lot of cigars, more wine, more drinks, schnapps, kirsch and some fancy cocktail, not kirsch but tasted like kirsch, which was very powerful stuff. The guests got quite hysterical, everyone jabbering in their different languages, and somebody took Jan’s shoe and auctioned it off. Apparently it’s an old custom where the groom has to match the highest bid to prove his love for his bride, but some of the English community that were there got a bit carried away and were frightfully boozed, and one guy started auctioning off his wife’s shoe as well, and then went round the room collecting shoes from all the women and auctioning them off. Sort of killed the main purpose of the thing but it was so hysterically funny that we had to laugh. We did manage to change some money at the airport, we needed some for the phone, but we had no idea of the value of it. At the church a collection plate went around which was a bit tricky, again because we didn’t know what the money was worth. I think we put in a bill that was worth about four dollars or something - there wasn’t much else we could do - but we daren’t bid for the shoe because we wouldn’t have had a clue what it was going up to, but the next day when they left for their honeymoon we met them at the hotel and had about an hour together. Jan had a big roll of notes from the shoe auction tucked in her purse and was going to spend that in Morocco where they went for their honeymoon."

Or I can tell stories about Mary, little vignettes that seek to encapsulate her personality. I can tell how warm and precious I feel when she puts her arm in mine and cajoles me, ever so sweetly, into yet another dress shop. I can tell how funny she is when she throws a tantrum and lies on the floor kicking her heels in the air and banging her fists on our new Persian rug because the parsimonious Scotsman in me growls at her for being so extravagant. I can tell about chicken bones thrown in restaurants and her abuse of doctors. I could tell them what fun Mary is in bed but will spare their blushes, though God knows these days we seem to have moved from phrenology, graphology, iridology, and astrology to gynaecology in our search for the keys to character, as though the clues to personality lay in the revelations of the orgasm or the excavation of the g-spot. But I hardly think to capture Mary there, she who used to think that cunnilingus was a cough syrup and conceived John the very first time she made love.

"At the wedding reception everyone was really excited, talking away and happy, and the hotel owner, Pirot someone or other, turned up with a whole lot of hats. He had an African safari hat and a Mexican - black embroidered in silver, a gigantic one, and a bowler and a whole lot of other hats. Then everybody started dancing. Thought my whole life had changed actually, I got dragged up onto the floor. We did a whole lot of sort of Greek dances where everyone just hangs on, runs around in a circle jumping up and down, and then a conga all the way through the room, and up and down the stairs.

The Luxembourgers were very elegantly dressed, simple sort of restaurant style. I thought perhaps the others had overdone it a bit. Jan’s mother and sister were there. Her mother had a brown velvet long skirt on and an elaborate blouse and sort of bolero, long bolero, and she had a wig on and on top of that was perched a funny little hat with a big rose on the top like a pompom. Her sister looked very nice though. She had, again, a long dress with a silky blouse. I wore a leather skirt and bolero I bought in London, and it was just about the right weight because it was so cold in the church, you just couldn’t have had anything light on. I’d planned to wear the same dress I’d worn to John junior’s wedding but that was completely out of the question. I wore boots, although a lot of the women wore very elegant shoes I noticed, particularly with the shoe auction going on. There’s no way they could have taken mine because I couldn’t have hauled a boot off my foot.

I can tell of Mary’s robustness in the face of adversity and how she bounces back from the disappointments of the men in her life, not least the wayward unreliable son John with his good looks and bad behaviour so reminiscent of his sad father, Mary’s ballroom dancing partner (they were New Zealand Champions) and first love, whose parents connive at the marriage of two teenagers, failing to disclose Nigel’s history of mental instability and forestall a pattern of abusive behaviour that precipitates Mary with three month old John home to mum and dad and seven years of celibacy.

Or her humiliation by Roy the Mormon who, when Mary finds him in bed with another woman, gaily informs her that he and Mary have no future together anyway because he’s looking for a wife who can go to the Celestial Kingdom with him, whereas she, in her sinfulness, will never progress beyond the Terrestrial Kingdom and will be lucky to be redeemed from the devil at the last resurrection.

