NORWICH CATHEDRAL AND MUSTARD: The Essence of England (9)

[This is the ninth of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or institution connected to the area]

In early medieval times, Norwich was the second city in England after London. Its prosperity was based on the trade in English wool, shipped over to the Flemish weavers through Norwich’s port at Great Yarmouth. The City of Norwich has retained a castle, many churches and historic streets from those times. Its greatest glory is Norwich Cathedral, whose lovely Church, Cloisters and Close make it one of the most satisfying cathedrals in England

Norwich Cathedral

 The main part of the Cathedral, including the tower, was built soon after the Norman Conquest between 1096 and 1145. The cloisters, Perpendicular nave vaulting and spire (after two attempts) followed later in 1430, 1450 and 1480 respectively.

Nave and Vault at Norwich

The imposition of Gothic features on a basically Norman building has been handled sympathetically. Norwich has lovely cloisters and both there and in the transepts, there are hundreds of finely carved bosses connecting the arcading, depicting sacred figures.

Holy Innocents Boss in Transept

The Cloisters

       

Dissolution of the Benedictine Priory and Civil War destruction in the 16^th and 17^th centuries brought turmoil and ruin but the cathedral has been repaired and restored. A visit to the fine City and its Cathedral is very rewarding..

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Norwich has been long associated with the production of mustard, not the effete confection produced in Dijon, not the feeble Bavarian variety nor the ineffably bland American hotdog substance but real hot mustard – enough to make you sneeze and take a deep breath, enough to irritate your nasal passages – in short English Mustard, produced with mustard flour and no vinegar since 1814, by Colmans in the Norwich suburb of Carrow.

Colmam's Mustard Advert

Its yellow jars are a staple of the English kitchen; it is sold in various forms throughout the world. I cannot conceive eating a sizzling pork sausage or a Melton Mowbray pork pie without a generous dollop of Colmans mustard and it is an essential accompaniment to unbeatable roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

English mustard is not just a wonderful food. Spread lightly on your little tot’s thumb, it will soon cure him of thumb-sucking: a short weep, but a bad habit will be cured for life.  Such little lessons are what gave the Englishman his stiff upper lip! Mustard poultices and plasters have been a folk remedy for backache and congestion of the chest for 400 years. ”Keen as mustard”, “Can’t cut the mustard” reflect the challenging qualities of this great condiment.

Norfolk rather specialises in versatile items. At Jeyes at Thetford, the flagship product is Jeyes Fluid, a disinfectant patented in 1877, used to clean floors and kitchens. However Jeyes Fluid will also clear paths of weeds and in earlier days was put into warm baths to help patients suffering from scarlet fever and dropsy: some say it will cure baldness, many say otherwise. But please do not on any account drink the stuff.

Allow me to digress to some other peculiarly English condiments. Less seen these days is Gentleman’s Relish, a tasty anchovy paste to spread on toast. Much more visible is tangy Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce, also using anchovies and great in stews or sprinkled over Welsh rarebit or sardines on toast.

Worcester Sauce

Gentleman's Relish

The best of British sauces is surely HP Sauce, a great favourite of Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who could recite the ingredients label which was carried in French as well as English. I imagine this exhausted his knowledge of French. HP, a tart mélange of tomato, dates, vinegar, spices and tamarind extract enlivens many a dull dish. Its label used to feature the London Houses of Parliament but that has been dropped, with the sauce now made sadly by Heinz in Holland, with not a parliament to be seen - typical of Europe's democratic deficit!

Another great accompaniment is pickle, said in Victorian times to mask the taste of meat which had gone off. Now it is a treat in itself with Branston’s Pickle being the brand leader. A favourite pub snack is a Ploughman’s Lunch consisting of a hunk of bread, a large slice of cheese and a good spoonful of pickle – delicious! This always reminds me of the hilarious TV sitcom “Nearest and Dearest” set at Pledge’s Pickles with lantern-jawed Hilda Baker and veteran comic Jimmy Jewel, both in great form, as Nellie and Eli Pledge and their pickle factory. Hilda Baker’s Northern expressions and her boisterous but genteel persona made me laugh immoderately.

