#peter's memoir written in england

[rainintheevening]

I was born in a wood just south of where the Archen meets the Great River.

I was born in what should have been the spring of the year, yet my dam’s blood mingled with snow, and frigid air was the first in my lungs.

I was born as white as the ground around us, like most unicorns, yet as silent as the frozen river. I was born mute—cursed, I believed for many years, until the Lion taught me to see otherwise.

My dam named me Erah, or at least that is the closest approximation pronounceable by humans and other Talking Beasts.

Erah, suggestive of good pasture and sweet water, in the language of horses. Suggestive of clear sight and safe herd. Suggestive of hope.

She could not have foreseen that one day I would carry hope on my back. That I would bear the noblest, strongest, kindest Son of Adam Narnia ever saw, into battles both small and great. That I would serve under the glorious rule of the Four Rulers themselves. That I would call the High King Peter my truest and dearest friend.

High King Peter & the faithful unicorn Sir Erah

[andiatas]

Royal(ish) Reads: Jul-Sep 2024

Note: Some of the following links are affiliate links, which means I earn a commission on every purchase. This does not affect the price you pay. Also note that all titles mentioned are written by historians, researchers, or scholars. Only in rare cases are featured titles not written by someone with training in historical research.

For more book recommendations like in this post, you can follow my blog & Instagram

The Tragic Life of Lady Jane Grey by Beverley Adams (published Aug. 30, 2024) // All His Spies: The Secret World of Robert Cecil by Stephen Alford (published Jul. 4, 2024) // Dancing With Diana: A Memoir by Anne Allan (published Sep. 10, 2024)

Son of Prophecy: The Rise of Henry Tudor by Nathen Amin (published Jul. 15, 2024) // Planning the Murder of Anne Boleyn by Caroline Angus (published Aug. 30, 2024) // The Last Days of Richard III and the fate of his DNA by John Ashdown-Hill (new paperback version published Sep. 26, 2024)

The Fall of Egypt and the Rise of Rome: A History of the Ptolemies by Guy de la Bedoyere (published Sep. 10, 2024) // Richard Beauchamp: Medieval England's Greatest Knight by David Brindley (new paperback version published Aug. 29, 2024) // A Voyage Around the Queen by Craig Brown (published Aug. 29, 2024)

Henry III: Reform, Rebellion, Civil War, Settlement, 1258-1272 by David Carpenter (new paperback version published Sep. 24, 2024) // Stuart Spouses: A Compendium of Consorts from James I of Scotland to Queen Anne of Great Britain by Heather R. Darsie (published Sep. 30, 2024) // Prince Eugene of Savoy: A Genius for War Against Louis XIV and the Ottoman Empire by James Falkner (published Aug. 30, 2024)

Normal Women: From the Number One Bestselling Author Comes 900 Years of Women Making History by Philippa Gregory (new paperback version published Sep. 26, 2024) // The Romanovs: Imperial Russia and Ruling the Empire, 1613-1917 by Professor Lindsey Hughes, Professor Erika Monahan (2nd edition published Sep. 19, 2024) // Lady Pamela: My Mother's Extraordinary Years as Daughter to the Viceroy of India, Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen, and Wife of David Hicks by India Hicks (published Sep. 3, 2024)

Hannibal and Scipio: Parallel Lives by Simon Hornblower (published Sep. 26, 2024) // Oliver Cromwell: Commander in Chief by Ronald Hutton (published Aug. 27, 2024) // Catherine, the Princess of Wales: The Biography by Robert Jobson (published Aug. 1, 2024)

Henry V: The Astonishing Rise of England's Greatest Warrior King by Dan Jones (published Sep. 12, 2024) // Courtiers: Intrigue, Ambition, and the Power Players Behind the House of Windsor by Valentine Low (new paperback version published Sep. 17, 2024) // Kings & Queens: The Real Lives of the English Monarchs by Ann MacMillan, Peter Snow (new paperback version published Sep. 12, 2024)

The Romanovs Under House Arrest: The Russian Revolution and A Royal Family’s Imprisonment in their Palace by Mickey Mayhew (published Aug. 30, 2024) // Queen Victoria's Favourite Granddaughter: Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, the Most Consequential Royal You Never Knew by Ilana D. Miller (published Aug. 19, 2024) // Cooking and the Crown: Royal recipes from Queen Victoria to King Charles III by Tom Parker Bowles (published Sep. 26, 2024)

Pure Wit: The Revolutionary Life of Margaret Cavendish by Francesca Peacock (new paperback version published Sep. 12, 2024) // Henry VIII and the Plantagenet Poles: The Rise and Fall of a Dynasty by Adam Pennington (Sep. 30, 2024) // Everyday Life in Tudor London: Life in the City of Thomas Cromwell, William Shakespeare & Anne Boleyn by Stephen Porter (new paperback version published Aug. 15, 2024)

Kingmaker: Pamela Churchill Harriman's Astonishing Life of Seduction, Intrigue and Power by Sonia Purnell (published Sep. 19, 2024) // The Secret Diary of Queen Camilla by Hilary Rose (published Sep. 26, 2024) // Adventures in Time: Heroes: The Box Set by Dominic Sandbrook (published Aug. 29, 2024)

Adventures in Time: Heroines: The Box Set by Dominic Sandbrook (published Aug. 29, 2024) // Justinian: Emperor, Soldier, Saint by Professor Peter Sarris (new paperback version published Sep. 12, 2024) // Women in the Valley of the Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age by Kathleen Sheppard (published Aug. 19, 2024)

Marriage, Tudor Style: Love, Hate & Scandal by Sylvia Barbara Soberton (published Jul. 29, 2024) // A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women by Emma Southon (new paperback version published Jul. 4, 2024) // A Rome of One's Own: The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire by Emma Southon (new paperback version published Sep. 17, 2024)

Cleopatra: The Woman Behind the Stories by Alexandra Stewart and Hannah Peck (published Aug. 15, 2024) // The Wisest Fool: The Lavish Life of James VI and I by Steven Veerapen (new paperback version published Sep. 5, 2024) // The King's Loot: The Greatest Royal Jewellery Heist in History by Richard Wallace (published Aug. 8, 2024)

The Beaumonts: Kings of Jerusalem by Kathryn Warner (published Sep. 30, 2024) // Emperor of the Seas: Kublai Khan and the Making of China by Jack Weatherford (published Sep. 26, 2024) // Ravenous: A Life of Barbara Villiers, Charles II's Most Infamous Mistress by Andrea Zuvich (published Jul. 30, 2024)

[18th-century-mental-health]

"The character of Hans Hermann von Katte through the eyes of Wilhelmine von Bayreuth, sister of the King of Prussia"

So I wrote an article about them for class, and since it was Wilhelmine's birthday (july 3rd), I decided to post it here. It's a bit long and entirely in French so i'm gonna translate it all (mistakes incoming, hope there won't be too much) but slowly, so for now, enjoy the introduction/context of our dear blorbo's lives!

The memoirs of someone are a fascinating way to tell History as a story, creating a better approach for the reader, and also can be considered as reading for entertainment. Here we will talk about some extracts from those of Wilhelmine von Bayreuth (1709-1758), princess of Prussia, who, in more than informing us about the conditions of his daily life, gives us information on the life of his brother, Frederick, as well as on the mysterious main character of this article, Hans Hermann von Katte.

The kingdom of Prussia experienced a real growth during the 18th century, under the reign of King Frederick II, known as “the Great”. Reigning from 1740 to 1786, he is known to be a great war leader, but also an important figure of the famous intellectual, philosophical and artistic movement of the Enlightenment. He was a complex character, deeply influenced by the events that occurred during his life. We will focus here on one of these events, perhaps the most marking of his life, and constituting a decisive turning point in his self-development: the so-called “Katte” affair or “the escape of 1730”.

We’re in 1730, Frederick just turned eighteen and has been suffering for more than twelve years of mental and physical abuse from his father, King Frederick William. The latter believing that his son, a bad soldier and good artist - the opposite of the Ideal Prussian - is a disgrace to the country. The young man is exhausted from all of this and considers a radical solution to escape his suffering, whether by fleeing the country - probably for England, via France - or by suicide. He confides on this point to his two closest confidants, his elder sister Wilhelmine and his friend - and (more than) certainly lover - Hans Hermann von Katte, a lieutenant of the Gens d’Armes.

In August, the decision was made: it would be the escape one. After trying to make him renounce, Katte decides to accompany Frederick in his project, and to flee with him, ignoring the consequences. They will be helped by another friend, Peter von Keith, former page of the prince. The plan went as well as one could expect from the one of a desperate teenager, the organisation was bad, and our three friends were caught. Only Keith was able to escape, the other two were thrown into prison, and, after weeks of rigorous interrogation aimed at determining whether this escape had purpose to overthrow the king, the verdict fell: they were guilty of desertion. The martial court condemned Katte to be imprisoned for life, and turned to Frederick-William, not considering itself qualified enough to judge the crown prince. In one of his infamous anger moments, the king decided to “break” once and for all the mind of his rebellious son by having Katte executed and forcing his son to watch. As we can expect, it was a terrible trauma for Frederick, and we can find its impact throughout his life.

But, let's focus back on Katte. Although surrounded by an aura of tragic destiny worthy of a Shakespeare tragedy, only few sources give details about who he really was. The point of view that will interest us here is the one of Wilhelmine, who knew him personally and wrote about him in her memoirs. These, having been written years after the facts, as well as the subjectivity of the person concerned, depict us a colourful portrait of Katte and his actions, allowing us to think about this type of sources and their historiographical value. In this, we will focus on two passages: Katte's presentation, as well as his last conversation with Wilhelmine.

To be continued...

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Could you recommend heavy history books, I’m here for it. I want more brain juiced and nourished.

I'm going by what I currently have on my bookshelf and on kindle bc I lost about 80 percent of my books when I moved in with my bf.