Or her humiliation of the randy Henry, the Education Department official from Wellington that she dines with on his periodic forays to Auckland and who harasses her constantly until, in exasperation, she finally undresses in his hotel bedroom, lies naked on the bed watching him take off his clothes and inquires, on inspecting the apparatus, “Is that it, then?” thereby deflating his amorous intentions and extinguishing his dinner invitations for all time.

Or her disappointment in Ross, who fails to tell her of the wife back home in America yet does have the grace, on returning to his loveless marriage, to send her a copy of Sonnets from the Portuguese ‘with much love from a special friend.’

I can tell of the tender way she off-loads a motley array of boyfriends after I move in with her, watching their disappointment in smug amusement, and of the gay hairdresser ‘Gerald of London’ who, in a desperate bid to conserve their platonic friendship, arrives on the doorstep late at night considerably the worse for wear and asks Mary to marry him.

"During the dancing I teased Jan and threatened to make an announcement to everybody that she was ex New Zealand ballroom dancing queen and she’d had a lot of training. The dancing was so funny, so weird. A cross between a continental mountain goat dance and a, ah, Greek traditional. Jan was posing, she had this great big Mexican hat on, and I kept dashing up to her saying ‘You can tell you’ve had training, you can tell you’ve had dancing training, let me tell everyone just how famous you are back in the old country,’ and she was going hysterical thinking that I was about to make a big announcement. Here she is. I recorded this bit at the reception.”

“Neeta, look I can’t believe it Neeta. Do you know the trouble your scungy sister caused us? Well, we had to end up, to tell the truth we had to end up sending our wedding car to pick her up from the airport, and we had to take the best man’s car to the commune, where we had the civil ceremony, and to the church afterwards. Now, I shouldn’t say you won’t believe it because I know you will. She arrives at the church in our wedding car and we were around at the back in the sacristy with the priest, trying to sneak in the front so no one can see us getting out of a beat up old car."

"And I looked the best, everyone thought I was the bride. I totally upstaged her. But then you know her dress sense. She looked a fright. Like her mother dressed her. You didn’t really. You looked lovely. It was a lovely wedding. I didn’t say anything wrong in church and I didn’t sing anything wrong and I knelt at all the right times. I tried not to disgrace you.”“

"Neeta, I never heard her say anything at all. Oh, I have to dance, dear, I’ll talk to you later."

Or I could tell of her tarot character, the Queen of Wands, her Earth Mother signifier, the magnetic friendly self-made woman, enterprising and creative, who draws immense confidence, satisfaction and security from her business and professional achievements and recognition – though she isn’t too happy to be described as ‘The Mother of New Zealand Hairdressing’ at a function to honour her - and who is sought out by her myriad of friends as a wise counsellor in times of distress, not because she has any particular book learning or even street smarts – although she does have a hard robust tough-love edge when needed - but because they respect her experience and judgment, know she has been through her own dark days, and feel the honesty and genuineness of her sympathy and care. That would tell them something more of Mary.

“Another message from the bride and groom.”

“Am I talking to Freddie and the family again?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, that’s nice. Do you know, Freddie, what my groom just told me? He said I’m a mouse and that, that he’s the leader in everything we do, but you see he’s forgotten today’s made the big difference and today’s the big switcheroo. You know what I mean, don’t you love?

I can’t help but laughing. I’ve got your daughter here. She’s completely upstaged me, arrived late, right at the last minute as we were off to the commune and the church. We even had to send the wedding car to pick her and not even her husband up, and… she can tell you the rest when she gets home. Bye, bye Freddie, and I hope you’re feeling a lot better, and Chrissie, and love to Anita and Neal, and everyone there, and that rotten little John who just got married too.”…

What more could I say? I told Mum and Dad about Sydney and the magic of our falling in love, and could have told them more of our great romance. If they had seen the transformation in me, they would know Mary, for what she releases in me is but the mirror of her love. It is I who send her long letters from England full of extracts from Walt Whitman singing of ‘the mystic deliria’, the amorous madness, the passionate trembling, singing of ‘the beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh… of the woman that loves me and whom I love more than my life’. It is I who boldly announce my full-time arrival in the lottery of her life with two suitcases left in the middle of her lounge at Huia Road and, on the top of the coffee table, a little gift and card with the message ‘You’ve won the Golden Kiwi – I hope you like it.’ It is I, the King of Cups, in my most imaginative, intuitive and romantic vein, who buys two silver-plated goblets and produces them at a candlelit dinner to toast our love and disclose, beneath the blood red wine in Mary’s cup, a silver lovers’ knot to bind us for eternity. To me Mary is elemental – the earth I am grounded in, the fire in my groin, the air I breathe, the water that nourishes me. I am in love!

