Category: UK

Welcome to the occasional series of art posts when I know next to nothing about the artwork but merrily write stuff anyway for my two loyal readers. But, it’s rather good (the artwork, not my posts). It’s entitled ‘The Fever Van’ and it’s by Laurence Stephen Lowry (1887-1976), painted in 1935.

The gallery notes:

“‘The Fever Van’ shows an ambulance arriving to collect a patient from a small terraced house. The sufferer probably has diptheria [sic] or scarlet fever, both highly contagious diseases and widespread in industrial Britain in the 1930s. A lack of vaccinations meant that such diseases were frequently fatal.”

Although I particularly like this comment from Lowry:

“Accidents interest me – I have a very queer mind you know. What fascinates me is the people they attract. The patterns those people form, and the atmosphere of tension when something has happened… Where there’s a quarrel there’s always a crowd… It’s a great draw. A quarrel or a body.”

It’s a reminder how prevalent diseases were in the last century, with routine vaccinations against diphtheria not taking place until the 1940s and scarlet fever had only been addressed in the 1930s. I hadn’t realised how effective diphtheria vaccines were, seeing a reduction in cases from 46,000 in 1940 to 962 in 1950, with a corresponding fall in deaths from 2,480 to 49.

With great foresight from the Walker Art Gallery, they purchased it directly from Lowry in November 1943. His mother had died in October 1939, before he had gained the formidable reputation that he now has, and it’s noted that he regretted that she didn’t see the impact that her son’s works were having. The painting just seems bleak to me, there’s the obvious sadness of the ambulance, but the whole atmosphere feels grey and industrial. But, that’s something of the point of the painting and I found myself quite drawn to this snapshot of the age. It’s also reminded me that I must visit the Lowry Museum in Salford at some point, another location that I’ll put on the list that perhaps one day I’ll complete ticking things off.

It was the end of the weekend for Steve, as he had to go and board a train back to Norwich given that he needed to back by the end of Sunday. We tried to support the Walker Art Gallery, which is free to enter, by visiting their cafe but the whole arrangement was just a little sub-optimal. The cafe’s web-site advertises that they have hot food from 11:30, but at the cafe the signage said hot food started at 12:00 and the menus on the table said that hot food started from 11:00. It transpired that they were all wrong and hot food started at before 11:00, but it was all too late when we realised as everyone had already ordered cakes and coffee. Well, I hadn’t, I had a Cornetto and tap water as I’m not very decadent.

Anyway, the Cornetto was delicious (and apparently the cakes were also entirely acceptable) and the staff were helpful. But it is always sad to see someone leaving, although after Steve had gone then Susan, Bev and I managed to get talking about death for thirty minutes so that really cheered everyone up. With that, it was time to explore the rest of the Walker Art Gallery, a fine institution and I was only slightly worried that I had to cope with Bev for a day without Steve’s sensible interventions.

It all means that some of the party didn’t get their Traditional Scouse with pickled red cabbage and a bread roll, but maybe we’ll all return soon enough.

I had to Google what a ‘stela’ was and after I insisted to Google that I hadn’t just mis-spelt ‘stella’ (which is a drink I’d never search for) it informed me that it was a stone slab which was erected as a monument. The museum’s description is:

“Slab stela of Ni-ankh-tet, royal acquaintance, director/controller of scribes connected with petitions (or iah?) and scribe of reversion offerings of about late 3rd Dynasty or early 4th Dynasty. Sunk and raised relief with a combination of vertical and horizontal inscriptions. The deceased is seated before a table of offerings. With his right hand he reaches out towards the table of bread loaves, while with his left he grasps the shoulder knot of his garment in his clenched fist. At the top right side is a register list of linen of various fineness. The bottom part of the stela is broken away.”

As this isn’t going to be an Egyptian history blog, for one reason I know nothing about it, I was just going to witter on about the age of this, which is from 2686 to 2494 BC making it a remarkable survival given its age. It was discovered by Joseph Sams in 1833 who owned it until 1850 when he sold it to Joseph Mayer, who donated it to the museum in 1867. The number of people who have seen this stone at the museum must outnumber how many saw it when it was in situ.

It’s not known when the excavation took place, but Joseph Sams (1784-1860) was a book-seller and antiquities dealer, so he was likely hawking around the area waiting for these items to be uncovered. Joseph Mayer (1803-1886) made his money as a jeweller and then started to build up an art collection of some considerable size, which he donated in its entirety to the World Museum (or the William Brown Library and Museum as it then was).

I find these exhibits particularly fascinating as a reminder of how advanced the Egyptian civilisation was and wondering what the original stone carver would have thought of thousands of people in Liverpool looking at their handiwork…..

It would be something of an omission not to take in the centre of Liverpool during a weekend visit, although I’m pleased to have already visited locations such as the Cavern Club so I didn’t need to return there, exciting as they are. Now that I’ve reached just over 24 I’m far too old to need to return to loud places, I can’t be doing with raucous unless I’ve got muddled up and it’s someone’s birthday or within four months of their birthday when it might be acceptable.

The others in our group seemed more excited by the louder environment as we approached it. Given half a chance I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Bev dive into a bar to show off her dance moves, despite supposedly having a bad back.

Getting busier and there’s the Cavern Club. There’s enough information elsewhere on-line about the history of this venue, but in short it’s a different location to the original club which was closed due to suit the needs of Merseyrail. The replacement club is on a similar footprint and they’ve used some of the original bricks, but it isn’t entirely historically authentic. Sgt Peppers had a tagline of “live music eight nights a week” and it’s open until 01:00 on weekdays and 04:00 at weekends, hours that Julian would be positively delighted by. Both the Cavern Club and Sgt Peppers have formidable reputations and are key parts of Liverpool’s music scene.

The Cavern Pub is run by the same operators as the Cavern Club offering free live music every night of the week. The whole area around Mathew Street (which is named after the local merchant Mathew Pluckington who was about in something like the eighteenth century) is certainly worth visiting for anyone who likes live music, vibrant street scenes and is either deaf or doesn’t mind losing their hearing. I can be very dull   🙂

By this stage I felt that it was best to move the group on from all this excitement as there was a Good Beer Guide listed pub that I wanted to visit and I anticipated it might be rather quieter.