Hilda Baker and Jimmy Jewel of Pledge's Pickles

The French have often been critical of English culinary accessories. For instance rather than suffer all the palaver of stock and bouillon, we Brits will produce some instant gravy using Bisto or toss an Oxo cube into boiling water. The result is usually pretty good and it only takes a few minutes. Much food is processed these days and some are particularly critical of great British favourites like Bovril and Marmite. Bovril is a nourishing spread using beef extract while Marmite uses brewers’ yeast extract. Both are an acquired taste and rather salty but Napoleon III ordered 1 million jars of Bovril for his troops at the start of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 (they lost). Anyhow we do not need to take any cheek about food from the French who eat frogs and snails and torture geese for their pâté de foie gras.

The real culinary excitement comes North of the border. With St Andrew’s Day looming in 30 November we will soon be crying for seconds of McSween’s Haggis (with neeps and tatties of course – mashed turnip and potato to the uninitiated) at our celebratory feast. But the culinary glory of cholesterol-loving Scotsmen originated in a modest chip-shop in Stonehaven just south of my home town of Aberdeen – the Deep-Fried Mars Bar.

Deep-fried Mars Bar and Ice Cream

Let the Mars Company cringe in embarrassment, let dieticians rant and rave, we Scots have discovered the ultimate comfort food. Eureka!

SMD

31.10.12

Text Copyright ©Sidney Donald 2012

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL AND HUGH GAITSKELL: The Essence of England (8)

[This is the eighth of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or institution connected to the area]

Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire is a spectacular building, and although mere size is no recommendation, it has the longest nave and overall length of any Gothic cathedral in Europe. The historic City of Winchester itself was the Saxon, then Norman, capital of England from the 9^th to the 11^th century. It is also the site of one of England’s most famous schools, Winchester College, founded in 1382.

Winchester Cathedral

The Nave at Winchester

 After 7^th century beginnings, including monastic sites associated with the cult of St Swithun, a Norman cathedral was started in 1079 of which the transepts, rather squat tower and crypt survive. The nave and main building in the Perpendicular Gothic style was begun by Bishop William of Wykeham in the late 14^th century. There were later additions and subtractions (the chapter house and cloisters were demolished after the Dissolution), the inevitable Victorian restoration featuring George Gilbert Scott, and a diver William Walker working in darkness for 6 years to 1912 in the water-logged crypt prevented the total collapse of the place. It was shored up with huge amounts of concrete and bricks; Walker was awarded the MVO but deserved a higher honour.

The glory of Winchester is its elaborate vaulted nave and indeed the stonework throughout is splendid, as is the Norman crypt. Its treasures include the 12^th century Winchester Bible, richly illuminated. Jane Austen, who lived nearby, is buried in the north aisle.  Its setting, in the centre of the City with generous surrounding lawns, adds to its many attractions.

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Winchester College, founded by William of Wykeham in 1382, is one of the most illustrious English “public” (i.e. private and independent) schools. It occupies historic buildings in the city and enjoys the very highest intellectual reputation – giving rise to the wry quip “You can usually tell a Wykemist, but you cannot tell him much”.

Winchester College

Pupils from Winchester (“Wykemists”) have enriched many areas of national life in Britain. One such was Hugh Gaitskell (1906-63), the Leader of the Labour Party from 1955 to his death and a political hero to me in my youth. Gaitskell was the son of an official in the Indian Civil Service and his maternal grandfather was Britain’s consul-general in Shanghai. A top-line education at The Dragon School, Oxford followed by Winchester College saw him move to New College, Oxford (also founded by William of Wykeham in 1379 and confusingly one of the oldest colleges in the University!) Gaitskell graduated with first class honours in politics, philosophy and economics in 1927. His Establishment credentials were impeccable.

However, Gaitskell had been radicalised by the General Strike of 1926. He lectured in economics to the WEA and to Nottingham miners. In the early 1930s he became head of the department of political economy at University College London and tutored at Birkbeck College. He travelled in Europe and was attached to Vienna University in 1934, witnessing the conflicts between Right and Left there. He stood unsuccessfully for Parliament in 1935 and married his feisty Jewish wife Dora in 1937.

During the Second War he worked at the Ministry of Economic Warfare under Hugh Dalton and he entered Parliament as an MP in the Labour landslide of 1945.

Portrait of Hugh Gaitskell

 Gaitskell joined the cabinet in 1947 as Minister of Fuel and Power and when that apostle of austerity Sir Stafford Cripps retired through ill-health, Gaitskell succeeded him as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1950. He only presented one Budget and the time was inauspicious. Revenues were needed for Korean War rearmament and Gaitskell raised profits tax and adjusted others but most controversially introduced charges for glasses and teeth, hitherto free on the National Health. The Labour Left regarded this as a betrayal of the principles of the Health Service and Aneurin Bevan and Harold Wilson resigned from the cabinet. Labour lost office at the election later in 1951.