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[Blog taken from material written in 2001/2002. Today is the 32nd anniversary of Mary's death on the 19th of February 1982. We were married for 5 days.]

92. Tiddlywinks, Happy Families and Christmas "down the creeks": Brother and Sister, Worlds Apart (2)

[This blog is a follow on from blog 75. Dead Ducklings, War Canoes, Steel Works and a Leper Settlement: Two Teachers, Worlds Apart (17th November 2013). For the origin of these letters see blog 30. Love, Death and Letters from My Mother's Hut (4th February 2012). The letters here were written around the end of 1972 and the beginning of 1973. The protocol followed in editing these letters is as before: mine are in the present typeface (Times) and Elizabeth's in Courier. Any present glossary on the events reported, or reflection on the memories that they trigger, is in italics.]

Wellington, 8th November 1972
    Time goes so quickly it is difficult to know what has happened since we last wrote. Towards the end of October there was a Bank Holiday weekend [for Labour Day] so we had an extra opportunity to explore some of the surrounding countryside... On the Saturday we went to one of the beaches on the Tasman Sea, west of Auckland. It was a beautiful day and to get there we drove through part of what is called the Scenic Drive in the Waitakere Hills near Auckland. Very lovely and a very spectacular beach - it was black! The whole of the West coast is ironsand; some of it is used in the steelworks here and much of it is shipped to Japan for conversion into steel.
    The following weekend we went to the zoo in Auckland and had a picnic lunch there. The main attraction was the Kiwis. These are nocturnal birds so the Kiwi house is almost completely dark with just enough light to see the Kiwis scuffing around in the undergrowth. The children thought it great fun. Then this last weekend was Guy Fawkes and we went to a Fireworks Display at Mairangi Bay about three miles from where we are staying. The fireworks were marvellous but they did not start until 8.15 by which time Lewis had gone to sleep. From 7 o'clock there were a number of different entertainments including lots of Scottish dancing and a lone bagpiper!
    We have begun to look around for suitable housing although we don't expect to move until late January or early February. We are hoping to find something suitable in either Campbell's Bay - which is where Stuart and Sacha go to school at present - or in Rothesay Bay which is a little further out (about 12 miles from the centre of Auckland). We are also making enquiries to see whether it would be better for us to buy a small plot of land and have our own house built on it - this has always been the practice in New Zealand and the Government encourages people to build their own homes by providing relatively cheap finance...
    Did I tell you that our car arrived a couple of weeks ago. The children were very pleased to see it. Stuart and Sacha seem quite settled at school but Lewis in particular misses his friends from Carpenders Park. We won't be able to get him into a playgroup until after the Summer holidays.
    I am in Wellington this week visiting various people at the University here and in the Department of Labour. Wellington is noted for being very windy (it is wet as well at present) and coming in by plane is very bumpy. Next time perhaps I'll come by train!
    Love from us all, John.

Vining Centre, Akure, November 13th 1972.
... On Sunday I went with Joe and Brenda Batt to the War Memorial Remembrance Day service in Ibadan. Gen. Gowon read the lesson. He was in Ibadan with President Senghor of Senegal who is on a state visit to Nigeria. Everything was done with great pomp and ceremony.... the Nigerian version of the Cenotaph ceremonies. They had the 'lot' - Last Post Reveille, Guns salute, march past (or round the clock tower) brass band, red carpet, laying of wreaths and an enormous grey Rolls Royce in which the 2 heads of state sat up at the back and waved to the crowds. The only snag was that although all of us in the enclosure stood solemnly for 2 minutes silence - all the folk behind the barriers in the streets around hadn't got the message so there was by no means 'silence'.

