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
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.
Some advice for wives from Mrs M. A. Dobbin Crawford who was, in 1930, the Honorary Assistant Surgeon at the Liverpool and Samaritan Hospitals for Women and the Liverpool Maternity Hospital. Full marks for her for marrying someone with “Dobbin” in their surname, and for her valuable work as a surgeon specialising in women’s health. But I’m not crazy about the marital advice.
Bath Chronicle, 27th December 1930
Advice to Wives
“Never Criticise Your Husband to Anybody”
As given to a meeting of business girls in Liverpool on Wednesday by Mrs Dobbin Crawford, a Liverpool surgeon:
Never criticise your husband to anybody, not even to your own mother.
Be sympathetic and understanding.
Nothing destroys the happiness of married life more than the lazy, slovenly wife.
Encourage your husband to keep his friends. Don’t be jealous of them.
A marriage that is childless by arrangement is generally a disappointment.
Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat. Unless you’re having mock goose instead.
Mock versions of various meat dishes used to be fairly common in recipe books of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but you don’t tend to see recipes that seriously do this anymore. Thanks to Lewis Carroll, Mock Turtle Soup is probably the best-known example now.
I think the most recent recipe book I have that includes a mock creation was a 1970s Linda McCartney, which had a mock turkey for Christmas, mainly made of textured vegetable protein if I remember rightly. But there weren’t too many options for veggies in those days, you had to make your own fake meat if you wanted it. I was a vegetarian for seven years, during which time Linda McCartney first brought out her food range and it’s fair to say she was almost entirely responsible for bringing ready-made, specialised vegetarian food into the mainstream. I’m a big fan.
On that subject, in my vegetarian days, I remember eating something I bought from an international supermarket which was called “Mock Duck”. You can still get it, if you really want it. On the tin it says it’s made from “abalone”, but as I didn’t know what that was, I thought it must be something like tofu. Because why would you bother mocking meat unless it was to make it meat-free? Now I know that abalone is actually a kind of sea snail and so it was not only non-veggie, it was massively more hideous to boot. It did taste pretty bad, I have to say.
Oh, and to round up my knowledge of mocked food, there was also “mockolate” in Friends, as sold by the divine Michael McKean. That was disgusting too.
Anyway, it turns out then that the duck wasn’t being mocked for veggie reasons, but possibly for cost reasons instead (unless it was for “vegetarians” who still ate seafood, I suppose. That’s something I’ve never understood the reasoning for.) And cost used to be the reason these types of recipes existed at all. Which is why the mock goose below, from the 1930 Essex Cookery Book, is designated “Poor Man’s..”
Essex Cookery Book, 1930
I’m not too sure how much like goose it would actually have been as it’s mainly made from liver and potatoes. In fact, it’s not just liver, the recipe specifies a strangely non-specific “pig’s liver, etc”. There’s a lot of room for manoeuvre in that “etc” – it could contain pretty much anything. Apart from sea snails, hopefully.
Essex Cookery Book, 1930
Poor Man’s Goose
1/2 lb. pig’s liver, etc
1 lb. potatoes
2 small onions
Pepper and salt
1/2 tsp chopped sage
Water
Prepare potatoes and onions, cut into slices.
Wash liver and cut into slices.
Put all ingredients in layers in a pie-dish.
Cover with potato, add sufficient water to half fill the dish.
Put layer of caul or greased paper on the top.
Cook for 2 hours.
If covered with paper, remove 1/2 hour before serving and brown the potato.
Until I saw this advert, I didn’t realise that eggs used to be a vital component of Ovaltine. They even had their own egg farm next to their original factory in the UK, based in Kings Langley, and which they used in the advertisements. “Malt, milk and eggs, flavoured with cocoa,” was how they described it. Today Ovaltine is owned by Twinings and has ditched the egg, apart from the “may contain traces of egg” disclaimer. As all food adverts were apparently compelled to do from around 1850-1950, the claimed nutritional value was paramount.
Western Gazette, 24th October 1930
Eggs, and the associated implication of nutritional value, were indicated in its original name of Ovomaltine which references “ovo” for egg, and malt. It was invented in Switzerland in 1904 and is still called that there – amusingly, the reason for its name change to Ovaltine in the UK in 1909 was apparently because of a spelling mistake on the trademark application.