The Post-war economic consensus between the parties was dubbed “Butskellism” after Gaitskell and his Tory opposite number Rab Butler. Butskellism accepted a mixed economy, with important industries nationalised, working alongside a hopefully buoyant private sector. In the event powerful trades unions and ineffective industrial management undermined Butskellism – it needed Margaret Thatcher a generation later to find a new path.

When Clement Attlee retired in 1955, Gaitskell easily enough defeated Bevan and Morrison for the leadership of the Labour Party. Bevan once called him “a desiccated calculating machine” and he did have a stern public image. Yet Gaitskell was fun-loving: he had an enthusiasm for ballroom-dancing, earning the sniffy disapproval of de Gaulle; he was fond of the ladies and embarked on a reckless affair with Ann Fleming, man-eating Tory wife of Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond. Living in Hampstead, he gathered around him a coterie of admiring intellectuals full of ideas including Roy Jenkins, Anthony Crosland and Denis Healey.

Gaitskell showed his thoughtful perspicacity when he pressed Anthony Eden not to go to war over Suez in 1956. He deplored Nasser, but did not consider him an overt threat; he wanted Eden to work through the United Nations – Blair might have done better had he taken the same line with Bush over Saddam and Iraq. He had a long struggle with the Left about Clause 4 in Labour’s Constitution pledging wholesale nationalisation in the long term; he lost this battle and only Tony Blair’s New Labour lanced that boil about 35 years later. After losing the election to Macmillan in 1959, he was faced with a Labour Conference decision to work towards Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament. He promised to reverse this policy and in a famous speech vowed to “fight, fight and fight again to save the Party we love”.

Gaitskell's passion

 Gaitskell duly won the following year in 1961. Elements in the Labour Party still espoused unilateralism and were involved in writing loony-leftist Michael Foot’s 1983 election manifesto – “the longest suicide note in history” observed one wit. Labour was duly trounced.

Gaitskell upset many of his followers, including me, by opposing Britain’s entry to the EEC. Speaking in October 1962 he said;

It does mean, if this is the idea, the end of Britain as an independent European state...it means the end of a thousand years of history.

Gaitskell could see, as we did not, the integrationist and federalist ambitions of the European elite who had created the Treaty of Rome. He wanted hard reflection in Britain on the choices we faced. That reflection never came and we are facing the consequences now.

I only saw Gaitskell speak in the flesh once, to a student audience in Oxford in 1962. He reviewed the issues of the day with fluency and wit: it was clear that his statements were the fruit of earnest thought and intellectual rigour; he did not bob and weave like Wilson or pump up his windbag like Kinnock. He was indeed “the best prime minister we never had”. When he suddenly died in January 1963 his admirers were devastated.

Writing this, I realise with a shock that Gaitskell died almost 50 years ago, and he is, I suppose, to many an almost forgotten figure. Yet his compassionate engagement, his logical mind, his striving after sensible solutions to national problems and above all his patriotism are by others not forgotten and our political life needs these qualities as never before.

SMD

30.10.12

Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2012

SALISBURY CATHEDRAL AND SIR EDWARD HEATH: The Essence of England (7)

[This is the seventh of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or institution connected to the area]

Salisbury Cathedral in Wiltshire is one of the loveliest sights in England. Whilst most English cathedrals are in a hotchpotch of styles, the main part of Salisbury was built in 38 years in the Early English manner between 1220 and 1258. The glorious Decorated Gothic spire, together with the tower, cloisters and chapter house, were completed in 1380.

Salisbury Cathedral

 Its artistic unity is apparent in the nave with pier after pier of Early English arcading in Purbeck marble giving grandeur (though critics talk of monotony) to the building.

The Nave

The harmonious proportions of Salisbury are the key to its charm. Externally too the old churchyard was swept away by Wyatt in 1790 and a vast expanse of lawn laid down, hugely enhancing the setting with green space. The cathedral has its treasures:  the chapter house, decorated by William Burges with biblical figures in 1855, holds the best-preserved of four surviving copies of the Magna Carta of 1215. The cathedral also has the oldest working example in the world of a mechanical clock, dating from 1380.

The beautiful 80-acre Cathedral Close has fine medieval and Georgian houses, among them Arundells, the home of Sir Edward Heath for the last 20 years of his life.