Biographies

Her Little Majesty: the Life of Queen Victoria by Carolly Erickson

Josephine: a Life of the Empress by Carolly Erickson (this author has also done historical fiction novels I enjoyed)

Autobiographies and memoirs:

With the Old Breed at Peleilu and Okinawa by EB Sledge

Night by Eli Wiesel

Other books, sorted chronologically as best I can:

Great Tales from English History by Robert Lacey

The History of England by Peter Ackroyd (multiple volumes)

The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn by Eric Ives (quintessential reading on Anne)

The Terror: The coming of the Terror in the French Revolution by Timothy Tackett

(I cannot for the life of me recall what book it was but I read a goodbone on Charlotte Corday I'm gonna keep searching for)

The Company: the Rise and Fall of the Hudsons Bay Company by Stephen Bown

Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown (first history written about colonization from an indigenous perspective)

Nothing Like it In the World: the Men who Built the Transcontinental Railroad by Stephen E Ambrose (author also wrote Band of Brothers about E Company featured in the HBO series)

Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder (Snyder also wrote a small book called On Tyranny I also own)

Hitters American Friends: the Third Reichs Supporters in the US by Bradley W Hart

And that's it for now. I probably have a bunch hidden in my closet. I know I missed my War of Roses book I just read this year but I can dig it out atm.

[rockislandadultreads]

Historical Fiction Picks: Sea Stories

Hook's Tale: Being the Account of an Unjustly Villainized Pirate Written by Himself by John Leonard Pielmeier

Playwright and screenwriter John Pielmeier reimagines the childhood of the much maligned Captain Hook: his quest for buried treasure, his friendship with Peter Pan, and the story behind the swashbuckling world of Neverland. Long defamed as a vicious pirate, Captain James Cook (a.k.a Hook) was in fact a dazzling wordsmith who left behind a vibrant, wildly entertaining, and entirely truthful memoir.

The Voyage of the Morning Light by Marina Endicott

This sweeping story is set aboard the Morning Light, a Nova Scotian merchant ship sailing through the South Pacific in 1912. Kay and Thea are half-sisters, separated in age by almost twenty years, but deeply attached. When their stern father dies, Thea travels to Nova Scotia for her long-promised marriage to the captain of the Morning Light. But she cannot abandon her orphaned young sister, so Kay too embarks on a life-changing journey to the other side of the world. Inspired by a true story, Marina Endicott shows us a now-vanished world in all its wonder, and in its darkness, prejudice, and difficulty, too. She also brilliantly illuminates our present time through Kay’s examination of the idea of “difference”—between people, classes, continents, cultures, customs and species.

The Shores of Tripoli by James L. Haley

It is 1801 and President Thomas Jefferson has assembled a deep-water navy to fight the growing threat of piracy, as American civilians are regularly kidnapped by Islamist brigands and held for ransom, enslaved, or killed, all at their captors’ whim. The Berber States of North Africa, especially Tripoli, claimed their faith gave them the right to pillage anyone who did not submit to their religion. Young Bliven Putnam, great-nephew of Revolutionary War hero Israel Putnam, is bound for the Mediterranean and a desperate battle with the pirate ship Tripoli. He later returns under legendary Commodore Edward Preble on the Constitution, and marches across the Libyan desert with General Eaton to assault Derna—discovering the lessons he learns about war, and life, are not what he expected. Rich with historical detail and cracking with high-wire action, The Shores of Tripoli brings this amazing period in American history to life with brilliant clarity.

Hold Fast by J.H. Gelernter

It’s 1803. The Napoleonic Wars are raging, Britain is on her heels, and His Majesty’s Secret Service has just lost its best agent, Thomas Grey. Deeply depressed by his wife’s untimely death, Grey resigns from the service and accepts an offer to join a lumber firm in Boston. But when a sea battle with a privateer forces the ship carrying him west to make port in neutral Portugal, Grey is approached with a counteroffer: become a wealthy man by selling out Britain’s spy network to France. The French take Grey for a disgruntled ex–naval officer, blithely unaware that Grey had lost his wife to an unlucky shot from a French cannon. Now, after many years serving King and Country, Grey seizes the opportunity to fight a covert war of his own. He travels to Paris, and—playing the part of the invaluable turncoat the French believe him to be—proceeds to infiltrate the highest levels of Napoleon’s government. If he can outwit his handlers, outmatch his French counterparts, and outrun Napoleon’s secret police, Grey may just avenge his wife’s death and turn the tide of war in England’s favor. Bursting with action and intrigue, Hold Fast sends readers headlong into an unrelenting spy thriller.

[voidingintotheshout]

Black History Month Public Domain Reading List

I’d seen a list floating around the internet with links to pirated books by black writers of note for black history month. I felt that it was problematic to be sharing something that’s disenfranchising black writers when there are a lot of great books by black writers to read that are in the public domain and free to read. I compiled this list of books by various black writers of note with descriptions and links to a site to download them onto your devices. The site is Project Gutenberg, the original e-book site, releasing ebooks since, surprisingly, 1971.

Slave Narratives & Other Writings

Up from Slavery: An Autobiography by Booker T. Washington (A Memoir). This is his personal experience of having to work to rise up from the position of a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton Institute, to his work establishing vocational schools—most notably the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama—to help black people and other disadvantaged minorities learn useful, marketable skills and work to pull themselves, as a race, up by the bootstraps. It’s worth knowing that Washington was a segregationist, and so some of his views may surprise modern readers. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2376

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass (A Memoir). It is generally held to be the most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period. In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th century in the United States. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23

Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave by William Wells Brown (A Memoir). A wonderfully gripping slave narrative that’s the length of a novella. The matter-of-fact, almost journalistic way in which the writer describes the horrors he saw and experienced really hits home. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15132

Clotelle; Or, The Colored Heroine, a tale of the Southern States; Or, The President’s Daughter by William Wells Brown (A Novel). This book tells a fictional story of what the life would be like for the mixed-race daughter of founding father and president Thomas Jefferson and slave Sally Hemings. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/241

The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois (Essays). The book contains several essays on race, some of which the magazine Atlantic Monthly had previously published. To develop this work, Du Bois drew from his own experiences as an African American in American society. Outside of its notable relevance in African-American history, The Souls of Black Folk also holds an important place in social science as one of the early works in the field of sociology. In The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois used the term "double consciousness", perhaps taken from Ralph Waldo Emerson ("The Transcendentalist" and "Fate"), applying it to the idea that black people must have two fields of vision at all times. They must be conscious of how they view themselves, as well as being conscious of how the world views them. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/408

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley (Poetry). She was the first African-American author of a published book of poetry. Born in West Africa, she was sold into slavery at the age of seven or eight and transported to North America. She was enslaved by the Wheatley family of Boston. After she learned to read and write, they encouraged her poetry when they saw her talent. On a 1773 trip to London with her master's son, seeking publication of her work, Wheatley met prominent people who became patrons. The publication in London of her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral on September 1, 1773, brought her fame both in England and the American colonies. Figures such as George Washington praised her work. A few years later, African-American poet Jupiter Hammon praised her work in a poem of his own. Wheatley was emancipated by her masters shortly after the publication of her book. They soon died, and she married poor grocer John Peters, lost three children, and died in poverty and obscurity at the age of 31. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/409

Alexandre Dumas’ Writings

Many don’t know this, but he was the grandson of a French Nobleman and a Haitian slave woman. Writing in the 1800’s, his work is characterized as adventure novels and page-turners with beautiful descriptions that rarely steal the show from the plot.

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas is a standalone book that sets up his D'Artagnan Romances (pronounced Dar-tan-yun, by the way). Romantic in the sense of vivid and sentimental in tone, the stories have captivated generations all over the world. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1257

The Count of Monte Cristo (Illustrated) by Alexandre Dumas is one of the best adventure tales of revenge that spans decades, as our hero unfolds a tale of revenge that includes prison breaks, fabulous wealth, hedonism, and much more.  https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1184

The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas is one of his shorter novels that takes place amid murder and intrigue in a world where tulips were more valuable than gold. A good read, but not as gripping as the above two books, but great if you don’t want to be on the hook for a thousand pages of description and action. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/965

Zora Neale Hurston’s Writings

She was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on hoodoo. The most popular of her four novels is Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. She also wrote more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays. Her writings are known for their noticeable focus on vernacular speech, where character spoke as they would during that place and time.

Three Plays by Zora Neale Hurston (Lawing & Jawing, Forty Yards, & Woofing). Lawing and Jawing is about a "regal" Judge who having a rough morning sends everybody to jail. He adjourns the court so he can "escort" a pretty girl home since he sent her innocent boyfriend to jail. Forty Yards is all about the teams cheering and singing. Every step is a song. The game is just an excuse to sing, even when the place catches fire they sing. Woofing is about a procrastinating man who doesn't finish anything and when a marching band goes past his porch, he and all his cronies drop everything to follow the band. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17187

The Mule-Bone: by Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. (Novella) The only collaboration between the two brightest lights of the Harlem Renaissance—Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. In this hilarious story, Jim and Dave are a struggling song-and-dance team, and when a woman comes between them, chaos ensues in their tiny Florida hometown.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19435

De Turkey and De Law by Zora Neale Hurston. The two friends from The Mule-Bone, Jim and Dave are back again and so is Daisy. These two friends become enemies because they both imagine that Daisy prefers himself over the other. They both go out to hunt a turkey to give Daisy. The two young men fight over the turkey and one gets hit with a mule bone from the same old mule from the other play.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22146

[scotianostra]

On January 17th 1883 the author Compton Mackenzie was born.

Some of you might be surprised that Compton was actually born in Hartlepool, England as Edward Montague Compton. He came from a family of thespians and  his grandfather, Henry, had dropped their traditional surname, Mackenzie and taken the name Compton as a stage name. Henry was a well known Victorian actor, his father, Edward Compton and mother Virginia Bateman, were actors and theatre company managers; his sister, Fay Compton, starred in many of J. M. Barrie's plays, including Peter Pan. 

He was educated at St Paul's School, London, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with a degree in modern history. I would have to go back further than his grandfather to see when his family left Scotland, but they did have strong Scottish connections. 

He studied law, but gave up his studies to work on his first play, The Gentleman in Grey. This was followed by three successful novels, the latter getting critics interested in him, one saying the most promising novelist of his generation. On the outbreak of the First World War Mackenzie attempted unsuccessfully to obtain a commission in the Seaforth Highlanders. However, his friend, General Ian Hamilton, arranged for Mackenzie to became a lieutenant in the Royal Marines and he served with the Royal Naval division in the Dardanelles campaign in 1915. After being recruited by MI6 he became director of the Aegean Intelligence Service in Syria.

During this period Mackenzie was mixed up in a good deal of cloak-and-dagger activities which aroused strong criticism of the British Secret Service among both enemies and neutral parties, he was also heavily involved with events in Balkan states as head of Anglo-French police in Athens.

