Miscellaneous – Elizabeth Hawksley

Elizabeth Hawksley: Apologies

I had a painful fall last week. I was crouching down to photograph an interesting ancient tombstone on the Isle of Man – as one does – and I stupidly tried to use the top of the tombstone which was covered with damp moss to pull myself up – and fell.

I now have a number of large bruises down my right side which have gone through red, violet, blue and are fading slowly through plum and black. I am slowly improving but it is extremely painful to sit down and typing is impossible.

Many apologies – and keep well.

Elizabeth Hawksley

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Two Sneaky Stories by an Ag Slang Speaker

This post is about ag slang, a secret language which dates back to the Between the Wars years, that is, the 1920s – 1930s, when it became a popular secret language between school children. My mother who was the third of four sisters had learnt it at school, and she taught it to me and my brothers; and I, in my turn, taught it to my two children. My aunts also taught it to their children (I rang round my cousins to check before I started this post.) ‘I’m so sorry to bother you on a Saturday,’ I said, ‘but dago yagou spageak agag slagang?’ (Do you speak ag slang?) There was a startled pause and then ‘Yages – wagell, agI uagused tago!’ (Yes – well, I used to.)

Greenwich Maritime Museum

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Get Stuffed: ‘Animal Furniture’, 1896

Last October, I looked at some articles from the monthly illustrated Strand Magazine which was launched in 1896: Child Acrobats and Stage Dancers; Educating the Blind; and The Battersea Dogs’ Home, 1891, and wrote posts about them.

A couple of days ago, I discovered a further copy of the Strand Magazine. It’s not in a good state; it lacks the back and spine covers and the last few pages have come unstuck – but it is complete. And it contains an extraordinary article: ‘Animal Furniture’

Albatross beak paper clip

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Elizabeth Regrets

Elizabeth Hawksley regrets that she will not be putting up a post this week as she is overrun with deadlines but she hopes to return next Sunday.

However, on Thursday she was lucky enough to be invited to the Press Preview of the opening of Buckingham Palace Gardens – plus guest. She invited Sophie Weston and, if you click on the link https://libertabooks.com/history/buckingham-palace-garden/ you can see what Sophie thought of it.

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Boys in Georgette Heyer’s novels

Last week, Joanna Maitland in Libertà Books gave us a most interesting blog on boys’ behaviour in Georgette Heyer’s novels and argued that the way they behaved did not always – to her mind – match their ages.

Young boy in a skeleton suit. 1800 (Charles Dickens was forced to wear such a suit and hated it!) It can’t have been easy to put on, either.

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Elizabeth Hawksley takes a belated Easter Break

Elizabeth Hawksley is taking a belated Easter break this week.

The e-book of ‘Tempting Fortune’ will be out tomorrow, Monday, 12^th April.

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A Visit to the Battersea Dogs’ Home, 1891

The Strand Magazine of June 1891 took its readers to The Home for Lost Dogs which had been started some 30 years before in Miss Mary Tealby’s scullery in Holloway. Miss Tealby’s charity soon outgrew its humble beginnings and, by 1891, the Battersea Dogs’ Home was established and popular enough for Mr George Newnes, The Strand’s editor, to send one of his reporters to write about it, and the artist Mabel D. Hardy accompanied him as illustrator.

‘To the Home for Lost Dogs’ by Mabel Hardy (1868-1937)

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Names: Girls’ names from 1600 to 2020

Last week, when I was looking into the history of male names during the Protestant Reformation in the 1530s, I decided that my post would be to long if I included female name, too. But what happened during the Protestant Reformation and afterwards with regard to girls’ names is, I think, equally interesting, so this is what I’m looking at today.

Sarah Siddons, actress, by Sir Thomas Gainsborough, 1785

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Georgette Heyer: Lord Damerel

Georgette Heyer’s Venetia was first published in 1958 and it is one of the books I turn to when things are difficult. It was one of Georgette Heyer’s own favourites, she called it (and The Unknown Ajax) ‘the best of my later works’. Lord Damerel’s journey from a cynical rake, gambler, drinker and profligate to a man who is worthy of the heroine, Venetia, is a long, thorny path with many twists and turns. He had had a difficult childhood with cold, censorious, unloving parents which turned him into dissolute libertine and a man who allows himself to be cast as a villain by others. It takes him much of the book to realize that its a role he’s outgrown.

Cover by Arthur Barbosa for ‘Venetia’ by Georgette Heyer, 1958

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A Hundred and One Blogs

I have posted 101 blogs since I began, rather hesitantly, back in 2016 and, my goodness, was that a steep learning curve. I see that I have covered a lot of subjects – from the frazzled: Dejunking One’s Life: The Cupboard of Doom; and the slightly bonkers: Napoleon’s Toothbrush; to literary criticism: Is Mr Rochester really a Woman in Disguise?; to travels abroad: The Park of Monsters (Italy); and visits to interesting places in and around London: A Visit to Kensal Green Cemetery. There are posts on Jane Austen’s novels: Jane Austen: The Power of Money; and visits to Art Exhibitions: Celebrating Artemisia Gentileschi; as well as posts on simple pleasures: The Rose Beetle (as seen by Gerald Durrell in Corfu, and me in Albania), and: I Love Cambridge Market.

Easter daffodils in my garden

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