Arundells at Salisbury Cathedral Close

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“I have no small-talk and Peel has no manners” confessed the Tory Duke of Wellington in 1837, two accomplishments one would think any ambitious politician required. Edward Heath (1916-2005) had neither small-talk nor manners, yet somehow he managed gracelessly to climb the slippery pole and became Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975 and Prime Minister of Britain between 1970 and 1974.

Heath the politician

 To be fair, Heath was in his prime, a civilised, clever and intelligent person. The son of a Broadstairs, Kent, carpenter, Heath progressed from a grammar school to an organ scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford, where he read politics, philosophy and economics. A fine debater, he became President of the Union in 1937. During WW2 Heath commanded an anti-aircraft and artillery battery, seeing action in Liverpool and in NW Europe, demobilised as a Lt-Colonel.

He entered parliament in 1950 as MP for Bexley, progressing through the ranks to become MacMillan’s Chief Whip, later joining the cabinet as Minister of Labour. He became Lord Privy Seal in 1960 charged with negotiating Britain’s entry to the European Common Market; de Gaulle’s veto of Britain’s application in 1963 was a bitter set-back. Yet when Sir Alec Douglas-Home resigned the Tory leadership in 1965, Heath won the party election. He was seen as a modern figure after a grouse-moor generation. Moreover Heath was cultivated; a keen musician, playing the piano well and latterly conducting, less well; he also was a world-class yachtsman. Despite these qualities, Heath lacked the common touch. His bonhomie seemed feigned and satirists enjoyed his strangulated vowel-sounds where “out” became “eout” and his yacht Morning Cloud “Cleoud”.

Against expectations, Heath won the general election in 1970 but his ministry had mixed success. The coinage was finally decimalised (to the relief of bamboozled European and US visitors) and local government with its borders were reorganised (breaking many prized historic links). Most significantly, Britain at last joined the European Economic Community in 1973. It was sold as simply joining a customs union: Heath and the political classes generally played down or concealed the centralising and integrationist ambitions of Brussels. EEC entry was portrayed as a leap forward and was popular. In retrospect, many now believe it went against the grain of British interests and national independence.

Heath signs the EEC Accession Treaty in 1973

 The management of the economy was inconsistent. Supposedly the apostle of the so-called Selsdon programme of fiscal austerity, after an early squeeze, Heath soon went on a welfare spending binge. On the sudden death of talented Iain Macleod, Heath appointed Anthony Barber Chancellor (Harold Wilson quipped that he never knew Heath had a sense of humour!) and there followed the “Barber Boom”, a highly inflationary dash for growth, which soon had to be curbed. The trades unions campaigned fiercely against new laws to control them and two miners’ strikes were damaging, the second leading to the Three-Day Week of national power cuts. Heath called and lost an election in February 1974: Labour formed a minority government and narrowly won a second election in October. In February 1975 the Tories chose Margaret Thatcher as their Leader and Heath was dumped. He was 59.

The British dislike a bad loser and Heath forfeited any residual public affection by embarking on “The Great Sulk” lasting at least until Thatcher left office in 1990. He gave her no credit for her considerable achievements, keeping up a cantankerous stream of criticism from the sidelines. Bitterness, lack of generosity and imagined grievance possessed him.

Heath eyes Thatcher suspiciously

 Heath’s enemies made sure tales of his crassness circulated. After his campaign bus had a minor accident, shaking up a lady media person, Heath called for brandy; when it came he drank it all himself! He would pour himself tea and eat biscuits but omit to offer either to visitors. His bachelor misogyny was legendary; at a dinner party he would often talk across and completely ignore the lady seated beside him. He never married although he was a close friend of the distinguished concert pianist Moura Lympany; friends expected them to marry but Heath never made a move. When another prospective bride was asked if cold Heath showed her affection, she answered “He once put his arm around me”. In the current Jimmy Savile feeding frenzy, wild allegations of Heath’s predatory homosexuality and even paedophilia fill the cyberspace. I give them no credence, believing Heath to have been asexual. He was certainly a Grumpy, but probably not a Dirty, Old Man.

His treatment of Arundells was deplored. Granted a 21-year lease, a legal error allowed him to buy the freehold for £700k. He long gloated about how he had pulled a fast one over the Dean and Chapter. He did not allow the house to revert to Salisbury Cathedral on his death but in his vanity appointed trustees to open it to the public as a shrine to his greatness. Lees-Milne was sniffy about the interest of the house, filled with marine watercolours and photos of Morning Cloud and of Heath hobnobbing with the great (Castro, Saddam Hussein and Mao feature). The public stayed away in droves and the house closes to the public soon and will be sold.