After the war Mackenzie returned to writing and spent a lot of time living on the island of Capri. He joined a group of expatriate artists and intellectuals that included D. H. Lawrence and Somerset Maugham. After this he returned to his family's ancestral homeland where he went to great lengths to trace the steps of his ancestors back to his spiritual home in the Highlands, and displayed a deep and tenacious attachment to Gaelic culture throughout his long and very colourful life, developing a close relationship with Hugh MacDiarmid. 

His biographer, Andro Linklater, commented,

 "Mackenzie wasn't born a Scot, and he didn't sound like a Scot. But nevertheless his imagination was truly Scottish." 

In 1932 Compton wrote a book Greek memoirs about his time in the secret service describing it as  an organization with  "scores of under-employed generals surrounded by a dense cloud of intelligence officers sleuthing each other. The book was immediately withdrawn and all remaining copies were destroyed. Mackenzie was fined £100 for breaching the Official Secrets Act. It was the first time an acknowledgement of a secret service in the country. From then on he was monitored by the same people he used to work for. By this time MacKenzie was now fully settled in Scotland, living on Barra, where between 1937-45 he wrote a major works across six volumes,  The Four Winds of Love, it has been described as " one of the most ambitious Scottish novels of the twentieth century" and contained almost 1 million words.

In 1947 Compton became one of Scotland's favourite authors with the publication of Whisky Galore, the fictionalized a real incident, the sinking of the SS Politician off Eriskay with "thousands of cases of whisky, and the islanders' desperate attempts to salvage their providential gift of liquid gold from the sea." The following year came the film, which starred  Basil Radford, Bruce Seton, Joan Greenwood and Gordon Jackson. It also seen a resurgence in his previous work, which included the popular Monarch of the Glen. 

Another  biographer, Gavin Wallace, has pointed out: 

"Although Mackenzie's output of novels (including delightful books for children), essays, criticism, history, biography, autobiography, and travel writing was prolific - a total of 113 published titles - it can truly be said that if he had never written a word he would still have been a celebrity. He had a personality as exhibitory and colourful as his writing, and remained throughout his life a gregarious man with a brilliant sense of comedy. Flamboyant, a raconteur and mimic, he was no less memorable as the formidable scourge of politicians, bureaucrats, and governments, and the passionate defender of the ostracized, the shunned, and the wronged."

Compton Mackenzie died on 30 November 1972, aged 89, in Edinburgh and was interred at Eoligarry on the Isle of Barra in an ancient graveyard not far from the house he had built.

[prettylittlelyres]

My Year in Writing (2020)

Hello and Happy New Year! I thought it might be nice to share with you all an overview of what I've written in 2020.

First of all, let me say that I haven't written nearly as much as I wanted to, but that's OK, and it's OK if the amount you've written feels or looks pretty similar. The point is, it looks some way (I daresay pretty) because you've taken up the pen and put some words on a page.

I don't want to gloss over how bad aspects of my 2020 Writing Year have disappointed me, because that would be as silly as casting a damper on the whole thing by focusing only on the trickier bits. What I'm aiming for here is a balanced review - even if it's a rather informal one - of my achievements, and my feelings about my writing this year. In the interest of balance, let's start with something GOOD!

Right at the beginning of the year - around January - I started redrafting a rather fabulously dark fantasy romance, of which you've probably seen a little bit on this blog: Songs from the Crypt Forest, which I dropped after 9,800 words, because I wanted - and needed to work on my first dedicated book, and on my Year Abroad Research Project.

I managed to write about 17,000 words of the dedicated book in its original form before I realised that it wasn't quite working, and that I ought to try a different tack. The story I was telling there is a story I still want to tell, but I just wasn't ready to write it at the time. I'm hoping to pick it up properly in 2021.

I realised I needed to try getting back into the world I wrote in 'Violins and Violets', by writing something set around the same time and involving some of the same characters. In March, I started writing 'Book J', for which I didn’t have a proper title until I was nearly done with its first draft! I gave it the working title 'Book J', because I was writing it for my friend Jenny. By the time summer came round I had 52,000 words, and a first draft that was as complete as I think it ever will be.

Lockdown hit my life quite hard in Spring 2020, and I lost my language assistant job in France when all schools closed, and I had to come back to the UK to live out the academic year with my parents. Nevertheless I had to carry on working with my Year Abroad Research Project, Which I was able to hand in by 18th May, having squeezed all my findings into a dissertation of 6,000 words.

Now that my YARP was out of my way, and I had no more work to do for university, I started redrafting Jenny's book, now called 'Vogeltje', and cut it down to 44,000 words, which I polished until August... when I had copies printed for Jenny, so that she could read a book written especially for her. I would have given it to her in person in France, but lockdown happened, and I ended up posting her copies from one part of South England to another. A rather typical outcome for a meetup planned in 2019 for 2020, I suspect!

During lockdown, I also trained as a proof-reader and copyeditor, and did some volunteer work for a company that needed translators. Online training courses have been a godsend, and I've particularly enjoyed a novel writing course and a travel writing course that I've been following. The novel writing course has pushed me to flesh out plans for a number of books, including more detailed and cohesive outlines for 'Songs from the Crypt Forest' and 'The Night Has Teeth' (two books I want to write in a similar universe), along with my on-again-off-again WIP 'The Manylove Quarter' - and the plans for these three alone come to 7,850+ words!

I moved back to Southampton in July, and took August to start drafting 'The Manylove Quarter ', but that ended up petering out with about 19,200 words of prose on the page. Still, I spent a lot of time querying, and got plenty of reading done, so - especially considering the heatwaves in my area and a pretty enormous academic crisis in my record (fixed in November, after writing a LOT of letters and reports!!! So, this is where I send a million hugs to my lecturers and tutors for all the help they've given me, thank you, thank you, thank you all SO MUCH!!!) - I still felt fairly well-accomplished at the end of the month. I also did quite a bit of painting.

In August and September, I started typing up the journal I've been keeping since the beginning of April, once I'd settled back into life in the UK, to keep track of my feelings about the pandemic and my reactions to what I've seen or heard in the news. I write an average of 6,000 words per month, so I'm coming up to 50,000 words on the whole thing (but have yet to type up November or December). One day, I'll use it to write some extremely illustrious memoirs about how much fun, I had stamping up and down the stairs in my parents' house in order to get my steps in! (I really did get quite fit, though, and I want to get back to it in the New Year!)

At the start of September, I published a 2,500-word travel log my university's "study abroad" blog, all about how much I came to love the French city of La Rochelle, where I spent my 3rd year working. I think I will polish it at least a little before I post it here, but I would love to post a redrafted version on this blog!

My final year of university (BA Modern Languages, French and German) started in October, so all my reading and writing that month - or so it felt - was linked to my course. However. I've lost count of how many pieces I've translated between English, French and German, just to prepare for each class. I love my course, but it doesn't leave much energy for anything else!

Welcome to November, when all my graded assignments were due at once, and the associated stress started taking its toll. Luckily, my tutors were there to help me get extensions for work I couldn't hand in on time because my brain had turned into mashed potato. By the middle of December, I ended up with a 300-word translation and 300-word scripted scene for French, a 1,000-word commentary on a translation into English, a 2,500-word essay for French History, and a 2,000-word short story for German, which I've translated into English, and will post here any day.

This has really been a big year for letter-writing, especially since I came back from France. My cousin and I love writing longhand letters to each other, as I love writing them to my grandmothers, and, as such, I've written about one hundred letters this year! My cousin and I have kept every letter we've ever sent each other, and these collections have approximately doubled in size since the start of 2020.

I keep trying to redraft the first chapters of 'The Manylove Quarter', but never seem to get very far. With about 3 redrafts started since Autumn, I'd say l have about 1,000 words typed up. I can probably say the same of the story I'm trying to write as a kind of Standalone, kind of Sequel to 'This Still Happens' and 'Curls of Smoke', except that I'd put those around the 2,000-word mark.

If my Mathematic capabilities still stand up, I estimate I've written about 210,000 words in total this year (not including text messages, letters, emails and entries in my regular diary (which I keep separately to my pandemic journal)), which. honestly, makes me feel a little like I've failed myself.

That's why l'm making this post, actually, to address that feeling - because | know it's not rational, so I'm not going to call it "that fact" - and to tot all my work up in one place, so that I can see my achievements as one big hulk. Looking at my 2020 in terms of projects l've actually finished, it's disappointing! But to look at 2020 as a final wordcount makes me feel an awful lot better. My sister just pointed out that "210,000 words" is "nearly a quarter of a million words", and, put in that way, it's much easier to feel like I've accomplished something of which I can - and Should - feel proud. I've written a lot this year!

Now l'm asking all of you who feel like you've "not done enough work in 2020" to reassess the way you're looking at it all, and to see that:

Productivity shouldn't define how much you feel you're worth, no matter how productive you've been. Please don't fall into the capitalist trap of thinking you're only "doing the right thing" if you're working! You're worth a huge amount and you deserve to be proud of yourself!

You've achieved a lot more than you first thought, whether in the projects you've finished, the number of words you're written, the ideas you've had, the research and planning you've done, the time you've put in, the skills you've honed... OR THE FUN YOU'VE HAD! It all counts, and it's all important, and you can be proud of all of it, just like you can be proud of yourself.

If you don't feel like you've done enough, find a new angle from which to look at what you have done. I'm willing to bet someone out there can see how brilliantly you're doing already. Try to see yourself through that someone's eyes!

[oliverphisher]

Richard Newsome on always keeping your clothes on and much more

Richard Newsome is the author of the Archer Legacy; The Billionaire's Curse, The Emerald Casket and The Mask of Destiny.

In researching the trilogy, Richard traveled to England, India, France, Italy, and Greece, visiting many of the historical sites featured in the books. Richard Newsome’s debut novel, The Billionaire's Curse received rave reviews and has been sold to publishers in the US, Canada, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain and Turkey.

Richard was born in a modest-sized town in the north island of New Zealand, a little place called Wanganui on a great roiling river, his family migrated to Queensland’s Gold Coast, Australia when he was two and a half.

After finishing high school Richard deferred going to university to take up a journalism cadetship on the local newspaper, the Gold Coast Bulletin. After seven years working on various newspapers and with ABC TV and radio, Richard went to university to study economics. After graduating with first class honours he secured a job in Boston in the United States with an international strategy firm.After which Richard returned to Australia and moved to Sydney, where he moved into media, by then he was married and had started a family. In an attempt to bore his children to sleep at night, he started making up a story, which would eventually provide the basis for his Billionaire’s series of books. Richard now lives in Brisbane with his wife and three children.

What are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?

There are many but one that stands out was written by William Peter Blatty, the author or The Exorcist.