It was a household name of a brand thanks especially to the “The Ovaltineys” radio programme. It ran from 1935 until 1952 on Radio Luxembourg, with a break while the station closed for the duration of the Second World War. It might have ended over 20 years before I was born, but even I know the “Ovaltineys” jingle as sung by The Beverley Sisters.
In 1953, the brand got more positive publicity for its nutritional value when Sir Edmund Hilary took Ovaltine with him on his expedition to climb Mount Everest. Now, I associate it more with a soothing, warm-milk-to-help-you-sleep, kind of effect, rather than climbing mountains.
I’m always a fan of Art Deco buildings, and the Kings Langley factory is a beautiful example. It closed in 2002, and now it’s been converted into flats, but with the same listed façade. And where the The Ovaltine Egg Farm was based is now the site of Renewable Energy Systems Ltd.
Ovaltine Factory, Kings Langley
The company doesn’t make it very clear where it’s manufactured for the UK now. But it does have some more vintage Ovaltine ads available on their website, which are worth a look.
I think my favourite post so far on my blog is this one – my bit of history detective work on Josephine Joseph, the Half-Man Half-Woman from the 1932 horror film, Freaks, and which gave me my first presence on Wikipedia to boot.
There was almost no information available on Josephine, including what her name really was. Josephine Joseph was her stage name and is absolutely in line with other Half-Man, Half-Women acts (and, oh yes, there were a number of these). But not only that, it wasn’t even clear whether Josephine was really a woman or a man, although it was thought by many that it was likely that he/she was a man, as such acts usually were. It’s easier for a man to develop muscles on one side, leaving the other side flabby, than it is for a woman to disguise her figure. Finally, one piece of information that Wikipedia did have, was that Josephine was aged 19 in Freaks, which I did find hard to believe.
I made a lucky find though – newspaper reports from 1930 on the appearance of Josephine and her husband George Waas before Blackpool Magistrates on the charge of fraud, relating to their Half-Man Half-Woman stage act in the town. This has proved to be the key to unlocking at least part of the mystery. Ray Mullins has done sterling work on digging up more in his excellent post on Finding Josephine, that I am happy to spread far and wide. He’s cleverly identified Josephine and her husband from ship passenger lists, and found out that the “George Waas” of the newspaper reports is actually “George Wass”, for one thing. Click the link to read more on his amazing detective work.
Incidentally, in my original post, the newspaper article I found says this is “Another Half Man-Half Woman Case”. And I’ve found out why this was. Another similar act was summonsed in Blackpool, just two weeks earlier, with the same policemen investigating. This chap (and it sounds like it was a man this time) was an act called Phil-Phyllis. I think we’re done on the half-man half-woman detective work for now though….
OK, what? A peculiar and devastatingly under-explained little article from The Mirror, 1937.
The Mirror, 1937
This article reminded me of Tod Browning’s Freaks, the controversial 1932 cult horror film, which depicted the dying days of the freakshow. On account of its cast being real sideshow performers and its shocking plot, it was banned in the UK for 30 years. My favourite member of the cast is the “Half Woman-Half Man” played by the very cool Josephine Joseph, who claimed to be exactly split down the middle, gender-wise. The split-in-two depiction of a hermaphrodite was one of more popular types of sideshow “freak”, and was apparently mostly performed by males, who would exercise one half of their body and leave the other “female” side to go flabby and “moob up”. After ensuring you had two different hairstyles on either side of your head, you were away.
Josephine Joseph in Freaks, 1932
Now, this is where I get a bit excited. While writing this post I was suddenly overcome with curiosity about Josephine Joseph’s life. But….well, there’s hardly anything online at all. All I really found was that on Wikipedia, it’s claimed that she/he was 19 in Freaks, born in Austria, and was 5’6. That’s it! No one seems to know anything more – her/his real name, death or even if she/he were really a man or woman. Although some online commenters are pretty sure that J.J. was a man, in line with the tradition of such performers.
Me, I’m 100% convinced she’s a woman, and a pretty foxy one at that. I’m also rather sceptical of the claim to be 19 years old in Freaks. She looks a fair bit older than that to my eyes. And that was before I dug up something quite interesting in the British Newspaper Archive. Even more excitingly, it’s local to my part of the country too, the North West of the UK.
Now, the British Newspaper Archive doesn’t show up on Google searches as it’s a subscription service. And seeing as I’m newly armed with a month’s unlimited browsing, I decided to have a peek.
