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Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 251, 252 and 253

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

Pickthank

This is defined by Grose as “a tale-bearer or mischief maker” and it evolved from meaning someone who was sycophantic, literally trying to pick up thanks. The word was first used in the late fifteenth century, was used by Shakespeare and was commonly used into the nineteenth century.

The English language is a little mysterious, or at least how it’s used, as this word remained in usage for centuries and then just faded away in the twentieth century. I prefer its original meaning, someone who always looking to curry favour with others, in order to pick up a thanks.

Pig

This definition surprised me, as Grose’s definition pre-dates the formation of most police forces. He defines it as “a police officer. A China street pig; a Bow-street officer. Floor the pig and bolt; knock down the officer and run away”. There are all kinds of stories as to why this word came into usage, some have said it’s because the police were like pigs at rooting away, to solve crimes in this case. This seems unlikely to me, it’s likely just a derogatory term which the cant community (the criminal underworld) would have used and which gained wider parlance. Interestingly, the word wasn’t much used in this meaning during the later part of the nineteenth century or the early part of the twentieth century, but then in came back into usage more recently with the same meaning.

Pig Running

This is defined by Grose as “a piece of game frequently practised at fairs, wakes, &c. A large pig, whose tail is cut short, and both soaped and greased, being turned out, is hunted by the young men and boys, and becomes the property of him who can catch him and hold him by the tail, above the height of his head”. As a reminder, a wake was a fair in the nineteenth century, this wasn’t an activity held after someone was buried. What is moderately surprising to me is that this still goes on in a few places in the United States, although animal rights concerns have caused this to start to come to a juddering halt. The activity has had numerous other names, such as pig wrestling, pig scrambling, pig catching and so on, and it went on for centuries in the UK.

December 31, 2020
London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Bethnal Green Tube Disaster Memorial

This monument, also known as the Stairway to Heaven Memorial, commemorates those who lost their lives in the Bethnal Green Tube disaster of 1943. It’s a striking monument for what was the worst civilian disaster during the Second World War.

During the late 1930s, the Central Line was being expanded from Liverpool Street over to locations in Essex. The construction work had nearly been completed when the Second World War commenced, but there was no track laid and the site was taken over to be used as war shelters.

On the evening of the 3 March 1943, there was an air raid warning and many locals proceeded to the station site to find safety. Near to the bottom of the steps down a mother and daughter slipped, which led to people behind falling and then crushing those below. A total of 173 people were killed during the incident, including 62 children, with their names placed on the above panels.

Clicking on the above photo should make this readable and it’s an account of what happened on that fateful evening. The press weren’t permitted to write about the incident, although the occasional sly mention got through, as there were fears that it might induce a national panic as well as being damaging to the morale of the nation. A report into the incident was commissioned, but wasn’t published by the Government until 1946.

I think this looks quite sleek and elegant, with the main part of the memorial at the rear being an inverted flight of stairs. The memorial was designed by Harry Paticas, who was also one of the key visionaries behind the entire project. He had noted just a small plaque inside the station marking the event and he wanted something more visible, so that the story wasn’t entirely forgotten.

These are quotes from survivors and although they’re a little hard to read (both at the memorial and on-line) they add some poignancy to the memorial. A comprehensive web-site was also created alongside the memorial, available at http://stairwaytoheavenmemorial.org/.

There’s more about the incident on this video, from BBC’s The One Show.

December 30, 2020
London – National Portrait Gallery (Taylor Wessing Photography Prize)

The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) was always going to be closed this year as it is undergoing a restoration project and their timing is perhaps fortunate. But, one thing they share with other galleries is the opportunity to place artworks on-line so that interested people stuck at home can still engage with their collections.

In this case, the NPG has created a virtual exhibition at https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/taylor-wessing-photographic-portrait-prize-2020/virtual-exhibition where anyone can view all of the photographs and then vote for their favourite as part of their “Peoples’ Pick”. There’s information about each artwork and you can sort of stroll through the gallery, albeit with quite a lot of imagination.

This was my favourite and the one I voted for. The gallery notes say:

“This image was taken by Francis as part of his ‘lockdown journal’, something that was so familiar becomes distant.”

