Categories
1950-1999 Food & Drink

1950s American Pie

DC Thomson, the Scottish publishing house, holds a huge amount of nostalgia value for me, The Beano being my absolute number one childhood read. I got the comic every week, collected the single character booklets, and dreamed of catapults, minxing, and big piles of mash with sausages sticking out. And I’m never getting rid of my Dennis the Menace and Gnasher fan club badges.

So the new DC Thomson book, Pass it On: Cooking Tips from the 1950s, appeals to both my real nostalgia and the kind of fantasy nostalgia I have about times which pre-date me. Can you feel proper nostalgia about things you didn’t actually live through? Reading so many old books has almost given me false memory syndrome.

The book is a guide to what home cooking used to be – a collection of recipes and tips sent in to The Sunday Post, People’s Journal and The People’s Friend by those women who cooked for their families in the face of culinary challenges we can’t quite imagine today – the food rationing of the Second World War didn’t come to an end until 1954 for some food items, including meat, cheese, butter, preserves, tea and sugar, and frugality was key.

There’s a lovely selection of original recipe pages you can look at here and I decided to have a crack at one of them. My favourite recipe genre (and the staple of recipe books up to the 1950s), invalid cookery, is here along with recipe suggestions for your Government Cheese – the nickname of the mild cheddar which was the only type available until the end of rationing. Mind you, I’m a month into a dairy-free diet on account of my new baby son and his sore bottom, and even Government Cheese is sounding wildly delicious to me at the moment.

The bread omelet sounds good, like a slightly more elaborate eggy bread.

Bread omelet

Then there’s the Carrot Mould, which lives up to the old British stereotype of cooking, boiling carrots into baby food for a whole two hours and then turning them into an unnecessary shape.

Carrot mould

The Gingerbread Upsidedown Delight is definitely one I’m making at some point, the Enid Blyton-style name adding to its appeal.

Gingerbread Upsidedown Delight

But I made the American Pie.

American Pie

There’s been more than 40 years of speculation about what Don McLean meant in his chart-topping song, but I think I can say with confidence that this wasn’t what he was singing about. This one is a bit of a mystery – I mean we know the phrase “As American as apple pie” but there’s nothing mentioned about a pile of macaroni, cold meat, tomatoes and breadcrumbs. This is obviously a way to use up the leftover meat probably from the Sunday roast. I wondered about which meat to use – it could be Spam for full retro effect, but I went for turkey and smoked ham as that sounded at least a little bit American to me.

American Pie

Despite my initial thoughts that this comes from a place where people didn’t quite get macaroni – it should be coated in a sauce surely, not used as a plain unflavoured base – it was actually quite pleasant, a smooth and creamy element to the dish. The whole thing has nothing to hold it together though, and just flops into a pile of ingredients on the plate. It would be better with an egg to hold it together and some cheese on top, but then again, that would probably be an extravagance too far in the age of rationing.

The book is available here and I think it will be going on my Christmas list.

Categories
1900-1949 Women

Suffragette Tea Shop, 1913

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Representation of the People Act, most famously giving some women the right to vote, on a number of conditions. But it wasn’t just women that benefitted from the heroism of the suffragettes and voting reform campaigners – the Act also opened up the enfranchisement of all men aged 21 and over, resulting in 5.6 million more men able to vote, alongside the newly-enfranchised 8.4 million women.

The conditions for women allowed those 30 years old and older to vote, if they were a member or else married to a member of the Local Government Register, a property owner, or a graduate voting in a University constituency. Overnight, even under these conditions, women became 43% of the electorate. Due to the loss of so many young men in the First World War, had women also been enfranchised from age 21, they would have made up the majority, which was probably a key reason for the age difference. Women eventually received the vote on the same terms as men in 1928.

I remain in awe of the bravery of the suffragettes. These were women deciding to break the law and suffer the harsh consequences in support of their cause, while societal pressures built up all around them. This small article from 1913 is a tiny glimpse into the day to day pressures of being a suffragist at this time. Dated 4th March 1913, it immediately precedes momentous events – the Cat and Mouse Act was passed in April 1913, following outcries at the brutal force feeding of imprisoned women on hunger strike. Now hunger-striking women were allowed to be released when their health deteriorated, and rearrested after they had recovered. And in June 1913, Emily Wilding Davison died a few days after being trampled by the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby, receiving hate mail in hospital as she lay unconscious.