Milford, 20th November 1972
.... I had quite an eventful and very useful week in Wellington. It started with a very bumpy approach to Wellington airport in the high winds common in the Cook Strait* and ended with a bomb scare on the plane returning home! We were all got off the plane very quickly and then the plane was towed away to the far end of the runway by the sea. After we had all had our baggage searched we reboarded and arrived in Auckland one and a half hours late but safely. I also managed to lose my cheque book in Wellington but, although it has not turned up, no one has tried to use it so I have not lost any money as a result of my carelessness.
[*My first experience of flying into Wellington and one of many sick-making approaches and landings over the years. I had to fly into Wellington numerous times on university business, for monthly meetings of the Association of University Teachers executive when I was Vice-President and as a member of government working groups. I was rarely relaxed about it and work offers in Wellington had no appeal whatsoever as a consequence. I can only recall one flight worse than a Wellington one when the plane from Singapore was caught up in the jet stream; even the cabin crew were suffering and a number of passengers needed wheelchairs to disembark . My last flights to date, and probably my last flights ever, were to and from Wellington with Sharon to see the World of Wearable Art Awards Show in 2011. I hired oxygen to use during the flights but that was before I was on oxygen 24 hours a day.]

Vining Centre, December 1972 - letter to friends at Christmas
   One is not likely to miss the Christmas message of the miracle of "new birth" here at the Vining Centre. On Thursday last week I was wakened just after midnight with the information "Mrs Ibitoye is preparing to put to bed". So I took her in the Vauxwagen to the hospital. She was obviously in the very last stages of labour and was very fortunate not to have her baby in my car. When we reached the hospital she got out and ran to the delivery room shouting out "O ti de o!" "O ti de o!" (It's coming! It's coming!) The door closed, and about 2 minutes later we heard the cry of the new-born child.
   On Saturday morning the mother and baby were discharged, both fit and well. There are not enough beds in the Maternity ward in our Akure hospital for the mothers to stay more than one night after a normal delivery. Anyway no-one wants to stay for more than one night because it costs 2/6 a night and 3/- for food each day. Here in Nigeria everything is much closer to the "no room at the inn" situation.
   We had a second delivery this week on Monday. This time it was Mrs Eyitemi, our most illiterate wife, who comes from the Mid West State. She is a poor, skinny and sickly looking woman with big round eyes in a drawn face. She gave birth to twins, a boy of 4 lbs 10 ozs and a girl of 2 lbs 4 ozs. I have never seen such a wizened wee thing as this second minute infant. She only lived for 30 hours. The nurse said that they were slightly premature but that the main trouble was malnutrition during the pregnancy. On Wednesday I went to collect first the tiny body for burial and then later the mother and the surviving baby boy, who although less than 5 lbs in weight was discharged from the hospital on the second day of his life. Now we are busy caring for the mother and the child here on the compound. My contribution at the moment is simply a glass of milk a day. This couple do not have enough money even to afford that! The £1/13/6p which was the hospital bill had to be loaned to the father until he has started work as a Catechist.

   I shall not be spending Christmas in Akure this year, for I am going "down the creeks". I, together with 3 other friends, am going to stay with Maureen Olphin who is with C.M.S.[Church Missionary Society] and is the Vice-Principal of the Southern Ijaw Secondary School in Oporoma. This is right down in the delta of the River Niger. Most of the year you have to travel for 2 days in a boat to get there, but now in the dry season you can get to Yenagoa by road and then take a boat for the last 25 miles. It is a very underdeveloped part of Nigeria where life is very slow and most people live with just the basic necessities. I will write and let you know how we celebrate Christmas there.
   With my very best wishes,
   Elizabeth.