I don’t want to show the image in full as I’m sure it’s under copyright restrictions, but there’s something about the colourful dress of the lady in the photo combined with her blue facemask that make this very much a photo of 2020, but yet still familiar.

The winning artist will be revealed on Monday 16 March 2021.

December 30, 2020
London – Greenwich (Borough of) – National Maritime Museum (Figureheads)

There are many highlights in the National Maritime Museum, but these figureheads are some of my favourites in the collection. The largest collection of merchant navy ship figureheads in the world is located nearby in the Cutty Sark museum, but the ones here are Royal Navy figureheads.

Royal Museums Greenwich operate one of the more restrictive copyright policies that I’ve seen from a museum, limiting re-use of their collection imagery. It’s possible to embed the images, but they’re relying on a Flash set-up and that’s being retired. It’s a slight shame as I would have used some of their imagery of figureheads that they don’t have on display in the museum. They’ve made quite an effort with the figureheads though, there’s a separate web-site at http://figureheads.ukmcs.org.uk/ which has 300 of them listed.

The museum explains that back in the eighteenth century, the Royal Navy would usually have full-length figures, but cost cutting at the Navy Board saw an end to that. Some of the figureheads in existence at that point got cut back, with just the heads usually used after that.

In the above photo, there are a few obvious figureheads which stand out. The large one on the right in the middle is from HMS Himalaya, which was built for the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) in 1853 and was known as SS Himalaya. After a few months, P&O realised that their ship, which was the largest ever constructed, was too big and there wasn’t enough passenger traffic to justify it. This wasn’t ideal for them, as they had just spent £130,000 on building it. However, they managed to convince the Government to buy their ship for £133,000 and it was transformed into a troopship which could carry up to 3,000 soldiers. The ship was decommissioned in 1894 and was then used as a ship to transport coal until it was sunk by the German Luftwaffe at Portland Harbour in 1940. The figurehead had been removed when it ceased to be a troopship, being stored at Devonport until 1936, when it was presented to the Admiralty.

At the bottom left of the above photo is the figurehead from HMS Harlequin, a brig-sloop which launched in 1836. The ship was later used to transport coal and was decommissioned by the Royal Navy in 1899 and was broken up and sold for scrap in 1904. The figurehead was kept and was located on the first floor of Rigging House in the Devonport Dockyard, being donated to the Admiralty in 1936.

Above the HMS Harlequin figurehead is the one from HMS Tribune, in the style of a Roman tribune. The ship was a wooden screw corvette which was launched in 1854, but it didn’t last long as it was sent for breaking up in 1866. I’m not entirely sure that taxpayer’s money was used entirely wisely there. The figurehead ended up in the same place as the HMS Harlequin and was also gifted to the Admiralty in 1936.

The last British battleship to have a figurehead was HMS Rodney, which was launched in 1884 and remained in use until it was broken up in 1909. After that, with the exception of on some smaller Royal Navy ships which still used figureheads, the tradition changed to have a ship’s badge instead. This doesn’t seem quite as exciting to me, there’s something quite appealing about knowing how many sailors from the Royal Navy would have seen the figureheads on these ships and likely been quite attached to them.

My only other comment, for what it’s worth (which isn’t much) is that the figureheads are all a bit pristine. They’ve nearly all been repainted, although not necessarily recently, so they don’t have that feel of having been on the front of the ship. The museum does have plenty of figureheads which no longer have much paint left, and I prefer these as they feel more authentic, but they’re mostly not on display.

December 29, 2020
Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 248, 249 and 250

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

Peter Lay

This is defined by Grose as “the department of stealing portmanteaus, trunks, &c”, which is a throwback to when bags, parcels and trunks were known as ‘Peters’. I’m not quite sure where that word origin came about, but there was another phrase, not mentioned by Grose, which was to “peter-drag”, which was to steal bags from carriages. Google doesn’t much like me searching for ‘Peter Lay’, it seems to think that surely I must mean ‘Peter Kay’….. Anyway, this was one of these phrases, mostly used by the criminal underworld by all accounts (Peter Lay that is, not Peter Kay).