The books is Which Way to Mecca, Jack? — it’s a memoir of the author growing up Lebanese in New York, and then moving to Beirut as a US Government information officer. It’s an insider’s outsider account of life in a familiar yet foreign land. I picked it up in the second-hand book shop around the corner from where my dad worked because the cover intrigued me.

It cost maybe 40 cents but it opened my then 12-year-old’s eyes to a large and complex world, well beyond the Gold Coast of the 1970s where I grew up. I’m sure most of the material flew straight over my innocent head, but the author had a turn of phrase that I found intriguing. It was my first experience of ‘grown up’ books.

What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)?

A new Spirax A4 Notebook No. 810 ($5.49 from Officeworks). It was for my next book. I hand write the first draft of all my books, and this is my go-to notebook. The paper is just right for writing in pencil (HB 0.7mm Pentel leads for my mechanical pencil, a Lamy Scribble 0.7mm). Scratch any writer and you’ll find a frustrated stationer.

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?

I have a miserably poor attention span for any activity that does not completely entrance me within the first 30 seconds. This has ruled out several attempts at serious business, which is typified by countless hours of donkey work to actually get anything done. Luckily, this psychological tendency towards mind-wandering is ideal for story writing. If I get bored I just have to make the story more interesting. Works for me, works for the reader.

Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by?

I was bemoaning the sales figures for one of my books to a friend and the woeful lot of the author when his young daughter piped up with, ‘Just write better.’ That is my new life motto.

What is one of the best investment in a writing resource you’ve ever made?

My Lamy Scribble 0.7mm mechanical pencil. I bought it in New Zealand about 15 years ago and have written about 700,000 words with it.

Best $75 I’ve ever spent.

What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?

I’m not sure it’s an unusual habit, but I like to get up at 5.30am and sit on the back deck with the first coffee of the morning and listen to the birds greet the sun while I gather my thoughts for the day ahead. Solitary time is the best time.

In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your life?

The knowledge that resting on your laurels only leads to soreness and blood clots. It’s important to press on to new and interesting challenges.

What advice would you give to a smart, driven aspiring author? What advice should they ignore?

The best advice I ever received as a beginning writer was, ‘Write it out.’ Finish the manuscript. You can plan until the end of time, but unless you actually complete the thing it doesn't count a damn.

What are bad recommendations for aspiring authors, that you hear in your often?

‘Write what you know’. How boring is that! Find out new and interesting stuff and write about that.

In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to (distractions, invitations, etc.)?

I seldom say no to anything. I’m terminally polite.

What marketing tactics should authors avoid?

Always keep you clothes on.

What new realizations and/or approaches helped you achieve your goals?

That time is going to pass anyway. Life’s clock ticks on whatever you choose to do, so you may as well choose to get stuff done. Is there any more pathetic line in movie history that ‘I coulda been a contender’ from On The Waterfront? Don't be that guy.

When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, or have lost your focus temporarily, what do you do?

A cup of black Irish breakfast tea (no sugar) and a walk by the river at dusk.

Any other tips?

Once you get published, don’t be an ass.

To find out more about Richard visit his website here

_______

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[motherwasapapafucker]

Doctor Who All-Consuming Fire Annotations; Prologue & Chapter One

Prologue 

The Old Man, his granddaughter and the British Army officer are the First Doctor, Susan, Siger Holmes respectively. The Doctor and Susan originate from, whodda thunk it, Doctor Who while Siger Holmes is a direct lift from Baring-Gould’s Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street: A Life of the World's First Consulting Detective. 

Lane takes a number of elements of Baring-Gould’s attempt at a biography for Holmes, including both Siger and the third older, older Holmes brother, Sherringford, who will appear later in the novel. Gould identifies Siger as the Holmes family patriarch and seemingly derived the name from the detective’s use of Sigerson as an alias in The Adventure of the Empty House.

The other figures present during the prologue are of course the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Bernice Summerfield following the events of the book. They primarily serve to add a few tantalising hints at what’s to come and help introduce Lane’s notion within the book that Holmes and Watson are false-names attributed to the duo by Doyle during the publication of Watson’s memoirs. An idea largely abandoned by the time they appear in Happy Endings.

With Barbara and Ian notably absent during this sequence, it could be taken that the events are pre-Unearthly Child. However, you could always assume that they are just around the corner and aren’t terribly interested in Siger’s tale. There’s a slightly indulgent vibe to the entire set-up, however, Siger’s knowledge of the temple ultimately plays a larger role within the novel and beyond that, there’s a nice atmospheric element to these figures existing on the periphery of the tale.

Chapter One

“thirty-five volumes of my diary” - Doyle wrote 60 Holmes stories between 1887 and 1927, however chronologically his adventures begin in 1881, All-Consuming Fire takes place in 1887, with The Final Problem occurring four years later in 1891. The later is foreshadowed throughout the book, and one of the short’s more notable figures will appear in a minor role later in the novel.

“I see the repulsive story of the red leech, the terrible death of Crosby the banker.”- Lane continues Doyle’s trend of hinting at untold Holmes stories within Watson’s diary. The line paraphrases a similar moment inThe Adventure of the Golden Prince-Nez. Numerous pastiches have attempted to document these cases to one degree or another, and Lane himself would subsequently use the red leech for his second Young Sherlock Holmes novel.

“The singular affair of the aluminium crutch and its connection with an attempt upon the life of our dear sovereign…” - Another untold tale, this time lifted from The Musgrave Ritual.  Its role in an attempt on the life of Good Queen Vic is seemingly an addition by Lane, and I can’t help but see this as a reference to the Jackal’s use of an aluminium crutch during his attempted assassination of Charles de Gaulle during the final act of Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal. “Following the tragic curtailment of my marriage to Constance Adams of California I was again living under the same roof as Holmes.” - The exact number and nature of Watson’s wives are a running joke/source of hilariously serious debate within Holmes Fandom. Born of a few off-hand mentions and Doyle clearly not giving a fuck, Watson seemingly goes through between two to seven marriages. Gould alleges Constance Adams was set to be Watson’s bride to be in Doyle’s unpublished play The Angels of Darkness, so this is a bit of a twofer reference. The failure of the marrage is a bit of a joke on this front. 

“The cost, he claimed, was of no concern, for he had recently been generously remunerated by Lord Rotherfield for proving to the satisfaction of various Coury circulars and scandal sheets that Lady Rotherfield was not a female impersonator.” - Another Untold Tale, seemingly a Lane original this time and an unnecessarily unpleasant “joke.”

“Finally, completely restored to health and happiness, we returned to England on the Orient Express.” - While the Orient Express was a real long-distance passenger train, it’s hard to image Lane didn’t leap at the chance to have the two return to England via the service for obvious reasons. “...Colonel Warburton and his charming wife Gloria.”  - Presumably, the same Colonel Warburton whose supposed madness would come to the attention of Holmes via Watson. One of two such instances mentioned in The Engineers Thumb.  

“..but only the Reverend Hawkins was present in the dining car. Baden-Powell, a self-proclaimed expert on butterflies whose tan and manner indicated military service, was absent.” - Hawkins is seemingly a Lane original, however his alias shares a surname with Doyle’s first wife. Baden-Powell is presumably Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout Movement and at the time of the novel Intelligence Officer within the British Army. Powell often travelled disguised as a butterfly collector and would use detailed drawings of butterfly wings as a means of hiding maps and other sensitive information. His presence during the sequence adds a touch of humour to Holmes’ complete failure to pick up on this while noting Hawkins own subterfuge.

“The man in the chair, swamped by his white robes, was the least impressive thing in the carriage.” - As we’ll soon learn, this apparently unimpressive figure is, in fact, Pope Leo XIII, who served as head of the Catholic Church between 1878 and 1903.

“I am Cardinal Ruffo-Scilla, and this,’ he gestured to his mirror image on the other side of the chair, ‘is Cardinal Tosca.” - Cardinal Tosca’s sudden death will latter be investigated by Holmes in yet another untold adventure mentioned in Black Peter. Notably, as with the events of All-Consuming Fire, this is at the behest of the Pope. Ruffo-Scilla is an odder figure, sharing the name with a real Cardinal. However, the Ruffo-Scilla died around three decades prior to the events of the novel. I’m tempted, primarily for fun anagram reasons, to view him as yet another Scaroth splinter particularly as it adds a few of extra layers of mirroring to the scene. Who and Holmes characters on either side of the Pope and all that shit.

“‘I remember Sherringford writing to tell me,’ he murmured, ‘ that one of our distant ancestors had been Commander in Chief of the Naval Forces of his Holiness the Pople. I had never credited the story until now.” - The first overt mention of Sherringford within the novel, this also takes another element from Gould in that the Holmes family are seemingly lapsed Catholics. Watson’s surprise at Holmes’ sudden, casual, revelations regarding his family recalls his shock upon first meeting Mycroft in The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter. “Have you heard of the Library of Saint John the Beheaded?” - Recurrent minor Who fixture that first appears here, the Library holds a number of rare, banned texts. Lane would subsequently detail elements of it’s founding in Empire of Glass. Where rather fittingly, the Doctor’s alleged older sibling Irving Braxatiel played a role in its creation.

“One of the three unexpurgated versions of the Malleus Maleficarum is in the Library,” - The Hammer of Witches, Well known treatise on Witchcraft that encouraged the extermination of its practitioners. Written by discredited clergyman Henrich Kramer, lots of blatant insights into the mind of a murderous wanker. 

“...along side shelves  of books on the Chinese Si Fan society and its leader, Doctor Fu Manchu - a man whom we in the Vatican believe to be as huge a menace to civilization as you believe anarchism to be.” - Fu Manchu is the creation of Sax Rhomer, appearing in 12 novels between 1913 and 1948. Manchu is the archetypical yellow peril, inspiring countless equally racist figures including Who’s own Li H'sen Chang. An Anti-British figure, Manchu would battle cheap Holmes knock-off Dennis Nyland-Smith in an attempt to end British Imperialism. Rhomer was a joyless fuck, so this was treated as the Doctor’s greatest crime. Lane portrays the Si Fan as a largely unknown force during the late 18th century, and this fits quite well with the early 20th century setting of the Manchu novels.

“The Affair of the Politician, the Lighthouse, and the Trained Cormorant” -  Title of an episode of The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes radio show, context would suggest Lane’s version is slightly more salacious.