68b Seaview Road, Milford, Friday 8th December
... The last two weeks have been very hectic and trying as we have been looking for a house to buy. All our furniture and things arrived about 3 or 4 weeks ago and have been sitting in store in Auckland. Now we have found a house - address is on the back - and we should be moved in by next Friday December 15th. We are not able to complete the purchase since our house in England is not finally sold but we have an agreement that allows us to rent the house up until the end of April 1973 should that be necessary and as soon as we can complete the sale of 17 Lower Tail we can buy 57 Sunnybrae Rd. The house is just over 2 years old and has plenty of accommodation - lounge, dining-room, kitchen, laundry room, four bedrooms and a children's playroom (called a 'rumpus' room) so as soon as you are ready for a visit we can now put you up! The house is not near a beach, the nearest beaches at Milford and Takapuna being about 2 or 3 miles away, but it has very good access to a lot of other facilities. It is opposite the primary school and within walking distance are some local shops, a large park, Takapuna cricket club, the municipal golf course, tennis courts and a new YMCA recreation centre that includes a gymnasium for badminton etc and a swimming pool! The house is also less than a mile away from the motorway which means I can drive into the University in about 12 minutes. It has a nice level garden of 1/3rd of an acre. It will cost us less than £1000 more than we will get for the house at Lower Tail - $34,500 which is about £17,250. We are very pleased to have somewhere to settle into by Christmas and will move in the day the children finish school at Campbell's Bay for the eight week summer holiday. The Sunnybrae primary school is supposedly one of the best on the North Shore and that was a major factor helping us to make up our minds. We have some photographs given us by the Estate Agents. Pat has sent these to her mother and father asking them to forward them to you as quickly as possible.    I am sorry this is all about the house but will write again shortly with other news. We still have not got used to the idea that it will be Christmas in less than three weeks. Temperatures here have been around 65 to 70 degrees for some time with pleasant winds keeping it reasonably cool.
    Love to all, John, Pat, Stuart, Sacha and Lewis.
Boxing Day, Oporoma
   Dear Ma and Daddy,
   I am afraid you will have to wait sometime before you get this letter. Communication, either for people or for letters in and out of Oporoma is pretty slow, and unreliable, especially over the holiday.
   ...On Wednesday morning we had a terrible time because there was no petrol in Benin. Eventually we found one place with a queue of cars and an even longer queue of fighting pushing youths with cars to be filled. We bought a gallon can - and Ann waited in that queue while I scouted round elsewhere and discovered an Esso station where petrol had just arrived. There was chaos and constant arguments as to who should be served first - the car owners or the can queue. After 3 hours standing in the sun they served me with a full tank and a four gallon spare can - but I have never known such confusion. At times 2 men would get hold of the petrol pipe and be pulling it in opposite directions. One man got squirted all down his shirt front and the owner of the garage kept shouting - "turn off the supply"..... which they did every now and then to let the pushing, shoving, shouting mob calm down. Even when a couple of policemen turned up and there could have been some order enforced we were disappointed because they joined the pushers and got their cans filled by jumping the queue!!
   We proceeded by an improved (since 1970)  but still 'bad in patches' road to Onitsha.
   [We were given] such depressing reports of the road to Yenagoa* that we didn't trouble to make an early start on Thurs. morning because we thought that there would be no chance of getting the boat by 1pm. In fact this was not so - the road had improved... and we reached Yenagoa in 5 hours from Onitsha... so we stayed the night in the secondary school dormitory in Yenagoa. We were very kindly looked after by the Vice Principal there who laid on rice and fish stew, and water to wash in etc.
[The thing I remember most about that evening is that we asked the Vice Principal the location of the toilet and he showed us the hut where it was. So I went there later and opened the wooden door latch and went in to be welcomed by the Vice Principal sitting on a 'throne' made of mud built about 4 feet off the floor and he said 'Come in' and pointed to a smaller 'throne' nearer the floor on his left! I made a quick exit!!]
   ... we didn't get to Oporoma till Friday. The school boat came for us so we didn't have to wait for public transport... but nevertheless the waiting, first for the boat, then for the clerk to go to the Treasury and then the chug-chug journey (3 and a 1/2 hours) through the creeks and rivers occupied the whole day. We got here about 4pm. There are 6 of us - Ruth Howard, Jill Metcalf, Ann, Maureen, myself and Kay Williamson who is from Ibadan University. She is a linguist and has been studying the languages of the 'Rivers' area and writing reading books for primary schools. She is going off tomorrow to launch a new reading book in Northern Ijaw.
[The Ijaw languages have different dialects creek by creek or area by area so Kay was trying to get primary school story books published so that children could read them in their own brand of Ijaw.]