Petty Fogger

This phrase is defined as “a little dirty attorney, ready to undertake any litigious or bad cause: it is derived from the French words petit vogue, of small credit, or little reputation”. The phrase came into use in the sixteenth century and it remains in use today, although it’s usually now just one word such as pettifogging. The OED give a different word origin, noting “from petty + obsolete fogger ‘underhand dealer’, probably from Fugger, the name of a family of merchants in Augsburg in the 15th and 16th centuries.” Grose is right though, the word at the end of the eighteenth century was pettyfogger with the meaning that he gave, but it now tends to mean a lawyer or politician who focuses on small or petty details.

The evolution of the word with its different spellings, showing how frequently it was used in the nineteenth century compared to the twentieth century.

Pharaoh

This word is defined by Grose as “a strong malt liquor”, which sounds rather lovely. As an aside, when this word entered the English language, it was for some time spelled as ‘Pharao’ without the final ‘h’. The word was used in this way from the middle of the sixteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century, and it likely came from the belief that Pharaoh was a strong or powerful leader, hence a powerful or strong beer.

December 29, 2020
Lakenham – Church of St. John the Baptist (John Mackie)

It’s fair to say that I wasn’t over-excited about this church, but the churchyard of St. John’s has some interesting graves. This one puzzled me because of just how well it has been preserved. It stands on top of bricks and looks almost new, despite it dating back to 1796. I’m unsure of why this is, it gives the impression of having been moved from inside, but there’s no obvious evidence that this is what has happened.

Anyway, it’s the tombstone of John Mackie, as well as two of his children who died in their infancy, Mary and Charles. John married Mary Aram at this church on 8 January 1778. Mary, who is buried with her father, had been baptised on 4 August 1782, but she sadly died at the age of two and was buried at the church on 16 November 1784. Charles, also buried with his father, died at the same age, being buried on 17 March 1791.

I’m unsure how many children the couple had, but this is the baptism record for John and Mary’s son, also named John. He was baptised at the church on 29 March 1785, a reminder of how important St. John’s Church would have been to the family. Unfortunately, the younger John didn’t have that long a life, he died at the age of 33 in 1818.

John worked as a seedsman and this is one of the ads that he placed in the Norfolk Chronicle in 1788. He must have been reasonably well known locally, as he never placed his address in these adverts, but I think his nursery was on the Ipswich Road. That means it would have likely had a prominent location for those entering and leaving the city.

It was reported in the Norfolk Chronicle on 22 October 1796 that John had died, noting “Monday last died, Mr. John Mackie, nursery and seedsman, near this city, aged 53; whose abilities in his profession, attention to business, and obliging liberal behaviour, was exceeded only by his affection and tenderness to a disconsolate wife and family”.

The expense of the tombstone suggests that John wasn’t a poor man and his trade seems to be one which afforded him some luxuries. He also seemed to breed spaniels, as there are numerous adverts relating to that in the local press. His business survived though after his death, it was taken on by family members who kept the Ipswich Road site operational. It evolved into Mackie and Ewing’s Nursery and the business was still trading in the late nineteenth century.

December 28, 2020
Norwich – Breath by Paul de Monchaux

Just to show how little attention I pay to things sometimes, this sculpture has been here since 2011 and I’ve never really paid it the slightest bit of attention. It was commissioned by the council as part of the process of modernising the site of the city’s war memorial.

The war memorial was first unveiled in 1927, when it was located outside of the Guildhall (photo here) and it was moved in front of Norwich City Hall in 1938 (photo here). In 2011, the war memorial was moved slightly to face the other way, looking at Norwich City Hall, with this bronze sculpture placed where the memorial had once stood. The move was requested by veterans, as the memorial wasn’t being treated with respect by those who found themselves sitting near to it, so it needed a more fitting location.

The stone on the pavement noting the sculpture. The bronze sculpture is meant to show the connection between life and death, although I have to be honest and note that I struggle to see what the artist had in mind here. However, I like the concept and the motto notes “the living honour the dead, only a breath divides them”. It was quite a brave commission though, and there is something in the thought that it was only chance that divided those who lived and those who died in war.

The official information about the sculpture notes:

“Breath is made up of two elements: a tall central slab, flanked on each side by seven ‘leaves’ whose geometry suggests growth. The central element reflects Lutyens’ stone of remembrance”.