The Westminster Tea Shop was run by the Women’s Social and Political Union (W.S.P.U.), the militant suffragette organisation led by Emmeline Pankhurst. The headline plays up the student high jinks and the “amusing scenes” that resulted, although it’s hard to see the humour in forty to fifty male students descending on two young women running a small tea shop and behaving in a threatening manner, no matter how amusing they may have thought themselves at the time. The women stood up for themselves and come across so well as to surprisingly earn a rather approving write up of their manner.

Nottingham Evening Post, 4th March 1913
Nottingham Evening Post, 4th March 1913

UPROARIOUS STUDENTS

AMUSING SCENES IN A SUFFRAGIST TEA SHOP

A number of students made a hostile demonstration yesterday afternoon at the Westminster Tea Shop, a small café carried on under the auspices of the W.S.P.U. in Toothill Street, Westminster.

Forty or fifty in number, the students approached the café shouting and booing, and on entering the premises created a disturbance by banging walking sticks upon the tables and shouting “Do you women want the vote?” a question which they answered with an emphatic “No.” There were only two young women in charge of the tea shop at the time, but they appear to have dealt with the situation in a remarkably cool manner, one of them informing the students that they must calm themselves or they would not get the tea they asked for.

Eventually tea was served, but the students still behaved uproariously, and threatened to smash the windows. Meanwhile a message had been telephoned to the police, and the arrival of a body of about 20 police had the effect of quelling the disorder, without any damage being inflicted on the property. Before the young men left, the young lady in charge of the shop ventured to address them in a few words in support of women’s suffrage, and her remarks were punctuated with cheers and boos. A large crowd gathered round the premises.

Categories
1900-1949 Food & Drink

Mince on toast, 1935

You may have heard about this week’s light-hearted thing – the concept of mince on toast, alleged by an American site, Eater.com, to be a quintessential British comfort food classic, here – Mince on toast.

It’s not, obviously, although it is a New Zealand thing, apparently.

I mean, it sounds OK, especially with some melted cheese, and anything on toast is pretty British to be honest. As is anything to do with mince. But a classic it’s not, or even an actual meal you planned to make, rather than improvised on the spot in a way that you wouldn’t tell anyone else about. We’ve only just got over Delia’s tinned mince too. Still, though, it sounds old-fashioned and a bit wartime and frugal, so maybe it’s inadvertently just the thing for post-Brexit Britain to adopt. And, luckily, here we are, already provided with a recipe fresh from the good old days.

It’s a recipe for invalids – my favourite genre of historical recipe, as the reader of this blog will know.

Obviously, obviously, no invalid recipe section is complete without at least one nauseating dish. May I present Liver Soup:

And just to make this extra topical, given the new Doctor Who announcement tomorrow (Ben Willbond, Ben Willbond, Ben Willbond), there’s fish with custard too:

And here’s the mince on toast we all know and love. Doesn’t sound too bad, if you don’t actually mince the steak, and replace the toast with a nice baguette like the unrepentant Remoaner that I am.

Of course, the obvious serving suggestion is to surround it with boiled rice. Of course.

Categories
1900-1949

July 1st, 1790

If you look back throughout history there’s always people nostalgic about “the good old days”. They’re usually found about 50 years ago, within living memory for the older generation, yet not too far away for those younger ones to imagine a simpler time. The British summer though, no matter what you remember about 1976, has generally always been a bit of a disappointment, and/or a confusing mish mash of all the weathers.

Having just spent a full week of digging winter jumpers out, endless drizzle and bad hair days, I consulted my Weather Calendar book from 1919, a compendium of quotes about weather for every day of the year. July 1st focussed on Walpole (as do around a quarter of the other days of the year, he was evidently a prolific weather-commenter in the great British tradition).

Climate change aside, it’s quite comforting to see the continuity of British weather. “Surely it was some traveller that first propagated the idea of summer,” is a quote for the ages.