[themoderateanglican]

Peter Greave wrote a memoir of his life with leprosy, a disease he contracted while stationed in India. He returned to England, half-blind, and partially paralysed, to live on a compound run by a group of Anglican sisters. Unable to work, an outcast from society, he turned bitter. He thought of suicide. He made elaborate plans to escape the compound but always backed out because he had nowhere to go. One morning uncharacteristically, he got up very early and strolled the grounds. Hearing a buzzing noise he followed it to the chapel, where the sisters were praying for the patients whose names were written on its walls. Among those names, he found his own. Somehow that experience of connection, of linking, changed the course of his life. He felt wanted. He felt graced. Religious faith - for all its problems, despite its maddening tendency to replicate ungrace - lives on because we sense the numinous beauty of a gift undeserved that comes at unexpected moments from outside. Refusing to believe that our lives of guilt and shame lead to nothing but annihilation, we hope against hope for another place run by rules. We grow up hungry for love, and in ways so deep as to remain unexpressed we long for our Maker to love us."

Philip Yancey, ‘What’s so Amazing About Grace’ p.40-41. 

[idasessions]

Famous Muses & Groupies in Rock Music Pt. 13

MUSE: Jane Asher

Jane was born on April 5th, 1946 in Willesden, England to a father who was a medical author and a mother who was a performing arts professor. Jane and her siblings, Peter and Claire, grew up as child performers in UK stage, film and TV programs. In between her acting jobs, Jane was educated at all-girls prep schools in London. Since age 5, Jane has had a lifelong, impressive career with popular films like The Masque of the Red Death (1964), Alfie (1966), The Buttercup Chain (1970), Deep End (1971), and Death at a Funeral (2007); as well as the mini-series “Brideshead Revisited” (1981). She portrayed Juliet in ‘Romeo & Juliet’ during a 1967 US repertory tour; and has published a handful of novels and cookbooks. Since 1971, Jane’s been with husband, animator Gerald Scarfe and has three children with him.

Now let me tell you a little story on how Jane lowkey became the most influential rock music muse of all time. On April 18th, 1963, Jane met the Beatles after a radio broadcast performance at Royal Albert Hall, where she appeared for a photo op for the zine Radio Times. Apparently when the band first saw Jane, all the members asked her out (I guess John and Ringo forgot they weren’t available, lol), but she had eyes for the cute one: Paul McCartney. The 17-year-old actress and 20-year-old music star hit it off right away and began dating instantly. By Christmas, Paul was living at Jane’s family’s house as her brother’s roommate until mid-1966, when Paul and Jane got their own house. Paul eventually proposed on December 4th, 1967. Supposedly back in the day, Beatle fangirls were most envious of Jane and Pattie Boyd (George’s first wife). Though most think of Pattie as the quintessential Beatle muse, about 50% of the songs she inspired were actually written after the band broke up. Jane on the other hand, quite possibly inspired more Beatles tunes than any other lady.

Although Paul and Jane looked like the perfect couple in magazines and news footage, the young pair were also a bit messy off camera. The two did indeed have a romantic courtship, but as is usually the case, things are ~different in relationships with musicians. By the time the sexual revolution was breaking through in 1965, Paul was a huge pothead, and was also experimenting with acid and coke by 1967. This didn’t really mesh well with Jane, who was rather straight-laced and didn’t care about trying drugs. In Marianne Faithfull’s 1994 memoir, Faithfull, the pop singer mentions going to a party at Paul & Jane’s house during the Summer of Love. She remembers Paul opening a kitchen window, and then Jane closing it, and the two passive-aggressively repeating the act throughout the night. There was also the issue of Paul being the most fangirled and lusted after dude in the British Invasion, and boy did he take full advantage of it with sidechicks like Maggie McGivern and Francie Schwartz.

Things seemed to be overall fine after Paul and Jane got engaged; and when Jane accompanied the Beatles and their wives on a famous trip to Rishikesh, India for a meditation retreat in spring 1968. But the legend goes that by summer of that same year, Jane returned home from a film shoot to find Paul and Francie in their bedroom together. Jane literally dumped him on the spot and drove away without second thought. While this is legit one of the crappiest ways for an engagement to end, Francie still wasn’t the sole reason Paul and Jane broke up. Besides everything else already covered in the previous paragraph, Paul was also hoping for a wife who would be willing to be a housewife fulltime. Jane was constantly insistent on keeping her career even if she started a family (you go, girl).

Now on to the most important impact of this Beatle union: the songs. Jane has a dozen timeless songs written about her, and the funny thing is, she really couldn’t care less, lol. She vowed to move on and never publicly speak about Paul after she left him and she’s kept her promise 50 years on. But the songs remain iconic and include

‘All My Loving’

‘And I Love Her’

‘Things We Said Today’

‘She’s a Woman’ [underrated]

‘Every Little Thing’

‘What You’re Doing’

‘Tell Me What You See’

‘We Can Work It Out’

‘You Won’t See Me’

‘I’m Looking Through You’

‘Here, There and Everywhere’  ← the magnum opus

‘For No One’ [omg, so good]

Jane inspired pop songs, love songs, break-up songs, slow songs, fast songs, etc. Even if she didn’t become Macca’s soulmate like a lovely Linda ultimately did, she arguably got the best songs out of him and can be forever secretly smug. But then again, is it really flattering to hear these tunes everywhere when they were written by an ex who was always getting high with his mates and fooling around with a bagillion groupies on the road? All I know is if I inspired a ballad like ‘Here, There and Everywhere,’ I would be bragging about that ‘til the day I die.

[yasbxxgie]

Randy Weston, Pianist Who Traced Roots of Jazz to Africa, Dies at 92

Randy Weston, an esteemed pianist whose music and scholarship advanced the argument — now broadly accepted — that jazz is, at its core, an African music, died on Saturday at his home in Brooklyn. He was 92.

His death was confirmed by his lawyer, Gail Boyd.

On his earliest recordings, in the mid-1950s for the Riverside label, Mr. Weston almost fit the profile of a standard bebop musician: He recorded jazz standards and galloping original tunes in a typical small-group format. But his sharply cut harmonies and intense, gnarled rhythms conveyed a manifestly Afrocentric sensibility, one that was slightly more barbed and rugged than the popular hard-bop sound of the day.

Early on, he exhibited a distinctive voice as a composer. “Hi-Fly,” which he first released in 1958 on the LP “New Faces at Newport,” became a standard. And he eventually distinguished himself as a solo pianist, reflecting the influence of his main idol, Thelonious Monk.

But more than Monk, Mr. Weston liked constantly to reshape his cadences, rarely lingering on a steady pulse.

Reviewing a concert in 1990, Peter Watrous of The New York Times wrote of Mr. Weston, “Everything he played was edited to the essential notes of a phrase, and each phrase stood on its own, carefully separated from the next one; Mr. Weston sat rippling waves of notes down next to glossy and percussive octaves, which led logically to meditative chords.”

At 6 feet 7 inches tall, often favoring flowing garments from North or West Africa, Mr. Weston was an imposing, though genial, figure whether performing onstage or teaching in university classrooms. Even before making his first album, he was giving concerts and teaching seminars that emphasized the African roots of jazz. This flew in the face of the prevailing narrative at the time, which cast jazz as a broadly American music, and as a kind of equal-opportunity soundtrack to racial integration.

“Wherever I go, I try to explain that if you love music, you have to know where it came from,” Mr. Weston told the website All About Jazz in 2003. “Whether you say jazz or blues or bossa nova or samba, salsa — all these names are all Africa’s contributions to the Western Hemisphere. If you take out the African elements of our music, you would have nothing.”

As countries across Africa shook themselves free of colonial exploitation in the mid-20th century, Mr. Weston recorded albums that explicitly saluted the struggle for self-determination. “Uhuru Afrika” (the title is Swahili for “Freedom Africa”), released in 1960, included lyrics written by Langston Hughes, and sales were banned in South Africa by its apartheid regime.

That album — and others throughout his career — featured the marbled horn arrangements of the trombonist Melba Liston, who left an indelible stamp on Mr. Weston’s oeuvre.

In 1959 he became a central member of the United Nations Jazz Society, a group seeking to spread jazz throughout the world, particularly in Africa. In 1961 he visited Nigeria as part of a delegation of the American Society for African Culture, beginning a lifelong trans-Atlantic exchange.

After two more trips to Africa, he moved to Morocco, in 1968, having first arrived there on a trip sponsored by the State Department. He stayed for five years, living first in Rabat and then in Tangier, where he ran the African Rhythms Cultural Center, a performance venue that fostered artists from various traditions.

Mr. Weston drew particular inspiration from musicians of the Gnawa tradition, whose music centered on complex, commingled rhythms and low drones. While in Morocco he established a rigorous international touring regimen and played often in Europe.

In the late 1980s and early ’90s, Mr. Weston released a series of high-profile recordings for the Verve label, all to critical acclaim. Those included tributes to his two greatest American influences, Duke Ellington and Monk, as well as a record dedicated to his own compositions, “Self Portraits,” from 1989.

Mr. Weston earned Grammy nominations in 1973 for his album “Tanjah” (for best jazz performance by a big band), and in 1995 for “The Splendid Master Gnawa Musicians of Morocco” (in the best world music album category), a recording that he produced and released under his name but on which he left most of the playing to 11 Moroccan musicians.

In 2001, the National Endowment for the Arts gave Mr. Weston its Jazz Masters award, the highest accolade available to a jazz artist in the United States. He was voted into DownBeat magazine’s hall of fame in 2016.

Randolph Edward Weston was born in Brooklyn on April 6, 1926. His father, Frank, was a barber and restaurateur who had emigrated from Panama and studied his African heritage with pride. His mother, Vivian (Moore) Weston, was a domestic worker who had grown up in Virginia.

Though his parents split up when he was 3, they stayed on good terms and lived near each other in Brooklyn. Randy spent time with both throughout his childhood, receiving his father’s teachings about the cultures of Africa and the Caribbean while absorbing the music of the African-American church from his mother, who made sure that Randy and his half sister, Gladys, were in the pews every Sunday.

In his memoir, “African Rhythms” (2010), written with Willard Jenkins, Mr. Weston recalled that his father — a supporter of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association — hung “maps and portraits of African kings on the walls, and was forever talking to me about Africa.”

Mr. Weston wrote of his father, “He was planting the seeds for what I would become as far as developing my consciousness of the plight of Africans all over the world.”

Mr. Weston took classical piano lessons as a child but did not fall in love with the instrument until he started studying with a teacher who encouraged his already growing interest in jazz, particularly the music of Ellington, Count Basie and the saxophonist Coleman Hawkins.