I found a rather intriguing article about a “Half Woman-Half Man” sideshow act called Josephine Joseph, who was the defendant in what sounds like a quite sensational, yet obscure, case in 1930. J.J. and her husband George Waas were an American couple who had been running a show at a “Coney Island” attraction in Blackpool. Their poster read:
“Josephine Joseph. Half Woman. Half Man. The most sensation freak of nature. Brother and sister in one body.”
J.J.’s name is given officially as Josephine Waas in the newspaper articles. They appeared before Blackpool Magistrates on August 22nd, 1930, charged with false pretences and conspiracy in order to “protect the gullible public” who paid to see their show. Brilliantly, the headline wearily calls this “Another Half Man-Half Woman Case”. You can’t move for them.
Before I get into the nitty gritty of that case, just for fun, let’s have a quick detour around the world of August 22nd 1930, as seen by the Lancashire Evening Post. It was in this issue that Princess Margaret’s birth was announced. It also reported on the birthday of Mrs Tackley, a 96-year-old woman who thought modern women’s dresses that showed their knees were “disgusting” and that there was “too much electricity about.”
Lancashire Daily Post, August 22nd, 1930
There was the death of William Henry Townsend, the would-be assassin of Victorian Prime Minister Gladstone – who couldn’t go through with it because Gladstone smiled at him. He was still banged up in Broadmoor for the rest of his life though.
Lancashire Daily Post, August 22nd, 1930
Vimto is marketed as an energy drink for boxers:
Lancashire Daily Post, August 22nd, 1930
And cottage cheese is advertised as a way to keep policemen “nobby”:
Lancashire Daily Post, August 22nd, 1930
Right, so back to Josephine Joseph. I think I know why this is piece of information has been left uncovered so far. The story was covered in two, local, newspapers – The Lancashire Daily Post and The Yorkshire Post – and it wasn’t a big trial that might have attracted national interest. Although the British Newspaper Archive is largely local newspapers so I’m not sure what national coverage this got, if any. George and Josephine complain about being summonsed only the day before and having no time to prepare a defence. They also apparently left the country immediately afterwards. Plus, J.J.’s big claim to fame in the movies was scuppered recognition-wise as Freaks was banned for so long.
Here’s the full article in the Lancashire Daily Post, and also a shorter version from the Yorkshire Post:
Lancashire Daily Post, 22nd August 1930
Yorkshire Post, 23rd August 1930
And here’s some close ups of the first article so it’s easier to read (although a bit awkward because of the columns):
Lancashire Daily Post, 22nd August 1930
Lancashire Daily Post, 22nd August 1930
Lancashire Daily Post, 22nd August 1930
Lancashire Daily Post, 22nd August 1930
It sounds quite riotous. They refuse to submit Josephine to a court doctor’s examination to prove hermaphroditism, but offer to provide X-rays to the court instead, given an adjournment. The adjournment was refused and the X-rays rejected as evidence without even being seen. A shame; I would have loved these, possibly doctored, items to still be available somewhere.
“Josephine Joseph” sounds a lot like a pure stage name, and there’s no photographs attached to the articles. But what makes me absolutely sure this is the same woman in Freaks are the descriptions of her in court. She is said to be a man on the right side, and a woman on the left, with her right arm longer than her left. Her eyebrows were different on either side. The Yorkshire Post article describes her stage costume as a bare right leg with a sandal, and a black-stockinged left leg with a woman’s shoe. Finally, her hair was brushed from the right side to the left, giving the impression of short hair on the right hand side. Now look at this picture of J.J. as she appears in Freaks two years later. Every point is the same:
Josephine Joseph in Freaks, 1932
Ultimately both pleaded guilty, the conspiracy charge was dropped and the show was ordered to be stopped immediately. Interestingly, only George was fined £25, while Josephine was discharged despite also pleading guilty. That seems quite unusual, but maybe she cast a bit of a spell on the courtroom. She sounds like a cool customer – it’s noted that she was smiling broadly when the verdict discharging her was announced, to some surprised murmuring in court. And there’s this exchange with Superintendent Hannan as he announced what he thought of Josephine’s physical attributes:
Superintendent: “I have no idea what the medical testimony may be, but I do say this, that the woman so far as I know does show to the public certain muscles on one side of her body which are more developed than those on the other side. She also has a male voice and a female voice. She may be without breast on one side, but this does not make her half man and half woman, as it can be brought about by operation or by physical exercises. Muscles can be developed on one side of the body and not on the other.