Categories
1900-1949

Experiment to Last 90 Years, 1930

In the mid-80s I went on a school trip to Hastings, as we were learning about 1066 and all that. One thing which captured my imagination and stuck in my memory (or, at least, I think it did) was visiting a cave with an arrow sticking out of the wall. The guide told us it marked the spot where a chronicle (a copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle perhaps?) was hidden, one which marked the Battle of Hastings and the death of King Harold. The hole in the wall would be opened in the year 2000 – very carefully, as the contents could crumble into dust once the air was let in.

How frustrating this was. 2000 was over 15 years away, an impossibly long time for an 8 year old to wait. But not as frustrating as the fact that, looking over the internet now, I can find no trace of this great opening, or reference to the cave at all. Did it really happen? Was it invented especially for kids on school trips? Was it like that time I went on a ghost tour of Chester, which actually consisted of the guide quite obviously making his own stories up as we went round. Challenged by one of our party at the end, he was happy to admit it, “Just a bit of fun, isn’t it?” He thought, well, ghosts aren’t real so what does it matter what I tell them? But he missed the point. Taking such a tour is really all about learning about real events that happened in local history, to discover and imagine moments which took place where you are standing right now. The ghosts are merely a garnish, and you don’t need to believe in them to enjoy the history and atmosphere. Unless someone has the ghost story skills of M. R. James, paying for a man to lead you around saying whatever nonsense pops into his head is just a waste of time.

Anyway, that’s all a bit of a digression by way of explaining how interested I was to read the below article. A very long-term experiment was due to begin in 1930 at Rothamsted, I saw in a copy of the Dundee Courier from the 6th August of that year. Meaning it was due to finish in the very near future of 2020. No waiting for years to find out the result!

Dundee Courier, 6th August 1930
Dundee Courier, 6th August 1930

Rothampstead agricultural experimental station, or Rothamsted Research as it’s now called,  is one of the oldest agricultural research institutions in the world, dating its origin to 1843. They run long term experiments, very long term in some cases – the Park Grass Experiment, measuring the effects of fertiliser on hay yields has been running since 1856. This 90-year experiment was to cover the effects of 15 different types of fertiliser on 5 different crops, all the combinations of which would account for the long timescale.

I wrote to Rothamsted to ask them about it. They were fantastic in their fast response, but it turned out that not only was the experiment no longer running, but no scientists there could even find out what the experiment was that this article was referring to. I guess this means that it was stopped a long time ago, maybe disrupted by the Second World War or for some other reason it turned out not to be viable. The reason, anyway, now lost in time.

Categories
1950-1999 Space

Doctor Who Travels in Space, 1966

Sitting here, waiting fairly impatiently for the new series of Doctor Who to start next Saturday (it’s been so long), it seems like a good time to blow the dust from this vintage book. I imagine fellow Doctor Who fans would be as keen as me to have a look inside.

I’m sorry to say goodbye to the immense talent of Peter Capaldi, who feels so new to me still – yet the Zoe Ball-hosted special announcement programme seems like an awful long time ago now. And so we’re in the speculative hinterland of who the next Doctor may be. It’s decided now, of course, and it would be marvellous if somehow the surprise remained unspoilered until the regeneration, but that’s never going to happen. My choice, for what’s it’s worth – Ben Willbond all day long or, frankly, any single one of the Horrible Histories/Yonderland troupe. I’m sure any reader of this blog will be unsurprised to learn I am a massive Horrible Histories fan.

Anyway, on a grey December day in Manchester I found one of my best ever vintage book finds – the Doctor Who Travels in Space Painting Book. A colouring book dating from 1966 and William Hartnell days, wrapped in a plastic bag stuck down with sellotape which had obviously not been removed for decades. I had to buy it just to open that seal and have a peep.

Thanks to that plastic bag it was in fabulous condition for a 50 year old colouring book, the cover still vivid, and only one page coloured in. So here it’s is, and it’s not just pictures, it’s a story.

The robot destruction scene isn’t very “New Who”, is it?

I love that it was published in Manchester too – unlike the Doctor, it never travelled far.

Categories
Uncategorized

Humorous Judge, 1936

This judge from 1936 appears to be a frustrated comedian. Mr Justice Charles of Leeds Assizes was disappointed that two potentially interesting cases had been withdrawn.