Mr. Weston was drafted into the Army in 1944 while World War II was underway, serving three years in an all-black unit under the military’s segregationist policies and rising to staff sergeant. While stationed in Okinawa, Japan, he was in charge of managing supplies, and frequently tried to share leftover materials and food with local residents, many of whom had lost their homes in the war.

Upon returning to Brooklyn, he took over managing his father’s restaurant, Trios, which became a hub of intellectuals and artists. Mr. Weston began playing jazz and R&B gigs in the borough, seeking wisdom from older musicians. He became particularly close to Monk.

“When I heard Monk play, his sound, his direction, I just fell in love with it,” Mr. Weston told All About Jazz in 2003. “I would pick him up in the car and bring him to Brooklyn, and he was a great master because, for me, he put the magic back into the music.”

Heroin use was rampant on the jazz scene then, and Mr. Weston sometimes used the drug, though he never developed a full-blown addiction. In 1951 he left New York, seeking a fresh start in Lenox, Mass. He made frequent trips to the Music Inn, a venue in nearby Stockbridge, and while working there he met Marshall Stearns, a leading jazz scholar with strong beliefs about jazz’s West African roots, who was giving lectures and leading workshops there.

Mr. Weston started to perform regularly, and he and Mr. Stearns collaborated on a series of round tables about the history of jazz. Mr. Weston met musicians from across the African diaspora, including the Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji, the Cuban percussionist Cándido Camero and the Sierra Leonean drummer Asadata Dafora.

When he returned to Brooklyn, he was brimming with ideas about the synchrony of African tradition and jazz innovation.

He later received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and United States Artists, as well as awards from the Moroccan government and the Institute of the Black World.

He held honorary doctorates of music from Brooklyn College, Colby College and the New England Conservatory, and had served as artist in residence at universities around New York City. Mr. Weston’s papers are archived at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research.

He is survived by his wife, Fatoumata Mbengue; three daughters, Cheryl, Pamela and Kim; seven grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandchild. Mr. Weston’s first marriage, to Mildred Mosley, ended in divorce. A son, Azzedin, is deceased.

Mr. Weston remained in good health late in life, performing most often with a rotating group he called African Rhythms.

In 2016, he released his 50th and final album as a bandleader, the two-disc “African Nubian Suite,” which featured an orchestra-size iteration of African Rhythms. Through music and spoken word, the suite traces humanity’s origins back to the Nile River delta.

His last public concert was in July at the Nice Jazz Festival in France, with his African Rhythms Quintet. At his death, his website listed performances scheduled through October.

For Mr. Weston, music was a way of connecting histories with the present, and a communal undertaking. Looking back on his career, he told All About Jazz: “I have been blessed because I have been around some of the most fantastic people on the planet. I have become a composer and become a pianist. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Photographs:

Randy Weston performing in 1963

Randy Weston at the Newport Jazz Festival in 2011

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Resurrecting Rocket From The Tombs (2004)

Here’s a Sunday interview with both Richard Lloyd and Cheetah Chrome, back when they were rocketing from the tombs. Still need to read Lloyd’s memoir. In the meantime, you can check out Jason’s interview with the guitarist. 

Rocket From the Tombs formed 30 years ago, but the legendary Cleveland band has only just got around to releasing its debut album, Rocket Redux (Smog Veil). Of course, a lot has transpired in between the group's initial breakup in 1975 and its subsequent, entirely unexpected reformation in early 2003 to play an L.A. festival. "There was a total standing ovation," said RFTT guitarist Richard Lloyd, on the phone from New York. "It was as if it was some sort of opera, with the whole theater exploding at the end." 

The original quintet — vocalist David Thomas (AKA Crocus Behemoth), guitarist Cheetah Chrome (AKA Gene O'Connor), guitarist Peter Laughner, drummer Johnny Mandansky, and bassist Craig Bell — played a ferocious brand of proto-punk that drew equally from The Stooges, the MC5, and the Velvet Underground. In the group's repertoire were three songs that would become punk classics: "Sonic Reducer" (as recorded by Chrome's next band, the Dead Boys), "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," and "Final Solution" (as recorded by Thomas' next band, Pere Ubu). So volatile were the personalities of RFTT's principal players that after a handful of earthshakingly loud gigs in and around Cleveland, the band split acrimoniously without ever recording a studio album. In late 1975 Thomas formed Pere Ubu, the acclaimed art-rock combo that he continues to lead to this day, while Cheetah Chrome hooked up with vocalist Stiv Bators to found the nihilistic mid-'70s punk group the Dead Boys. Laughner fronted a succession of short-lived bands before drinking and drugging himself to an early grave in 1977. Mandansky and Bell simply dropped out of sight. Rocket From the Tombs' story did not end there, however. Over the years, the band attained what can only be described as a mythic aura, thanks to the cover versions by Thomas and Chrome's respective bands, as well as a handful of lo-fidelity bootlegs. By the early '90s, RFTT had become the ultimate "cult" act — a band more people had heard of than actually heard. That all changed in 2002, when an official Rocket From the Tombs document was finally released. Made up of rehearsals and live recordings, The Day the Earth Met Rocket From the Tombs showed the band to be a powerful creative force, mixing an adventurous, experimental spirit with bone-crunching riffs and an aggressive performance style. The CD was met with almost universal acclaim in both the underground and mainstream press. At least one person wasn't surprised by Rocket From the Tombs' belated success: "The songs are good songs, the performances are good performances," Cheetah Chrome stated during a recent interview. Had he given the band much thought over the past 30 years? "It was something I had always been proud of," he said, "but as I had no tapes of the band, I did forget exactly how good we had been." In the late '90s, Chrome found himself in the unlikely position of having to buy bootlegs of his former band on eBay. Listening to them was a revelation: "It hit me like a ton of bricks how important the band was to my musical history, how much it had shaped me in my formative years," he said. Following the success of The Day the Earth Met Rocket From the Tombs, Chrome and Thomas re-connected and decided to reform the band for a one-off gig opening for Pere Ubu at 2003's Thomas-curated Disastodrome Festival in Los Angeles. Chrome had kept up with Craig Bell over the years, and he was up for the reunion. With Mandansky missing in action, Thomas recruited Pere Ubu's Steve Mehlman to fill the drummer's chair. Finding a replacement for the long-dead Laughner was trickier. Fortunately, Chrome had a ringer in mind. "When we needed a guitarist to do the UCLA gig, we wracked our brains to think of who could fit," he said. "Richard's name came up pretty quick, and once it did, there was no other choice." "Richard" was Richard Lloyd, guitarist extraordinaire of NYC punk legends Television. "Cheetah Chrome e-mailed me about two years ago, and said they were having — as he put it — 'an RFTT reunion,'" Lloyd recalled during a separate interview. "When I got the e-mail, I didn't know what RFTT meant! But I think Cheetah's very talented, so I wrote back to him and said 'Yes, I'd love to do it — what's RFTT?'" Once the acronym was explained, Lloyd recalled a few summer nights in 1975, when Rocket From the Tombs opened for Television. "Those were our first out-of-town shows, in Cleveland," Lloyd said. "Peter Laughner had seen us in New York, and he was the one who talked us into going out there, and he said his band could open up for us." Laughner's band was clearly on the verge of falling apart, according to Lloyd. "At the sound check, they got in a huge fight. I don't know just how physical it got, but there was shouting and shoving. And then they broke up right after those shows, I think." Still, Lloyd remembers being impressed with Rocket From the Tombs' intense commitment to their music, and followed the subsequent work of the band's trailblazing offshoots, the Dead Boys and Pere Ubu. The 21st century version of Rocket From the Tombs that Lloyd completed turned out to be no less combustible than the original. "We were playing [The Disastodrome Festival] on Sunday, so we had Friday and Saturday available to rehearse in the afternoon," Lloyd said. "I arrived and met everybody at the theater. We were on the stage and we began to play and the band got in another big fight! Cheetah, David, and Craig all walked off. And then Steve walked off. And I just thought, 'Wow, nothing's changed!'" Chrome admits that relations among the band's founding members can sometimes be less than cozy. "We get along very well by e-mail, or on the phone. We get together in the same room and KABOOM, it gets tricky!" he said. "It's only because we all want it to be right, but it can be stressful, sorta like Rush Limbaugh and Abbie Hoffman working together on a project. The working relationships in this outfit would probably seem very strange to an outsider!" Despite this, the reformed band's first gig was a powerful experience for both the musicians and the audience. Rocket From the Tombs MK II charged through a set including "Sonic Reducer," "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," and "Final Solution" as though the past 30 years were the blink of an eye. Lloyd said the crowd went crazy, exploding into a standing ovation at the end. All involved agreed that the band was too potent a force to let fade. So Rocket From the Tombs embarked on a brief summer U.S. tour and followed it with a longer one this past winter. In between, the band assembled at Lloyd's New York studio to record what would become Rocket Redux. "People would keep bugging us after the shows, asking if there were any recordings of this band," said Lloyd, who produced and engineered the album. "So we thought we ought to get something down on tape. It's designed to be the live set done exactly in the sequence that the setlist was. It's just like a written, one-act play. You don't change the dialogue, you don't introduce a new scene. If in every place you play you're getting this great reaction, then that's the way it ought to be." Chrome is especially pleased with the hi-fidelity nature of Rocket Redux. "We wanted it to be a clearer version of the songs, where you would be able to hear the lyrics and tell the difference between guitars," he says. "Much as I love the originals, some of the guitars are so far in the red it's painful. It makes a good document, and the intensity is great, but whew! Not for the squeamish." With Rocket Redux now in stores, the band finds itself at a crossroads. Will they forge ahead and attempt to develop new material? "I think individually we all hope so," said Lloyd, who has written a new song, "Amnesia," for the band. "We're all cautious, because it's so volatile a situation. And it's all so long-distance — if it weren't for the Internet, this band wouldn't have gotten back together at all. I'm in New York, Cheetah's in Nashville, David lives in England, Craig is in Indianapolis, and Steve is in Cleveland! So it's not close quarters. There has been some talk of us playing some shows in Europe later this year, but nothing's final."

[paralleljulieverse]

In Blake Edwards’ 1982 film Victor/Victoria, there is a bittersweet moment when Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews), the down-on-her-luck English protagonist stranded in Depression-era Paris, drops her hitherto plucky facade and dissolves into weepy distress. Having been caught in a wintry downpour with newfound gay friend, Toddy (Robert Preston), Victoria retreats to Toddy’s apartment to dry off and enjoy a cognac-fuelled heart-to-heart. When she subsequently tries to slip back into her now dried clothes, Victoria discovers to her horror that they have shrunk to tattered rags. 