Alan Clark’s verdict Ted was a rude and arrogant flobbo without an ounce of patriotism in his body was an exaggeration. Yet his story is a sad one. He came into public life a figure of hope and energy: he left it a pathetic curmudgeon.

SMD

28.10.12

Text Copyright: Sidney Donald 2012

SOUTHWELL MINSTER AND ROBIN HOOD: The Essence of England (6)

[This is the sixth of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or institution connected to the area]

Southwell Minster (pronounced Súth’ull) is one of England’s smallest Cathedrals. It lies in the modest town of Southwell (population 6,800), near Newark, Notts, about 14 miles from the City of Nottingham. It is famed for its Norman nave and for the glorious naturalistic stone carving in the Chapter House – The Leaves of Southwell.

Southwell Minster

The Norman Nave

 The Minster we currently see was built from 1108 with a Norman nave and west front “pepper pot” towers, an Early English choir and central tower; its Decorated Gothic Chapter House was erected in 1286. The elaborately carved choir screen was completed in 1350. An extensive but sympathetic renovation was carried out by Ewan Christian over 37 years from 1851 to 1888.

Southwell was connected to the nearby (now ruined) Palace of the Archbishop of York and run by prebendaries (canons). It was never a monastery but a collegiate church and was not much affected by the Dissolution, although it was used as a stable by Cromwell’s and Scottish troops in the Civil War. The prebends were phased out in the 19^th century and the Minster became a cathedral in 1884.

If that were all, Southwell would rank as a reasonably interesting, if second line English cathedral. What makes Southwell remarkable is the stone carving on the capitals in the Chapter House. These are simply stunning in their skill and vitality; they are unrivalled in England and Pevsner paid them high Ruskinesque tribute:

The Leaves of Southwell

 Could these Leaves of the English countryside, with all their freshness, move us so deeply if they were not carved in that spirit which filled the saints and poets and thinkers of the thirteenth century, the spirit of religious respect for the loveliness of created nature? …..Seen in this light, the Leaves of Southwell assume a significance as one of the purest symbols surviving in Britain of Western thought, our thought, in its loftiest mood. Nikolaus Pevsner – The Leaves of Southwell (1945)

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Southwell is not far from Sherwood Forest and 14 miles from Nottingham. Naturally, with this proximity we make the connection to that great hero of English folklore, the outlaw Robin Hood.

There is a weight of research about the origins, authenticity, geography and meaning of the legends; suffice it to say that Robin Hood appears first in 14^th century ballads as a yeoman archer and swordsman who had turned to banditry. There were subsequently many accretions – his Merry Men, Maid Marian, enmity with the sheriff of Nottingham, aristocratic birth at Loxley (actually in Yorkshire), loyalty to King Richard the Lionheart and so on. He appears in Scott’s Ivanhoe and later in countless books, movies and TV series.

Errol Flynn as Robin

Olivia de Havilland as Marian

In my view by far the best telling of the Robin Hood story is in the 1938 Hollywood movie The Adventures of Robin Hood directed by Michael Curtiz. It has Errol Flynn in top form as swashbuckling Robin, Olivia de Havilland as a lovely Maid Marian and memorable performances by Claude Rains (Prince John), Basil Rathbone (Sir Guy of Gisborne), Alan Hale (Little John) and Eugene Palette (Friar Tuck). Everywhere there is action, colour and spectacle and our enjoyment is much enhanced by the splendid musical score by 

Erich Korngold.

Later efforts with Sean Connery, Kevin Kostner and Russell Crowe have their moments but are not a touch on Errol Flynn’s classic. I first saw the film when on holiday in Bournemouth in about 1948, aged 6 and have been enchanted ever since.

One of the accretions to the Robin Hood story was that he “robbed the rich, to give to the poor”, an early description of envious Marxist economics and a justification since of often unfair redistributive taxation the world over.