In the first, Tadcaster Rural District Council were due to defend against a claim of pollution of a water course. “Oh dear!” exclaimed Mr Justice Charles. “That was one of the few cases that was not for personal injuries. I think it would have been interesting. I had hoped to see experts drinking the effluent although I myself did not contemplate joining in the orgy.”

The second settled case concerned a breach of promise of marriage – an old fashioned lawsuit, finally abolished in 1971, and which always makes me think of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury. It’s such a Gilbert and Sullivan-y phrase. “Worse and worse”, said the Judge, “I am sorry this is going to be settled. I should have got some fun out of it.”

It turns out that it was the reporter who got the fun out of it, ending the article with the beautifully withering “Mr Justice Charles is a bachelor.”

Northern Daily Mail, 8th July 1936
Northern Daily Mail, 8th July 1936
Categories
1950-1999 Uncategorized War

Old Fashioned Cornbread at the Whistle Stop Cafe, 1993

My momma and Aunt Idgie ran a cafe. It wasn’t nothing more than a little pine-knot affair, but I’ll tell you one thing: we always ate and so did everybody else who ever came around there asking for food….and that was black and white. I never saw Aunt Idgie turn down a soul, and she was known to give a man a little drink if he needed it….” – Stump Threadgoode from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

I found my way into writing my initial thoughts on Brexit through an “old-fashioned” pork pie seen at a food fair on the dream-like day of the result, and being suddenly overwhelmed with visceral anger at my country. Yesterday, while making what Fannie Flagg calls “Old Fashioned Cornbread” from her 1993 Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook I started thinking about the tumultuous mess of Trump’s first week in office. The day which also marked Holocaust Remembrance Day (and a White House statement which managed to not mention the Jewish people by name), Trump signing an Executive Order shutting the US to all refugees for four months, and to Syrian refugees indefinitely, and pictures of Theresa May holding hands with Trump and flattering the Republican Party on their shared values with the Conservative Party. Her announcement that Trump is “100%” behind NATO looked like nothing more than Chamberlain’s “peace in our time”.

The similarities between Brexit and the rise of Trump are so parallel that it almost feels unreal, and to me as a history graduate, all I can see is a mountain of future essays tying together all the strands that brought us here. This period will become almost a cliche of essay titles, I’m sure. In a way, the events of the past year feel as if they have come out of the blue, a stone flung into a tranquil lake, but of course our progress to the point of wherever this takes us will look clearer in the history books. I’ve read enough history books to know that war is usually the conclusion of a set of circumstances like this, which feel so familiar and yet so unknown at the same time.

Trump is a schmuck – there is no better word I have come across to describe him. Part fool, part conman, and yes, the literal meaning of the word – dick – too. Especially that. A shyster involved with the Mafia, the Russian mob, fined $10 million in 2015 for money laundering, a thuggish litigation addict, fined for racist landlord discrimination, an admitted practitioner of sexual assault. A man who apparently has little concentration, cunning in spades but little intellect, and whose word means precisely nothing. Yet a man who thinks of himself as an intellectual giant, and who treats words rather as Humpty Dumpty did in Through the Looking Glass.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

That this can be also used to perfectly describe what will be Theresa May’s one appearance in the quoting dictionaries, “Brexit means Brexit”, is just more meat for those essays of the future. And what do we have to combat these words? A media which many are turning away from, choosing, incredibly, to believe instead that hyper-partisan news sources speak more unbiased truth. “Fake news” can be whatever disagrees with the individual’s personal stance now, and I think it’s a dangerous path indeed. Still, there’s going to be some astounding journalism on show in the years to come, and some damn good comedy too.

In such a short space of time, world events have been so interesting that the news has started to run anxiously though my head like an extra verse to Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire:

Donald Trump, CIA, Vlad Putin, Theresa May, 

Alec Baldwin, George Orwell, John Hurt, Mike Pence

Tiny tweeting hands, tiny crowds, dancing to “My Way”,

Refugees, Mexico, #Fuckingwall, maybe a fence?

A song from 1989, also pertinent as it’s the 80s I’m thinking of just as much as the 30s. The parallels to the 30s are obvious to anyone who’s studied the period – the popular movements, the distrust of the old orders, the shutting down of opponents. But in some ways Trump is the quintessential 80s man, the personification of all that garish money-splashing and selfishness that was one side of the decade. Not least because Bret Easton Ellis presciently made Trump Patrick Bateman’s hero in American Psycho, set during the 80s Wall Street boom.