Turning to the woman defendant, the Superintendent remarked, “I see she is smiling.”
The Woman, “Can you stretch bones, Superintendent?”
There was laughter in the court and the Superintendent did not answer the question.
In the end, rather than submit to trial by jury in Preston, George Waas states:
“I want to plead guilty and get it over with. You are not going to crucify me entirely, are you? We both plead guilty.”
Asked if he anything to say to the magistrates, Waas replied, “I am sorry. I will give up this show and leave the country.”
As a postscript, I might have uncovered a bit more information on her life, but it’s not conclusive. Searching ancestry sites for George and Josephine Waas comes up with nothing that seems to be of a relevant time period for a Josephine. But there’s something very promising for George, and, after all, Josephine was probably a convenient stage name anyway. These are the details from the 1930 US Census. A George Waas was married to Betty Waas, and they later ended up in Los Angeles. Betty Waas was born in 1897 in Romania, and if this is our Josephine, that would make her 35 in 1932, a more realistic age for the performer in Freaks, in my opinion.
So there it is. A little light hopefully shed on a largely unknown life. I believe that Josephine Joseph definitely was a woman – or possibly of intersex gender, but not a man anyway, if she was indeed married to a man. And quite possibly she was really called Betty Waas, Romanian, and aged 16 years older than Wikipedia thinks. And this is where I came in – the title of the unrelated little article at the start of this post now seems to fit my findings pretty well, in the end.
I’m off to fiddle with Wikipedia and think about what a great film this could make. I can’t imagine anyone but Reece Shearsmith as the lead role. Wouldn’t he be amazing in it?
And, lastly, here’s Josephine herself, as she is in Freaks. Well, any excuse to post this – always and forever one of my favourite things on the Web, Ricardo Autobahn’s The Golden Age of Video:
If you look at practically any general cookbook from Victorian times up to the 1940s, you’re likely to find a section that has now entirely fallen by the wayside in modern books – special recipes for the sickroom, often called “Invalid cookery”.
This is the kind of thing:
(This is where I had embedded a video of the Fry and Laurie period sketch on broth vs soup, and which doesn’t exist anymore, and is also not in any of their sketch books. Which is a shame because it sums up invalid cookery perfectly.)
Incidentally, I seem to remember the recipes for Talbot’s Broth and Henry’s Soup actually did appear on Ceefax as mentioned in the sketch.
Now we have Heinz Tomato Soup, Lucozade, and better medicine, perhaps these gently nourishing recipes aren’t needed so much anymore. But I do like the idea of a special menu if you’re unwell. It marks the occasion, in a way. Recipes included gruel in many forms, blackcurrant tea, barley water, invalid custard, toast water and beef tea.
I’ve also got a number of recipes for the slightly alarming-sounding raw beef tea. I haven’t got a certificate in food hygiene admittedly, but this sounds like rather a potential nightmare. I mean, it’s not quite Talbot’s fried bull penis, but still.
Raw beef tea, Mrs Rea’s Cookery Book, 1910
Raw Beef Tea
1/4 lb lean beef
1/4 pint water
Few drops of lemon juice
Remove all fat and cut the beef up finely.
Put into the water with the lemon juice.
Let it stand for 6 or 8 hours, pressing beef with a spoon occasionally.
Strain.
Serve in a covered spoon.
This is only given in cases where it could not be assimilated if cooked.
Here’s some more recipes for the sick. Not sure if I’d fancy tripe as the best of times, to be honest, let alone while under the weather.
I always thought gruel was a slightly thinner version of porridge.
But I found this recipe in the “Essex Cookery Book” of 1930 by K. A. Willson and Margaret Hussey, and it turns out it’s almost homeopathic porridge, so tiny is the quantity of oatmeal – 1 tablespoon to a pint of water or milk.
It’s featured here as invalid cookery, which admittedly sounds like a perfectly fine use for it. But those having to actually survive on versions of this were pretty hard done by. No wonder Oliver Twist wanted more.
Essex Cookery Book, 1930
Essex Cookery Book, 1930
(As a side note, you may be interested to learn that the tradition survives these days in the form of the old favourite Horlicks which is technically gruel – http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruel)