“My best dress,” she wails in shock at the waifish reflection in the dressing mirror. “I can’t go out like this…What am I going to do?!”  “Sell matches!” retorts Toddy in a vain attempt to jolly the situation. Victoria manages a wan chuckle before collapsing in tears into Toddy’s comforting embrace.  

The reference in this scene to Hans Christian Andersen’s “Little Matchgirl” is clear enough but Toddy’s gentle quip harbours another, potentially more pointed, intertextual allusion.* Star Julie Andrews actually played the Little Matchgirl in a 1959 tele-musical adaptation of the classic Andersen fairy tale made for BBC TV. 

Titled The Gentle Flame, the programme was something of a landmark event in British broadcast history. One of the most ambitious TV musical projects undertaken to that date by the BBC, The Gentle Flame was developed as a tailored showcase for Julie Andrews, with a specially commissioned script by writer-director Francis Essex (Essex, 40), and a suite of new songs from Ronald Cass and Peter Myers, the composer-lyricist team who would later go on to write a string of hit film musicals for Cliff Richard (Donnelly, 144-46).  Airing in peak time on Christmas Eve, The Gentle Flame was promoted as a major holiday entertainment and it attracted a substantial national audience (Cowan, 5).

To put The Gentle Flame in historical context, the 1950s was a period of profound transformation for British broadcasting. In 1954, the nation’s booming television market was opened to commercial competition with the creation of the ITA (Independent Television Authority) and the BBC suddenly lost its privileged monopoly as the sole TV network (Briggs, vol. V, 3ff; Holmes, 2ff). Confronted with a new landscape of competition and changing popular tastes, the iconic UK broadcaster moved to improve its marketability with an expanded range of audience-friendly fare. 

Earlier in the decade, the BBC had appointed Ronald Waldman as Head of its TV Light Entertainment Division and he was influential in overhauling the network’s programme offerings (Briggs, vol. V, 24). A seasoned industry veteran with many years experience as a successful radio producer, Waldman believed that the key to attracting a mass audience was the strategic use of “star power”. In a 1956 memo discussing the results of an internal audience research bulletin, Waldman noted with alarm how “two out of three viewers declares [sic] the ITA was better than the BBC in the matter of Variety…and stars” and that the broadcaster “must try and get some personalities” (cited in Bennett, 56). 

One of the “personalities” high on Waldman’s wish list was Julie Andrews. Years previously, Waldman had played an instrumental role in Julie’s early career when he introduced her as a ‘child prodigy’ to the airwaves of Britain on his popular radio show, “Tonight at 8″ in 1947. It was a longstanding professional association shared by other members of senior management at BBC-TV. When Waldman was promoted to Executive Business Manager of Programming in 1958, his former role of Light Entertainment Head was taken over by Eric Maschwitz who, as it happens, had also worked with Julie in her child star years on the production team of Starlight Roof (Briggs, vol. V, 196). It’s possibly not surprising, then, that “the Beeb” should have been keen to secure Julie for its expanding roster of television ‘names’ in the late-50s.

Not that Julie was exactly a stranger to the small screens of Britain. She had made her television debut as far back as 1948 appearing on Rooftop Rendezvous alongside parents, Ted and Barbara Andrews (”Rooftop”, 27). She then popped up with some regularity across the early 1950s as a guest on assorted TV musical variety revues and quiz shows. She even made a high profile appearance on the “commercial competition,” performing in 1955 on ATV’s hugely popular Sunday Night at the London Palladium, produced by another old-time associate, Val Parnell (Gray, 12). By the time Julie returned to the UK in 1958 as the triumphant star of My Fair Lady, her celebrity was at an all-time high and conditions were ripe for promotion to TV leading lady in her own right. 

In what was claimed to be “one of the biggest fees ever paid to a British star”, Julie was signed by the BBC in May 1959 to an exclusive deal for “four hour-long TV spectaculars” (”Julie Signs,” 3). Originally scheduled as monthly broadcasts to start in June, the series was subsequently postponed until after Julie had finished her London run in My Fair Lady in the autumn (”Julie’s TV Show Postponed”, 3). Meanwhile, the BBC built up public anticipation by featuring Julie in a special pre-filmed appearance on Harry Secombe’s popular variety show, Secombe at Large (30 May 1959, BBC). It also secured rights to Julie’s appearance on The Jack Benny Show from CBS in the US which it broadcast in September (Noble, 6).

Finally, on November 12, the first of Julie’s four specials for the BBC bowed amidst much fanfare (“Highlights,” 9). Simply called The Julie Andrews Show, the 45-minute specials (slightly shorter than the originally announced one hour format) were broadcast fortnightly on a Thursday evening at 7:30pm. The first three entries followed a standard TV variety format with Julie hosting, singing, performing and chatting with a roster of changing guest stars. The fourth and final entry took a different approach, devoting the timeslot to the premiere production of a new Christmastime musical, The Gentle Flame (”Gentle,” 7). 

A loose adaptation of Andersen’s “Little Matchgirl,” The Gentle Flame starred Julie as Trissa, the nineteenth-century beggar girl who uses her last box of matches to keep warm on a bitterly cold snowbound night. One by one she lights the matches and:

“as she does so she is transported into a world of music, beautiful gowns and dancing. She meets a young man and falls in love but when she discovers that the room in which she met him had been boarded up a long time ago, she finds herself poor and back in the street again” (Taylor, 8).

Appearing alongside Julie in the programme was a supporting cast of seasoned character actors including John Fraser as Charles the fantasy suitor, Jay Denyer as the Shopkeeper, and Pauline Loring as the haughty Rich Woman. Special musical support was provided by members of the Brompton Oratory Boys Choir (”Gentle,” 19).

In many ways, The Gentle Flame was not unlike a smaller-scale British Cinderella, the celebrated 1956 TV musical created by Rodgers and Hammerstein for Julie. Yet, despite its considerable cultural and historical significance, The Gentle Flame has largely fallen into obscurity. As far as can be ascertained, it hasn’t ever been seen since its initial broadcast almost sixty years ago and it is overlooked in all but the most exhaustive historical commentaries. Even Julie herself gives the programme short shrift. In her memoirs, she dispenses with the BBC series in a few short paragraphs, concluding with the matter-of-fact summation: “We ended up with four fairly good shows, the final episode airing on Christmas Eve” (268).

So what happened to The Gentle Flame and why isn’t it a bigger deal today? For a start, there is a question mark over whether or not a copy of the programme exists or, for that matter, ever did. Sadly, both the BBC and the BFI (British Film Institute) report that they don’t hold The Gentle Flame in their libraries and that there are no known records of it in any other archival repository (BBC Archives, personal communication, 11 November 2017).  

Up until the 1960s, most British television content was produced via live transmission and wasn’t typically recorded (Holmes, 9-10). Some select programmes were filmed in advance and others of special note were captured for subsequent rebroadcast and/or preservation using telecine cameras (in much the same way that Cinderella was recorded as a kinescope by CBS), but the lion’s share of TV content was live and unrecorded. Industry practice started to change in the late 1950s with the advent of videotape technology but, because it was prohibitively expensive, its incorporation was patchy. As late as 1963, less than a third of BBC programming was routinely recorded (Turnock, 95-96). 

In the case of The Gentle Flame, it is difficult to determine the exact technical status of its production. Not only is there no known copy of the original broadcast but, even more disconcertingly, BBC Written Archives have “not retained any production files for The Gentle Flame or other Julie Andrews Specials” (BBC Archives, personal communication, 11 November 2017). All that exists in “official holdings” is a microfilm copy of the script, an audience research report, and a handful of production stills. In the absence of concrete documentary evidence and/or a labour-intensive detective hunt through papers and collections that may still be in existence from people involved in the production, all we can ultimately do is speculate about how The Gentle Flame was produced and if a recorded copy was ever made.

Technical credits for the programme list an entry for “film sequences” by A. Arthur Englander and editing by Pamela Bosworth (“Gentle,” 19). This would suggest that at least some of the programme’s material was pre-filmed. The most likely scenario is that it was produced as a mix of live broadcast and pre-filmed sequences. This hybrid style was fairly common practice for BBC programmes of the era where pre-filmed sequences would be inserted into an otherwise live broadcast, typically to add exteriors or special effects shots that were impossible to do in a studio or to offer a “breathing space” for costume and scenery changes (Turnock, 87). 

There is certainly evidence that this practice of mixing live and pre-filmed sequences was used in earlier episodes of The Julie Andrews Show. Newspaper reviews make mention of the fact that, among other things, a comic sketch between Julie and Kenneth Williams in Episode 1 and an animated sequence and appearance by Stanley Holloway in Episode 3 were all pre-recorded inserts (Erni, 23 Dec., 38; Sear 26; Taylor 16). In the case of The Gentle Flame, it is most likely that the fantasy sequences with Julie and John Fraser at the ball would have been pre-filmed. Publicity photos reveal dramatic costume and hairstyle changes in these scenes that would have been difficult to negotiate in an exclusively live format. So, at a minimum, some of the material elements from The Gentle Flame must have existed in a recorded format.

Furthermore, given the unprecedented expense and prestige of these Julie Andrews specials, it beggars belief that the BBC wouldn’t have recorded them in some form or other –– if not for posterity, at least with an eye to possible rebroadcast and/or extended distribution. Historian Rob Turnock (2006) notes that, as early as 1952, the BBC was recording select live performances and staged programmes and even “established a transcription unit to distribute telerecordings and purpose made BBC films abroad” (90). Moreover, much of the reason the BBC commissioned their own staff writers to develop new programmes––as they did with The Gentle Flame––was to “generate material that it owned and could record by itself” without having to negotiate permission and clearance from external rights holders (ibid.).**

However, even if the BBC did record The Gentle Flame, it is no guarantee that the recording would still be in existence today. Because TV was widely viewed in the era as a transient medium of live communication –– in much the same way as radio or theatre –– there was little sense that TV programmes had lasting value or should be conserved beyond the period of their immediate use. It wasn’t till 1978 that the BBC initiated an archival policy but, by this stage, it was estimated that over 90% of all previous programming had been destroyed, whether through outright disposal or through wiping over for re-use (Fiddy, 3). When the BBC made the move to colour transmission in 1967, for example, it undertook a wholesale junking of old monochromatic programmes in the misguided belief that they no longer had appreciable value or purpose (Fiddy, 8). Hours of content from even hugely popular BBC series such as Doctor Who, Steptoe and Son, and Dad’s Army were lost in this way. 