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe”, a book and film I adore, looks at both eras, a depression-era tale told in flashback from the 80s. A tale which involves sentiment about America’s past, the Ku Klux Klan, racism, lesbianism and the strength of women. What with the Women’s March of a week ago, the largest single-day demonstration in American history, and involving nearly 5 million participants across the globe, this feels relevant. And the impossibly sad story of Emmett Till has reared its head from the history books with the revelation yesterday that the reason, small as it was, for the horrifying murder of a 14-year-old, wasn’t even true at all. And the order banning the acceptance of refugees to the US on Holocaust Remembrance Day, on the day that a Twitter account called St. Louis Manifest was tweeting the fates of all the passengers on the St Louis, the ship of German Jewish refugees turned away by the US in 1939, and who mostly perished in the Holocaust. The lessons from history hitting us in the face right now are almost unbearable.

In 1993 Fannie Flagg wrote in The Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook,

“Which brings me to the main reason I wanted so much to write this book. Lately it seems everyone is mad at someone, with groups on every corner, on the radio, on television, screaming about something or someone or other they don’t like. And there is so much anger in the air that you almost see it like a thick fog. In times like this, I think it is particularly important to try to be as calm and as happy as possible. And I don’t know about you, but I have always been happiest where food is concerned.”

The book was inspired by Fried Green Tomatoes fans asking whether her fictional cafe was based on a real place, which it was. It was The Irondale Cafe in Irondale, Alabama, set up in the 1930s by Flagg’s aunt Bess, who ran it for 50 years. A woman who loved feeding anyone and everyone, and, from her picture in the book, appears to be Idgie Threadgoode all over. It’s still there too, in downtown Irondale, right next to the train tracks, just like the Whistlestop Cafe. The recipes in this book come from the dishes traditionally served there.

Cornbread is one of those quintessential American food traditions which I had never tasted until my year spent going to school in the American South. I lived in Kentucky over 1992 and 1993, the same year this cookbook came out. I have extremely fond memories of iced tea, pimento cheese, buttermilk biscuits (what they call biscuits coming as a big surprise to me) and big blocks of squidgy American cheese you can microwave into a sauce. Less fond memories of the jello salad, lime jelly with vegetables in it, nonsensically served as a side dish. But I’ve never known hospitality like that I experienced in Kentucky. Such kindness and community. And I gained such a sense of enormity of the country, being hundreds of miles from the coast in all directions. It’s difficult for a Brit to get your head round the sheer scale of it all, and I never knew before how attached I was to the idea of being near-ish to the sea no matter where you are in the country.

Fannie Flagg’s cornbread recipe is best done old style in a skillet in the oven. There seems to be a lot of variants on cornbread depending where you are in the country, with an interesting take on the traditions here. Mine is yellow as white cornmeal is harder to come by in the UK. It contains no sugar – the article says this is the northern tradition, with the southern version always sweetened. Which doesn’t quite fit with this definitely Southern recipe, but never mind.


Old Fashioned Cornbread

I swear, this is the best I ever tasted.”

4 cups cornmeal

2 tsp baking soda

4 egg, beaten

4 cups buttermilk

1/2 cup bacon drippings, melted (I used butter)

Preheat oven to 450F (220C)

Combine dry ingredients and make a well in the centre.

Combine eggs, buttermilk and bacon drippings, mixing well; add to cornmeal mixture and beat until smooth.

Heat a well-greased 12-inch cast-iron skillet in the preheated oven until very hot.

Pour batter into hot skillet; bake for 35-45 minutes, or until a knife inserted in centre comes out clean and top is golden brown.

Good luck, America.

Categories
Victorian Victorian Slang

Victorian Slang of the Week – Trump

A reprise back to Victorian Slang of the Week and it’s an annoying one.

I spend a lot of time delving into the books and newspapers of the 1930s, it’s one of my favourite periods in many ways. Having just watched the Presidential inauguration, I’m feeling strangely at home with the 1930s vibe. Although “at home’ is the wrong expression – indicating relaxed, comfortable, happy. That’s not how I’m feeling.

So, here we have it, the Trump of the trump card, the one who holds all the trumps. From The Slang Dictionary of 1865.