   We spent Christmas Eve going through the 'town' with a group of young people from the Church who did a simple Nativity play with carols interspersed. It was quite a short effort but we repeated it 7 times in all the 7 'quarters' of the town. I should think that we carried most of the children with us so they saw it 7 times over. It went on from around 7pm. till 10.30 so by then we were feeling pretty hoarse and tired. It's a pity that I didn't have any flash for the camera to take a picture of the rows of wide-eyed brown bodied children, and the church agent sitting beside an Aladdin lamp at a table with a tray on it - to collect the people's donations. This matter rather made a 'disturbance' because the people had decided to have a competitive collection - so if £2/10/- was given in the first quarter then the next wanted to 'top' it. The last quarter 'won' with £11 or so. So the Catechist and Church Agent were quite pleased because they can then take their arrears in salary.
 ...[we]made our Christmas dinner by candlelight in the evening. We had chicken, sausage and stuffing, peas, new potatoes and mushrooms in sauce, followed by Christmas pudding and brandy butter!! Very English - and very nice too.
   Boxing day morning was spent doing a puzzle and reading books. Really it has been a delightfully lazy time. It's just a pity that the humidity being almost 100% here - you don't feel like doing anything else apart from sit, or sleep, or eat or 'stroll'. Also Ruth and Jill both got some tummy bug - possibly from the Yenagoa fish stew - and so they were not able to enjoy the goodies at first.
[*Yenagoa is now the capital of Bayelsa State and President Goodluck Jonathan was the Governor of that state before he became the Vice President and then the current President of Nigeria. Fishing and farming in the Delta is severely affected by oil pollution from Shell Company operations.]


Oil spills have ruined mangrove swamps and polluted community water pumps (photo: Friends of the Earth).

57 Sunnybrae Road, Takapuna, 27th December 1972
    Dear All,
    Thank you for all the Christmas presents. The toys are all a great success, Lewis just being able to manage to flip the tiddlywinks and Stuart and Sacha and the rest of us having great fun with 'Misfits' and the Drive game. I have nearly finished the Gerry Durrell book and we are anticipating some Cordon Bleu cookery from Pat. Ruth's presents also went down very well - the Oxfam Happy Families is a good variant on an old theme and my new penknife has already come in very handy. The tea towel is gracing the top of our washing m/c and, as you will see, Sacha has been making good use of the airmail letters.
    We have had a very hectic time for the last three weeks and scarcely got ourselves organised in time for Christmas. Firstly there was a lot of toing and froing on the house, complicated by the fact that (a) the house was empty, (b) we wanted to rent it prior to buying it, (c) the owner was in Tauranga about 200 miles away, (d) his employer, an Insurance Co. had some financial interest in the property, and (e) solicitors on both sides just succeeded in confusing the issue and raising new problems. Eventually, however, we got agreement to rent from December 15th and had all our goods delivered from the docks where they had been in store. Unfortunately the shipping company were a bit of a dead loss - quite a lot of the furniture was damaged, there were a number of breakages of picture frames, lampshades etc and some items were missing so we now have to prepare a detailed inventory for the insurance claim - we wondered why insurance cost us 126 pounds but now we know!
    Thank you for your Christmas circular letter with all the news and for Dad's letter. New Zealand has all the religious denominations that there are in England and in addition a number of American imports including the people who call themselves Jesus Freaks. Auckland has also got a permanent group of the Hari Krishna set who are much in evidence in Queen Street, the main street, walking up and down and chanting and singing. The Maoris also have a variety of religious groups many of them being adaptations of Christianity.
    Christmas is very different here mainly of course because it is the middle of the Summer. The schools have broken up for the summer holidays and industry and commerce is virtually at a standstill until January 15th. As a result most people either go away over Christmas or are getting ready for their holidays. If you can imagine Christmas Day coinciding with the August Bank Holiday you will get some idea of what it is like. There is nothing like the traditional English pantomime although Pat did take the children, together with Andy and Julie their friends from Campbell's Bay School, to the Bugs Bunny Show, an American children's entertainment which they seemed to enjoy. On Christmas Eve we went out to the hills and went for a walk in the Bush - very beautiful and nobody about.
    Stuart and Sacha had colds the last few days. Sacha is better now but Stuart has got an earache so is going to see the doctor later this morning. One of the staff from the University, who is also new here, is coming over later in the day. She is from Nottingham and is Lecturer in Social Studies and Social Welfare Work particularly probation work.
    Love from us all,
    Pat, John and the children.