The latest manifestation of this notion is the so-called Robin Hood Tax, a proposed financial transaction tax aimed among others at the currently demonised banks and the world of money. The proponents of this policy, who are the usual suspects - NGOs, actors and the tender-hearted in general - want the many millions raised to go towards helping the needy, bolstering the regimes of the Third World and (yes, you guessed) preparing for climate change.  Britain prefers to raise money from banks by imposing bank levies and reckons the Robin Hood Tax is doomed unless it is introduced globally. The idiotic European Commission proposes to introduce it unilaterally in its area, a certain trigger for capital flight and boost for offshore entities outside its jurisdiction. Its championing by Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande is another good reason why Britain should add distance to its ties with the EU.

So Robin Hood in his Lincoln green is in some ways a subversive figure, just as among the Leaves of Southwell there are puzzlingly several Green Men, those medieval pagan fertility symbols hiding in the foliage.

A Green Man at Southwell Minster

SMD

26.10.12

 

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2012

WORCESTER CATHEDRAL AND ENGLISH PORCELAIN: The Essence of England (5)

 

[This is the fifth of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or institution connected to the area]

Worcester is a historic English city and a famed and comforting image is that of the Cathedral, towering over the formidable river Severn as is runs through the area, with the charming county cricket ground opposite.

Worcester Cathedral and the cricket ground

 Before its Dissolution in 1540, Worcester was a Benedictine monastery and was built in a succession of styles from the 11^th to the 16^th Century. Its Norman crypt is much admired; the church is unusual in that it has two rather than the normal one transept; the monastic circular chapter house and pretty cloisters have survived. Its Perpendicular Gothic tower is one of the glories of England.

Worcester Cathedral; The Norman Crypt

Sadly, in the 18^th century the Cathedral became very dilapidated and a comprehensive renovation was undertaken by the famous Victorian church architect George Gilbert Scott. Some of the medieval mystery was inevitably lost.

Worcester is always associated with the composer Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) whose home town it was. Elgar was the Catholic son of a music-shop owner and his contact with the Cathedral was indirect. Many of his works were performed there and the Three Choirs Festival, linking the cathedrals of Worcester, Gloucester and Hereford, focuses on English music, notably Elgar’s. Elgar struggled for recognition but in 1898 his Enigma Variations became popular in England and Germany. His fine oratorio The Dream of Gerontius, based on the poetry of Cardinal Newman, has also entered the repertory (its Catholic use of the concept of Purgatory caused it to be banned from performance in certain diehard Anglican venues). Pomp and Circumstance March no 1 (Land of Hope and Glory) became a global favourite. Two symphonies, a violin concerto but above all his haunting Cello Concerto followed. There is a memorial window to Elgar at the cathedral; the wistful serenity of his music epitomises the English spirit.

Sir Edward Elgar

Stanley Baldwin

                                  

The cathedral also holds the ashes of Stanley Baldwin, Britain’s prime minister three times in the inter-war years, who lived near Worcester. Baldwin was a scion of a Birmingham ironmaster family but he affected a tweedy rustic pose and was interviewed tickling pigs and leaning on farm gates, enhancing his popularity.

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The English porcelain industry grew and prospered from 1750 onwards and probably the oldest brand still in existence is Royal Worcester. Its factory there is now a porcelain museum, as the industry gradually concentrated its production at Stoke-on-Trent in the famous Potteries.

Fine porcelain with its prized translucent qualities had been produced in China for centuries. How to make it was a closely guarded industrial secret but the secret was broken in 1710 and after many experiments, fine china ornaments were made in Saxony at Dresden and Meissen and in France at Sèvres.

The English became particularly expert in the production of bone china, a durable product requiring a mixture of bone ash, china stone and china clay (kaolin), The first bone china in England was made by Josiah Spode, who developed the formula and whose company went on to produce the iconic Blue Italian pottery.

Royal Worcester tureen

Blue Italian tableware by Spode

     

The early pioneering china makers, like Bow, Chelsea and Bristol did not survive long and high-value porcelain production became part of larger companies also producing the cheaper stoneware or ironware. This ceramic industry had long been established in the Potteries, where coal and clay were readily available. Typical of this trend was Wedgwood, famous for its Jasperware, and it absorbed in time famous names like Royal Doulton and Crown Derby while also making popular artefacts like Staffordshire Toby jugs.

A typical Wedgwood plate

Three Derby figures

         

        

A final famous name is Minton, whose plates are much prized but whose fame mainly derives from its encaustic tiles, so much loved by Victorians and by Prince Albert himself.

The mode for Minton was embraced by the Americans and a fine example of Minton tiling is to be seen at the Capitol, Washington DC.