The war memorial itself was designed by Edwin Lutyens, one of the great architects of his generation. What I hadn’t realised until today is that he designed Castle Drogo, which is I think my favourite National Trust property. Although this isn’t perhaps Lutyens’s crowning glory, the thing leaks terribly and it’s costing the National Trust a small fortune to fix.

Anyway, I digress. I like the boldness of this sculpture and the concept is one that’s perhaps worth pondering.

December 28, 2020
Norwich City Centre to Whitlingham (and back)

One of the locations that I wanted to visit was Old Lakenham parish church, so that was where Nathan and I headed today on a minor little walk.

The Cock at Lakenham is looking ever more derelict and it’s got easy access via that open window. Well, not necessarily easy access for me, but for anyone who can climb things.

This is St. John the Baptist and All Saints Church that I had been meaning to visit and it’s located on top of a hill in a prominent location. Unfortunately, the church is now surrounded all on sides by housing and feels a bit forlorn. It was also not the pretty building that I was expecting, it’s covered in render which makes it look like a house extension from the 1970s. Given the remote and interesting location on a hilltop, it was slightly disappointing.

One of the most unimpressive priest’s doors that I’ve seen on what is a medieval church.

This is perhaps the most beautiful angle possible for this church, but that aisle extension is out of place.

The church tower which is a fifteenth century rebuild, with the main part of the church dating from the thirteenth century, albeit with many ugly additions.

I found it hard to see behind the render to see the beauty if I’m being honest. St. Mark’s church was opened in the 1840s as a Chapel of Ease and that meant that St. John’s lost a little of its relevance. The two churches are relatively far away from each other, St. Mark’s is up near the Rose pub, but this was nearer to where the centre of Lakenham had moved to.

There were several interesting graves I’ll write about later on. There are six war graves here, although we could only find three of them. Some of them don’t have the distinctive war grave style, so finding them all would have been challenging.

Standing at the bottom of the hill, it all felt more of a castle site than a church. There have been some Roman finds at the top of the hill and I can imagine that the Saxons had some dealings here as well.

The River Tas at Old Lakenham, where it meets the River Yare a little further upstream.

Fancying a little adventure, we decided to see if we could walk down the riverside path and it did prove to be possible. Although, only just, and it did involve wading through some rather large puddles of water. And indeed some minor lakes rather than puddles. We agreed between us that we had been very brave and noted that no-one else seemed stupid enough to try and make their way along the flooded path.

Normally it’s possible to walk across this field, which connects back into Whitlingham Lane. We were able to walk some of it, but it had only just opened up as there was a closure order marked up which had just expired.

Despite having written about this structure earlier in the year, I forgot the history here, and this is the former Trowse Newton Hall and its associated chapel.

The fields at Trowse, which look quite peaceful. In reality, there were a lot of people around and it’s one of the reasons that I rarely go to Whitlingham now. Cars are given priority along Whitlingham Lane, making it quite hard to socially distance whilst walking down the pavement.

Nathan had brought a few beers with him, which we had sitting on a bench drinking out of KFC cups. Not the most decadent and I think we rather gave false hope to some people that there was a KFC nearby. The cafe at Whitlingham Lake is still open, although there was a long queue, and rather helpfully the toilets were also open. Drinking on a park bench isn’t ideal, I’ll be pleased when pubs are open once again.

And the sun which was starting to set…..

This wasn’t a long walk, just under nine miles, but we have agreed that we will have to rather up our walk distances in preparation for the LDWA 100….

December 27, 2020
Norwich – River Wensum Following Christmas Rain

There is some flooding further down the River Wensum following the recent rain in Norfolk, but it’s not overly high in the city centre. I shall brave the Norfolk countryside over the next few days to see how sodden that is.

Taken from Foundry Bridge, at the end of Prince of Wales Road, the river is high but hasn’t burst its banks.

The still closed Red Lion on the left.

Taken from the other side of Bishop Bridge.

Looking towards Riverside Road.

The bench is now quite moist….

Water on the Norwich School playing fields, with the middle patch of water being where the tennis courts were 100 years ago.

December 26, 2020
Norwich on Boxing Day in 2020

This was the queue for Primark in Norwich just a couple of days ago, when the city was in Tier 2. Below are photos from today, Boxing Day, with a Norwich in Tier 4. Much quieter than I had anticipated, with little open other than Five Guys and Costa.

December 26, 2020