So if The Gentle Flame were indeed recorded, any copies would really need to have defied the odds to have survived to the present day. But, who knows? Events like the BFI’s annual “Missing, Believed Wiped” public appeal have had great success in turning up many BBC programmes previously presumed lost forever. So maybe a copy of The Gentle Flame is lurking in some dusty, out-of-the-way storage facility somewhere just waiting to be rediscovered. If you’re reading this, Dame Julie, Check the attic!

Finally, the question remains: was The Gentle Flame any good? Well, critical reception of the programme was, it must be said, mixed. Maurice Wiggin of the Sunday Times called it “charming Christmastime fare” that displayed “cunning visual talent at full stretch,” though added as a slightly acerbic aside that writer-director Francis Essex “should stick to directing and leave writing to writers” (20). Guy Taylor, resident critic for The Stage, was positively rhapsodic in his review:

“My Christmas viewing started with Julie Andrews, and what better viewing can you find than that? She appeared with John Fraser in a delightful forty-five minute programme called The Gentle Flame, written and produced by Francis Essex…Everything about this show was right, the photography was delicate, the sets were imaginative and beautifully lit and the special music and lyrics by Peter Myers and Ronald Cass were charming…Essex’s script was excellent blending fairy-tale with the naturalistic and how nice it was to hear English spoken so clearly by Miss Andrews. Essex must have had this in mind when he wrote it.” (31 Dec, 8)

Others were not quite so enchanted. Irving Wardle of The Listener wrote that The Gentle Flame was:

“a really bad example of old-style musical comedy, eliciting push-button responses to such things as a waif in the snow, a ballroom and a Byronic bachelor with pots of money. The legendary association between romance and wealth is unobjectionable, but one does object to the dreadful dialogue (’This is my first ball’) Mr. Essex inflicted on Julie Andrews, and to the fact that he destroyed the sad poetry of the original by making the real world as fanciful as the one the girl imagined” (Wardle, 31 Dec, 11).

So, who knows? The Gentle Flame could be a lost mini-musical treasure or a hamfisted failure. Either way, to see and hear the young Julie Andrews perform a role written just for her during her prime Broadway years would have to be as close as imaginable to the perfect Christmas treat. 

Notes:

* Whether or not the reference to the Little Matchgirl in Victor/Victoria is an intentional nod to The Gentle Flame is hard to know. Blake Edwards was certainly a master of satirical allusionism and, like most of the films he made with his wife and longtime collaborator, Victor/Victoria features more than the odd snook at the “Julie Andrews image” including, in this case, quips about nuns, exploding umbrellas, and even recycled jokes from Thoroughly Modern Millie. However, The Gentle Flame isn’t exactly a high profile entry in the Julie Andrews canon, so any intertextual reference would be pretty left-of-field. Interestingly, the joke about the Little Matchgirl in Victor/Victoria was inserted during production. The original shooting script has a different line in this scene:

Victoria: What am I going to do? Toddy: Well, you could open a boutique for midgets!  (Edwards, 34)

** Clutching at straws, Julie does state in her memoirs apropos her BBC TV series that “we would tape one show a week” (279). Of course, the verb “tape” here could be being used symbolically rather than literally, but hope springs eternal. 

Sources:

Andrews, Julie. Home: A Memoir of My Early Years. New York: Hyperion, 2008.

Bennett, James. Television Personalities: Stardom and the Small Screen. London: Routledge, 2011.

Black, Peter. “Peter Black’s Teleview.” Daily Mail. 13 November 1959: 18.

Briggs, Asa. The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom. Vols I-V. London : Oxford University Press, 1995.

Cottrell, John. Julie Andrews: The Story of a Star. London: Arthur Barker, 1968.

Cowan, Margaret. “TV a Comedown? No, Says Julie.” Picturegoer. 12 December 1959: 5.

Donnelly, K.J. British Film Music and Film Musicals. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007.

Edwards, Blake. Victor/Victoria. Unpublished screenplay (Final revised version: 23 Feb 1981), Culver City, CA: Blake Edwards Company, 1981.

Erni. “Foreign Television Reviews: ‘The Julie Andrews Show’.” Weekly Variety. 18 November 1959: 34

_______. “Foreign TV Followup: ‘The Julie Andrews Show’.” Weekly Variety. 23 December 1959: 38

Essex, Francis. “Some Passing Memories.” Television: The Journal for the Royal Television Society. Vol. 16. No. 1, 1976: 36-41.

Fiddy, Dick. Missing Believed Wiped: Searching for the Lost Treasures of British Television. London: British Film Institute, 2001.

Forster, Peter. “Television: Instead of Lunch.” The Spectator. 11 December 1959: 878.

“The Gentle Flame.” Radio Times. 20-26 December 1959: 7, 19.

Gray, Andrew. “Julie Andrews is Booked for Sunday Palladium.” The Stage. 6 October 1955: 12.

“Highlight s of the Week: Julie Andrews.” Radio Times. 8-14 November 1959: 9.

Holmes, Su. Entertaining Television: The BBC and Popular Television Culture in the 1950s. Manchester University Press, 2008.

“Julie Signs Up for TV.” Daily Mail. 12 May 1959: 3.

“Julie’s TV Show Postponed.” Daily Mail. 13 June: 3.

Noble, Peter, ed. British Film and Television Yearbook, 1960. London: BA Publications, 1960. 

“Rooftop Rendezvous.” Programme Listing. Radio Times. 21-27 November, 1948: 21.

Sear, Richard. “Last Night’s View: The Unspoiled Fair Lady.” Daily Mirror. 13 November 1959: 26.

Taylor, Guy. “In Vision: Julie Andrews Makes Her BBC-TV Debut.” The Stage and Television Today. 19 November 1959: 16.

_______“In Vision: All Those Faithful Viewers.” The Stage and Television Today. 31 December 1959: 8.

Turnock, Rob. Television and Consumer Culture: Britain and the Transformation of Modernity. London: I.B.Tauris, 2006. 

Wardle, Irving. Critic on the Hearth: Bitter Rice.” The Listener. 19 November 1959: 8.

__________. “Critic on the Hearth: A Blow Out.” The Listener. 31 December 1959: 11.

Wiggin, Maurice. “Television: Low Tide, High Noon”. The Sunday Times. 27 December 1959: 20.

Wright, Adrian. A Tanner’s Worth of Tune: Rediscovering the Post-War British Musical. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010.

Copyright © Brett Farmer 2017

[scotianostra]

On January 17th 1883 the author Compton Mackenzie was born.

Some of you might be surprised that Compton was actually born in Hartlepool, England as Edward Montague Compton. He came from a family of thespians and his grandfather, Henry, had dropped their traditional surname, Mackenzie and taken the name Compton as a stage name. Henry was a well known Victorian actor, his father, Edward Compton and mother Virginia Bateman, were actors and theatre company managers; his sister, Fay Compton, starred in many of J. M. Barrie's plays, including Peter Pan. He was educated at St Paul's School, London, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with a degree in modern history. I would have to go back further than his grandfather to see when his family left Scotland, but they did have strong Scottish connections.

He studied law, but gave up his studies to work on his first play, The Gentleman in Grey. This was followed by three successful novels, the latter getting critics interested in him, one saying the most promising novelist of his generation.

On the outbreak of the First World War Mackenzie attempted unsuccessfully to obtain a commission in the Seaforth Highlanders. However, his friend, General Ian Hamilton, arranged for Mackenzie to became a lieutenant in the Royal Marines and he served with the Royal Naval division in the Dardanelles campaign in 1915. After being recruited by MI6 he became director of the Aegean Intelligence Service in Syria.

During this period Mackenzie was mixed up in a good deal of cloak-and-dagger activities which aroused strong criticism of the British Secret Service among both enemies and neutral parties, he was also heavily involved with events in Balkan states as head of Anglo-French police in Athens.

After the war Mackenzie returned to writing and spent a lot of time living on the island of Capri. He joined a group of expatriate artists and intellectuals that included D. H. Lawrence and Somerset Maugham. After this he returned to his family's ancestral homeland where he went to great lengths to trace the steps of his ancestors back to his spiritual home in the Highlands, and displayed a deep and tenacious attachment to Gaelic culture throughout his long and very colourful life, developing a close relationship with Hugh MacDiarmid. His biographer, Andro Linklater, commented, "Mackenzie wasn't born a Scot, and he didn't sound like a Scot. But nevertheless his imagination was truly Scottish."

In 1932 Compton wrote a book Greek memoirs about his time in the secret service describing it as an organization with "scores of under-employed generals surrounded by a dense cloud of intelligence officers sleuthing each other. The book was immediately withdrawn and all remaining copies were destroyed. Mackenzie was fined £100 for breaching the Official Secrets Act. It was the first time an acknowledgement of a secret service in the country. From then on he was monitored by the same people he used to work for.

MacKenzie was now fully settled in Scotland, living on Barra, where between 1937-45 he wrote a major works across six volumes, The Four Winds of Love, it has been described as " one of the most ambitious Scottish novels of the twentieth century" and contained almost 1 million words.

In 1947 Compton became one of Scotland's favourite authors with the publication of Whisky Galore, the fictionalized a real incident, the sinking of the SS Politician off Eriskay with "thousands of cases of whisky, and the islanders' desperate attempts to salvage their providential gift of liquid gold from the sea." The following year came the film, which starred Basil Radford, Bruce Seton, Joan Greenwood and Gordon Jackson. It also seen a resurgence in his previous work, which included the popular Monarch of the Glen

His biographer, Gavin Wallace, has pointed out: "Although Mackenzie's output of novels (including delightful books for children), essays, criticism, history, biography, autobiography, and travel writing was prolific - a total of 113 published titles - it can truly be said that if he had never written a word he would still have been a celebrity. He had a personality as exhibitory and colourful as his writing, and remained throughout his life a gregarious man with a brilliant sense of comedy. Flamboyant, a raconteur and mimic, he was no less memorable as the formidable scourge of politicians, bureaucrats, and governments, and the passionate defender of the ostracized, the shunned, and the wronged."

Compton MacKenzie was also one of the founder members of the SNP and how I would love to have someone of his ilk nowadays, he would be such an asset to the Independence movement. 

He died on 30 November 1972, aged 89, in Edinburgh and was interred at Eoligarry on the Isle of Barra.