Minton tiling at the Capitol

England was transformed by the Industrial Revolution and its reach was long. Although it brought overcrowding, disease and dirt it also brought convenience, gentrification and beauty, enhancing all our lives.

SMD

24.10.12

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2012

ST PAULS CATHEDRAL AND JOHN DONNE: The Essence of England (4)

[This is the fourth of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or institution connected to the area]

St Pauls is the most famous church in England and an unmissable sight for any visitor to London. Built between 1675 and 1711 in the Baroque style it is the masterpiece of Sir Christopher Wren and his talented assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor. It replaced timber-roofed Old St Paul’s, gutted in the Great Fire of London of 1666.

The West Front of St Pauls

 Although the Cathedral is a working church for the City of London, it is more than that. It is a processional church, a place for great state occasions; famous personalities like Nelson are buried here and, within our generation’s memory, Churchill’s funeral, the glamorous but ultimately ill-fated wedding of Charles and Diana and the warm Diamond Jubilee Thanksgiving took place at St Pauls.

The interior of the cathedral is magnificent, although some critics complain that it is cold and Protestant. True, in a Catholic country, there would be more painting and stucco saintly figures, but England is happy with Tijou’s lovely metalwork altar gates, Grinling Gibbon’s wood-carving, Holman Hunt’s Light of the World and Wren’s clean lines. The Whispering Gallery underneath the dome at the crossing is another spectacular attraction.

                       

Holman Hunt; The Light of the World

Interior of St Pauls

The external aspects of St Pauls are equally impressive. Lovely stone carvings in floral swags, the twin towers with their Corinthian columns and pineapple tops but most of all, the complex, beautiful Dome, not just an echo of St Peter’s in Rome, but also a symbol of Britain’s courage and perseverance when she defied the Blitz.

St Pauls defying the Blitz in 1940

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The poet John Donne (1572- 1631) was Dean of St Pauls from 1621 to 1631. He was a leading light among the so-called “Metaphysical Poets”, including Marvell, Cowley and Herbert who reacted against the conventional themes and easy rhymes of 17^th century poetry.

John Donne

 Donne was brought up a Catholic, left Oxford without a degree due to his religion, lived riotously, became a lawyer, contracted a disapproved marriage, found a patron, entered Parliament, took up diplomacy and changed his faith. At the insistence of James I, he took Anglican orders and in due course rose to the eminent office of Dean of St Pauls. His poetry is very original, often relishing erotic love, employing surprising metaphors and fractured introductions, but clearly the work of a learned and sophisticated intellect.

Thus a lover in bed complains of the sun’s interruption:

If her eyes have not blinded thine,
        Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
    Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
    Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

The famous “conceit” of the twin compasses/two lovers is neatly put in “A Valediction; forbidding Mourning”

And though it in the centre sit,

Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Donne wrote a wide variety of lyric poetry. More than a century later, Dr Johnson was a fierce critic of the metaphysical style, but nevertheless expressed some admiration too:

“Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly lost; if they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits, they, likewise, sometimes struck out unexpected truth; if their conceits were far-fetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write on their plan it was, at least, necessary to read and think. No man could be born a metaphysical poet, nor assume the dignity of a writer, by descriptions copied from descriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery, and hereditary similes, by readiness of rhyme, and volubility of syllables”.

Critical opinion changed in the early 1920s with Donne being championed by his fellow poet TS Eliot and the critic Herbert Grierson.

Donne coined several famous phrases like “No man is an island, entire of itself” and “Any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee”

To my mind however, Donne’s greatness is best demonstrated in his sermons, most notably by his sermon on God’s Mercies delivered in St Pauls in 1624. I believe this lays claim to be the most eloquently phrased religious oration in the English language.

“If some King of the earth have so large an extent of Dominion, in North and South, as that he hath Winter and Summer together in his Dominions, so large an extent East and West, as that he hath day and night together in his Dominions, much more hath God mercy and judgement together: He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; he can bring thy Summer out of Winter, though thou have no Spring; though in the ways of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the Sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.”

SMD

22.10.12

Text Copyright: © Sidney Donald 2012

YORK MINSTER AND CHOCOLATE SWEETS: The Essence of England (3)

                        

  

[This is the third of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or institution connected to the area]

The City of York is one of the great tourist highlights of England. Impressive city walls, a medieval quarter including The Shambles with numerous ancient churches to delight the eye, but above all the renowned York Minster constituting a peerless glory of Gothic architecture.

