The late, great Russell Harty. I love him as an interviewer – he’s funny yet gently probing. This 1974 book, Russell Harty Plus, is a transcript of a number of his interviews. I can’t quite imagine transcripts of chat shows being published now. But then, celebrities wouldn’t always be plugging things in those days, it really could be all about the chat.
Here’s Barbara Cartland, talking about her love of glamour, vitamin pills and eating powdered brain (what?). She got her Damehood in the end.
J. T. Hensing discovered phosphorus in the brain in 1719, and opened the way to a later slew of phosphorus-based medical compounds claiming to be good for the brain. Of course, in the grand tradition of Victorian cure-all pharmaceuticals, they were also claimed to be good for a big long list of other ailments too. One of these was Freeman’s Syrup of Phosphorus as seen below in an advert from 1884. It’s from Hieroglyphic magazine – although it’s not really a magazine, it’s a promotional material for a company called Goodall’s, who sold this syrup, along with a lot of foodstuffs,like custard and baking ingredients. And it’s where I got my Victorian plum pudding recipe, here – https://skittishlibrary.co.uk/vintage-recipes-christmas-pudding-1884/
A “syrup of phosphorus”, which could have been this one, was described in the British Pharmacopea in 1885 as being a compound of phosphoric acid, sodium phosphate and iron sulphate. Some phosphorus-based medicine caused more damage than good – I’m not sure if this was one of them. In any case, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the miracle worker it claims, which even by Victorian standards, strikes me as almost sarcastically outrageous. A brain and nerve tonic; supplier of new and fresh blood; curer of depression, indigestion, constipation and the previously considered incurable diseases of consumption and wasting disease; useful for those involved in brain-work; even fine for delicate women and babies; and, most incredibly, will add twenty years to your life – “None now need despair of life.”
Looking for a bit more information about this brought me to the always brilliant Old Bailey archives, whose Victorian transcripts often read like crime novels in themselves. Here, a case was brought against Sarah Ann Louis and Walter Stafford for “…feloniously having in their possession 41 threepenny stamps which had been mutilated.” It seems these two were responsible for distributing Freeman’s Syrup, as well as the more popular Jenner’s Syrup of Phosphorus too – maybe they were the same thing. What I love is the discussion around naming medications after fictional doctors – “…it is not unusual for a patent medicine to have a doctor’s name to it, like Dr Townsend’s Sarsparilla, Dr Buchan’s pills, and Dr Coffin’s.” Ah, Dr Coffin’s medicine, the obvious choice for a fictional, yet reassuring, name.
From the radio version of H-h-Hancock’s Half Hour, it’s the Christmas special from 1958 and also my favourite ever episode – Bill and Father Christmas
This year it feels like a tribute too – to the great Bill Kerr, who died this year aged 92.
Every year Hattie Jacques and Sid James force Hancock to dress up as Father Christmas for Bill Kerr, who at the age of 34, still believes in Santa….
A proper Victorian Christmas Pudding recipe, from Hieroglyphic, a tiny little magazine-style pamphlet from 1884. It’s not so much a magazine though, as an extended promotional piece for a company called Goodall’s, and its various wares. Note their custard is sold by “…all grocers and oilmen throughout the United Kingdom.” Oilmen?
Christmas Pudding
Materials –
One pound of raisins;
One pound of currants;
One pound of beef suet;
Half a pound of moist sugar;
Half a pound of flour;
One pound of breadcrumbs;
Four eggs;
One gill of rum, brandy or whisky;
Half a pint of milk;
Quarter of a pound of citron;
Quarter of a pound of candied lemon-peel.
Process –
Stone the raisins, wash the currants thoroughly, chop the beef suet as fine as possible, cut the peel into small strips, and place these ingredients, with the sugar, flour, breadcrumbs and eggs, in a large bowl, pour the milk over them, and mix until the whole is well incorporated. Lastly, add the spirit; stir the mass again for a few minutes, tie it up in well-floured pudding-cloth, plunge it into boiling water, and boil for four or five hours. This should be done the day before the pudding is wanted, on the following day, boil for two or three hours more. A rich plum-pudding of this kind cannot be boiled too long, the longer it is boiled, the more wholesome it is.
A letter from an Oslo publication printed in PTO Magazine, 1940.
I’ll confess, I’m confused. I thought flea circuses were basically a mime act. And yet this goes into quite some detail on how to train your flea.
Were they ever…..real?
Postscript – mind blown. Here’s some British Pathe footage of a real 1940s flea circus:
“Don’t get too close. Those microbes are man-eaters!”
This would cheese Alan Partridge right off. Norwicher – meaning a person who takes more than his fair share. Why the people of Norwich were used for this description is unknown, as the Dictionary says “In what way the term originated, or why Norwich was selected before any other city, I have not been able to discover.”
Other excellent words on this page include Nub, meaning husband and Nuddikin, meaning head.