Oporoma, 27th Dec
   Ann and I are still here... The boat was not big enough to contain us all and our loads so we are waiting until tomorrow. We hope to manage to get to Onitsha in the day, and then back to Akure on Friday.
   We are becoming decimal here as from Jan 3rd. So in future we shall be working in Naira and Kobo. The one Naira will be 10/-[10 shillings] in value. Then there are to be 100 Kobo to the Naira... so it is not so difficult as New P[penny] because 1/- = 10 Kobo.
   I expect that there will be a certain amount of confusion - but not so much as in the secondary schools where the Principals are playing "all change"... both Janet Olowoyo and Mrs Ariyo have been told that they have to go and teach in Primary Schools because they are not graduates. It is madness really - because they are the pillars of the school and they will both be impossible to replace especially as they are teaching Yoruba, B.K.[Bible Knowledge; no, John, not Book Keeping!] and Needlework up to School Cert level - and they are not likely to produce graduates for any of these subjects.
   I am glad I am not in the schools at the moment. They are tending very much to run them like a Civil Service - which in this country means to agree to transfer your job at a moment's notice without any thought that you might have an opinion on the matter and that if you are transferred it will affect your wife and family.
   We have got silver stars up at all the doorways here. Like the ones I made with Stuart and Sacha last year. I wonder how they are all getting on in New Zealand.
   With love
   Elizabeth.

28th Dec.
    Just received your letter of Dec. 18th - I expect it got caught up with the Christmas mail and delayed a little.
    We have also just finished up the delicious shortbread - reminders of Scotland.
    N.Z. is certainly pretty sports mad especially about rugby. There is great gloom when the All Blacks lose. We did not see the NZ v Scotland match. We have no T.V. here nor did we have one at Seaview Rd - frankly we haven't missed it. We saw some telly when we were staying at the Motel and it seemed mostly repeats of programmes we had already seen in England, and there is only one channel at present. The All Black Tests are being shown live direct from Britain but that means of course that they start about 2.30am or 3am and even if we had a set I am not sure we would get up in the middle of the night to watch rugby! Many NZealanders do, however, and often precede the tele with a barbeque in their gardens - home barbeques are quite the thing here as I believe they are in the United States.
    We have found people friendly. For example, we sat next to a NZlander on the plane from Los Angeles. He was a man of 60+ who lived in Castor Bay; he introduced us to his daughter and son-in-law and their family and suggested the name of a good estate agent etc. We have also kept in touch with the Professor of Law from Auckland (George Hinde) who interviewed me in London and he has been very helpful in telling us about the system of house purchase etc.
    Christmas weather has been cooler and showery. Apparently Jan/Feb/Mch are the hottest months with it getting quite humid at times in Feb and Mch.
    Love.
    Please send photo on to the Sweetings.

91. A Valentine's Day Blog: The Archaeology of a Box: (8)

 

  

I pull a large packet of cards from the box. These are mostly cards to me from Sharon marking special occasions over our twelve years together - birthday cards, wedding anniversary cards, Christmas cards, Valentine's Day cards - each with a message of love to treasure.

 

I always liked to scout around the stationery shops and bookstores looking for the card that was the perfect fit for the special occasion I wished to celebrate, the best source generally being that endangered species the independent bookshop. Now I search through the e-card offerings online and see what I can find. Valued as e-card greetings are they are not amenable to being boxed up and treasured in quite the same way.

 

It being Valentine's Day, and also the ninth anniversary of our engagement (on Cheltenham Beach after a special Valentine's Day Dinner at McHugh's), I thought it appropriate to dedicate this blog to Sharon, a treasure cherished in memories and mementoes but most of all in presence.

 

Happy Valentine's Day, Sharon

With Love,

John xxx

McHugh's, Cheltenham Beach

 

Some of my treasured Valentine's Day Cards from Sharon