York Minster

The Minster (the name given in England to many large churches) is the second largest Gothic building in Northern Europe after Cologne. The Minster we now see is the third building on the site and was built between 1220 and 1472. It is truly massive, reminiscent of Amiens, with an enormously wide central nave: the central vault is of painted wood while the aisles are vaulted in stone.

The cleared Nave at York Minster

The Minster has been unlucky in its history with the financial blow of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1535, a damaging siege in the Civil War in 1644, a crumbling building fabric and numerous fires – a recent one in 1984 caused by a lightning strike, characterised by Anglican Evangelicals as God’s judgement on the High Church practices of the Minster! But many treasures have survived; the remarkable East window from the early 15^th century is the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world: the sumptuous early Decorated Gothic Chapter House has no central support but rests on its walls; all in all, a lovely place.

York Minster, The Chapter House

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The city of York prospered in earlier times from the trade in wool, with raw wool being exported to the weavers in Northern Europe. In the 19^th century it became famous in Britain as a centre of the confectionery trade, in particular renowned for its chocolate. The beginnings were very modest. Joseph Rowntree senior, a leading Quaker and later mayor of York, ran a small-time grocer’s shop in Pavement, central York. In the 1840’s Rowntree had apprenticed to him two young Quakers, George Cadbury and Lewis Fry, members of two other pioneering chocolate families – Fry’s, based in Bristol, invented the first chocolate bar in 1847 while Cadbury’s, based in Birmingham, became famous for their Dairy Milk chocolate.

The Quakers were respected as shop-keepers as they upheld ethical standards. Before 1860 trading regulations, food was often sold in short measure or was adulterated with various filling agents. Quakers had suffered for their beliefs and were considered more than usually honest, so people preferred to patronise their shops. Quakers were attracted to the cocoa and chocolate business because it was not involved in alcohol which they deplored. Anyhow Joseph Rowntree senior’s two sons Isaac and Joseph junior branched out into the manufacture of chocolate. Joseph junior came to be the dominant figure in the business from 1869 and later employed 4,000 people in his York factories. Using the developing network of the railways – York being an important railway hub – Rowntree products became well-known in the North of

England and later nationally. In the fullness of time, delicious Rowntree brands like Kit-Kat, Aero, Smarties and Yorkie became recognised and cherished everywhere. A merger with Halifax-based Mackintosh in 1969 brought the Quality Street, Rolo and Toffee Crisp brands into the company. Mackintosh had effectively invented the “toffee” by mixing the traditional English butterscotch with American caramel – giving pleasure to young and old but nightmares to dentists.

The Rowntrees were not just businessmen but were also generous and thoughtful philanthropists. Joseph Rowntree set up several charitable trusts in 1904 to assist the poor and the elderly. He cared for his workforce and introduced many welfare benefits for his staff. He was a Liberal supporter and with his son Seebohm was a friend of Lloyd George and influenced Liberal social policies. Seebohm’s authoritative reports on poverty in York introduced the concept of the “poverty line”.

Joseph Rowntree

Seebohm Rowntree

The other great chocolatier of York was Joseph Terry, first established in 1828 and manufacturer of various confectionery including Terry’s Chocolate Orange and All Gold – that splendid box of chocolates you groped about in the theatre to sample but in the darkness picked up the nut cracknel when you wanted the strawberry cream!

The third York confectioner was Cravens, less well-known but long established. It ceased to trade in the 1960s and when its York factory was finally demolished, a Viking settlement, packed full of artefacts was found beneath it. After extensive excavations the Jorvik Viking Centre was opened in 1984, giving visitors an exciting interactive time-warp experience, returning to Viking York at 5.30pm on 25 October AD 975!

Sad to relate, the great era of Quaker chocolate-makers is long gone. Kit-Kat is still made in York but in 1988 the company was bought by the Swiss Nestlé. Fry’s (Chocolate Cream, Turkish Delight) had been acquired in 1919 by Cadburys (Dairy Milk, Crunchie, Cadburys Flake etc) until Cadburys itself fell to Kraft Foods in 2010 and is now owned by Mondelez International. Kraft had already devoured Terry’s in 1993, after it had been bought by United Biscuits and then Suchard.

It is not sensible to get too aerated about the global trade in brands and maybe some will return to British food giants. York will nevertheless always miss the employment opportunities chocolate brought, the local philanthropy of the upright owners and the glamour of their iconic brands.

Kit-Kat, made in York but not by Rowntrees

                      

SMD

21.10.12

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2012