A bit more from Motor Runs from Merseyside – published by the Liverpool Post in 1932 to capitalise on people starting to become car owners, with advice on places accessible within one or two days from Liverpool.
I found this section, with information on the tolls of the Mersey Ferries, fascinating. There’s a lot of measurements of vehicles involved – I wonder if they got a measuring stick out to check if your chassis was 12 feet or under. Sorry for the wobbly scanning, the old book just couldn’t take much bending.
I like the little map – you’d think nothing much has changed in 80 years looking at it. Except my adopted district, Norris Green, is yet to make it on the maps, being a newly built estate around this time. The library here is still in the 1930s Art Deco original building.
I have become slightly obsessed with charabancs since reading this, and having to look them up to see exactly what they were. An open-topped cross between a car and a bus, jammed full of people on a day trip, only safe because they went around 12 miles an hour by the looks of it.
Here’s a nice pic of Liverpool FC, in the 1920s, on their way to a match.
The 1970s are strangely tainted at the minute, as you don’t need me to tell you. “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there,” said L. P. Hartley in The Go-Between (note, this is not J. R. Hartley of Fly Fishing fame). This seems fairly self evident of a century ago, but quite odd to think of the decade of my birth as belonging to such a different social landscape to now.
Not that today’s book is the greatest example of such a gulf in attitudes, but still, things would be done differently today.
The Art of Drinksmanship is a book from 1975 that I refuse to believe is not in the personal library of Steph and Dom, the posh ones from Gogglebox. If you want to party 1970s style (er…) then this is the manual for you. I feel well disposed to this book largely because it sounds like an off-shoot of Stephen Potter’s Gamesmanship. The 1940s and 50s Gamesmanship, Oneupmanship, Lifemanship and Supermanship books are a must for the comedy lover, some of the funniest books I have read. In them, there are many forms of getting one over on someone else – gambits on how doctors can maintain superiority over their patients, how babies can employ “Babymanship” by wobbling their head alarmingly and worrying their parents, and how you can stay one up on your friends and colleagues in general. The proponent of these gambits is called the “Lifeman” and, therefore the reader of this book could be called the “Drinksman”. I do know one or two people who could genuinely hold that title – Simon Lawson, I’m looking at you.
There’s lots of colourful pictures of the many boozes of the world. What immediately struck me, though, was the answer to a perennial problem of mine – how to serve a lovely old bottle of Burgundy? I mean, now I see it, it’s obvious. A nice cut glass decanter and glasses, some rather indulgent pate….and a dead duck, artfully draped. It’s touching the decanter! It’s eyes are still weeping! Who came up with that idea?
1970s barmaid. There was a good reason for this picture, it was illustrating a very salient point that I seem to have forgotten.
Instructions on how to have a party, 1975-style. Can’t help thinking that jumpers-on-shoulders guy is feeling slightly awkward at this party. He’s come smart casual, everyone else is at a Moroccan orgy.
Hangover cures. Basically – if you can hold of an oxygen canister, you’re laughing. I agree with it though, speaking as someone who is completely rubbish at drinking – loads of water is the key.
Yes, this is just what you’d expect.
Crapping Case, the closet of decency.
Also – Crapped meaning “hanged”.
Words, words, glorious words;
Nothing quite like them for polishing turds….
I’ve always loved words, I even used to collect them when I was younger. Interesting words I found I would write down in a little book, ready to spring into use when I inevitably wrote my Gilbert and Sullivan-style operetta. Just the usual kid stuff.
My first favourite words were Sweet Lemons. Nice and simple and lots of E’s, which I felt a special affinity with, being the first letter of “Estelle”. Plus, it’s a nice oxymoron.
The name Estelle itself was interesting as well. I didn’t know anyone else called it, and I was quite taken with the idea that I was named after a character in a book – Estella from Great Expectations. Mum loved the book, and as soon as I read it (although that wasn’t until I was an adult for some reason – I rather felt like it was waiting for the right time) it became my favourite book straightaway. It’s perfect – no one writes people like Dickens, the scenes are vivid sketches in their own right, and it’s still funny (Pip’s real name being Philip Pirrip made me laugh on page one and I knew then that we would get on). And for a lover of words, the names of Dickens’ characters are an untrammelled delight. Jaggers, Magwitch, Wemmick and his Aged P….
The fact that my husband’s middle name is Phillip is a good sign, I think. And thanks Mum, I can’t think of a better name for me – a name meaning star for someone who loves Dickens, anything Victorian and space.
As a teenager I loved Jewel and Jeepster, especially as both were dead cool T. Rex songs as well as being pleasing to my eye. And I had a “thing” about the letter J for a while.
Now my favourite words would have to be Nebula, Ephemera and Interstellar. Although the first two are gloriously woody, I’m troubled slightly by the fact that Interstellar is a bit tinny. But it’s a bit like my name, so I like it nonetheless. This Monty Python sketch had a big effect on me.
Tell me yours!
(The strange featured image for this post is the Engraved Hourglass Nebula, if you were wondering.)