TRUMP, a good fellow; “a regular TRUMP,” a jolly or good-natured person,- in allusion to a TRUMP card; “TRUMPS may turn up,” i.e., fortune may yet favour me.”

The Slang Dictionary, 1865

I’m noting that this word appears on the same page as Tub-thumping and Trolling.

Ok, so let’s try Donald. There’s no Donald, but there is a Don.

DON, a clever fellow, the opposite of a muff; a person of distinction in his line or walk. At the English Universities, the Masters and Fellows are the DONS. DON is also used as an adjective, “a DON hand at a knife and fork,” i.e. a first rate feeder at a dinner table.

The Slang Dictionary, 1865

Oh, sod off Slang Dictionary.

(Can’t resist pointing out the “opposite to a muff” line before I go, though.)

Categories
1950-1999

The Paul Daniels Magic Annual, 1982

In the early 1980s there was nothing better on television, as far as I was concerned, than the Paul Daniels Magic Show. Looking it up, I’m quite surprised that it actually was still being made until 1994, but I was at university then, and I was probably pretending I wasn’t a fan of his anymore. I always liked him though, not a lot, but I liked him. I’m lying, I loved him, always. So much so that in the celebrity death carnage of the past year, Paul Daniels’ death in March 2016 is still the one I’m most affected by. It’s partly because he was such a presence online, on his blog and on Twitter, so I tangibly miss him from there. The fact that our politics were so far apart was completely irrelevant, and it’s a testament to how much I thought of him that when Hurricane Brexit hit in June 2016, I was actually sorry he wasn’t here to see it, assuming (perhaps wrongly) that he would have been a Leave voter.

I realised that I never wrote an update to my post on looking for Debbie McGee’s cookbook, Dining with Debbie, a Magical Touch. I’d seen interviews promoting the book, but the book itself was nowhere to be found. I contacted Paul on Twitter to ask about it and he told me that the planned publisher had gone under before the book could be published and so it was languishing in limbo. He did, however, offer to send me a DVD-ROM version of the book for £12, which I readily agreed to. A short email correspondence about sending the money to his paypal account (which I was slightly thrilled to see was in his real name of Newton) and asking for my address, was hugely exciting to the 8-year-old me, who never lurks too far below the surface.

I was a big magic fan as a kid. I had the magic sets with trick wands and cups and balls, I attempted unsuccessfully to unpeel a banana which was supposed to fall into slices after making small holes with a pin all the way round. And I read and re-read this book, The Paul Daniels Magic Annual, which I’m sure I got as a present for Christmas 1982. My husband bought this copy for me a few years ago, to replace the long-lost book of my childhood, and I happily remembered every page quite clearly.

The Paul Daniels Magic Annual, 1982

He talks about how he became a magician (or “funjuror”), with his discovery as an 11 year old of an Victorian book called “How to Entertain at Parties” (note: new book search initiated). He further developed his skills during his national service in Asia, taking part in Service concerts (imagining It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum here), got his big break on The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club TV variety show, and coming up with his catchphrase on stage when a heckler insulted his suit. “I answered him by saying “Oh, that’s a shame because I like yours. Not a lot – but I like it.” This got a big laugh so I decided to keep it in the act.”

Read below – (if you click on the images, new non-blurry pages will appear.)

A nice biography bit here about his mate, silent magician Ali Bongo. His real name, according to Paul, “is the most guarded secret of all” , although not any more. He was William Oliver Wallace and he had a truly illustrious magical career, writing many books and becoming magical advisor for programmes such as Doctor Who and Jonathan Creek (which was also inspired by him).

More tricks, and a full on 80s shot of Paul with Julio Iglesias. I tried all these tricks, with varying degrees of success (bad to terrible).

He finishes with another array of tricks to try at home. I never did the Rubik’s Cube trick which involved having to make a shell cover for it, “in cardboard or tin, if you have a friend who is a metal worker.” I did not have a friend who was a metal worker.

I recently saw an article about a an old Heineken campaign featuring Paul, which had “magically” reappeared after many years when a billboard was removed, revealing the last poster which had been pasted on the bare wall underneath. It seemed fitting that there was a kind of final “reveal” for the master magician, in his native Yorkshire as well.