Category: Non-fiction

Lewis Carroll, Photography and Memories of Childhood

Published on by Margaret5 Comments
I’™m reading Lewis Carroll: a biography by Morton N Cohen. Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, two of my favourite books from childhood, was the pseudonym for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832 ‘“ 1898), a Victorian mathematics don at Oxford University.

In this post I’™m concentrating on Charles’™s keen interest in photography. This developed from his early drawings and sketches illustrating verses and short stories he wrote in the family magazines and booklets. By the time he was 24 in 1856 photography had become an absorbing pastime for him, encouraged by his uncle and fellow students at Oxford. He bought a camera, the necessary chemicals and the extensive and cumbersome equipment needed to take photographs. It was very different from photography today, when all you need is a small digital camera that goes easily in a pocket or handbag (unless you’™re a professional photographer, or very keen amateur) and the results can be instantly seen.

He arranged his photographs in albums, all indexed and listed in registers. He took landscapes, architecture, drawings and sculptures ‘“ but his main interest was in portraits of people, his family, friends and Oxford colleagues. Photography gave Charles entry to the Oxford social world through his portraits, mainly of small children. He introduced himself to Alfred Tennyson, as a result of simply arriving uninvited when Tennyson was visiting friends in Coniston and proposing to take photographs of his children.

His main focus was the Liddell children. Henry Liddell was the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, where Charles had become Mathematical Lecturer in 1855. The Liddell family included Alice and her older sister Lorina. Charles was a great favourite with the Liddell family and the stories he told to them and in particular to Alice were later published as Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. He became well known as a portrait photographer and took many photographs of friends’™ families, enjoying the theatricality of dressing up, using props and composing scenes for his set pieces. He was particularly interested in the composition of his photographs for proportion and balance, and examined other photographers’™ work at the Exhibition of he British Artists in London in 1857 ‘œ’¦ chiefly for the arrangement of hands to help in grouping of photographs.’

Photography in the 1850s was a complicated and intricate business. You needed a darkroom to prepare the ‘œplate’ ‘“ film didn’™t come into use until the 1880s ‘“ by pouring a gummy solution of collodion onto a glass plate. This had to be carefully prepared so that it wasn’™t smudged or spoiled by dust particles and then carried to the camera. Once the plate had been exposed you then had to rush back to the darkroom to develop it and then it had to be fixed, varnished and allowed to dry.

For outdoor photography all the equipment, including a darkroom tent and water for rinsing the plate when there was no fresh water available, had to be transported to the countryside. There was so much equipment that Charles had to hire a porter and a carriage or horse-drawn van to carry it all. It was a major expedition and not surprisingly Charles didn’t take many landscape photographs.

Photography is no longer such a difficult process, so much so that we take it for granted. My grandchildren are used to instant digital photographs and have no idea of what it was like when I was a child, anymore than I had any idea of what photography was like when my parents were children, let alone in the 1850s. My dad had a Kodak Box Brownie camera and I remember waiting for what seemed like ages for our black and white holiday photos to arrive back from the chemists. You had to be careful with loading the film not to expose it and had to remember to wind it on between photos. Later we had colour film and then the excitement of Polaroid cameras when you could hold the print in your hand as it developed ‘“ instant photographs!

This has sent me on a trip down memory lane and here are some photos taken on the Box Brownie. I was about three in the photos on the beach. I think it’s amusing to see what my Dad wore on the beach – a jacket and with his trousers rolled up for paddling.

I’m perhaps a bit older in the photo with my Mum, looking at lots of sandpies. We used to go to New Brighton in the summer, so I think these photos were taken there.

Here I am in the garden at home looking very fed up at having to pose in front of the raspberry bushes for the photo. The last photo is of me and my Taid (Welsh for grandfather) – my mum’s dad. Granny and Taid came to live with us when I was 6.

Wilberforce by John Pollock

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D and I finished reading Wilberforce by John Pollock with only a couple of hours to go before the book group meeting last Thursday. As D said it was like climbing a mountain, ‘a hard slog at first and when you get half way you wonder why you are reading it and whether you should give up but as you’ve got so far decide to carry on. When you reach the top you see that it was all worthwhile.’

It’s an achievement and also somewhat of a relief to complete the book. We both found it hard to get into and probably wouldn’t have read it if it wasn’t for the book group. Part of the difficulty is that there are so many references to the people of the time, both in politics and society in general, that without some background in the period you begin to flounder and the eyes glaze over. Other members of the group had found the same. But if you like reading historical and biographical books don’t let this put you off. There are fascinating insights into family life in the late 18th/early 19th centuries, references to the French Revolution and its effect in England, visits to Yorkshire, the Lake District, Buxton (to take the water and endure the ‘horrible treatment of Skin Rotations‘ – a massage bath lying on a flat dish of copper), and to Bath, to mention but a few.

The main cause and aim of Wilberforce’s life was the abolition of the slave trade and the end of slavery itself. He also wanted to remake England by reforming the morals, attitudes and fashions of the nation. The majority of the book is made up of the account of the twenty years struggle to end the slave trade through legislation, culminating in the passing of the Act of Abolition in March 1807. This made the slave trade illegal throughout the British Empire. In America also an Act of Congress outlawed the slave trade.

Wilberforce’s character gradually reveals itself throughout the book in extracts from his letters, diary entries, and contemporary accounts of him by friends, supporters and opponents. I particularly liked Marianne Thornton’s memory of him:

He was as restless and volatile as a child himself and during the long and grave discussions that went on between him and my father and others, he was most thankful to refresh himself by throwing a ball or a bunch of flowers at me, or opening the glass door and going off with me for a race on the lawn ‘˜to warm his feet’. I knew one of my first lessons was that I must never disturb Papa when he was talking or reading, but no such prohibition existed with Mr Wilberforce. His love for, and enjoyment in, all children was remarkable.

The Wilberforce household at Broomfield in Clapham was ‘a rather eccentric home‘, with its unkempt shrubberies and domestic servants who ‘were deserving rather than efficient, nor would he cast off the useless or infirm until they found suitable berths.‘ The servants adored Wilberforce. Guests had to fend for themselves in ‘Yorkshire‘ way at dinner -Barbara (Wilberforce’s wife) would

see that Wilberforce’s plate had plenty and he was too short-sighted to notice the others; then Dean Milner’s stentorian voice (so Marianne Thornton recalls) would be heard roaring ‘There was nothing on earth to eat‘; and desiring the servants to bring some bread and butter, he would add ‘and bring plenty without limit’, while Mr W would join in with ‘Thank you, thank you kindly, Milner, for seeing to these things. Mrs Wilberforce is not strong enough to meddle much in domestic matters.’

Wilberforce was an excellent orator, good company, and irresistibly happy according to his friends’ accounts. He was involved in so many other causes, including agricultural improvements, medical aid for the poor, education in charity and Sunday Schools, improving living conditions for the poor, campaigning against the use of boys as chimney sweeps, distributing Bibles through the British and Foreign Bible Society, improving conditions for prisoners, education for the deaf and training for young men who would make good clergymen, etc, etc. As Pollock says ‘Good causes attached themselves to Wilberforce like pins to a magnet.’

Wilberforce was converted to Christianity in 1785. At first he felt he was not ‘in the true sense of the word a Christian‘, because he was still behaving as a man of the world. Pollock writes that Wilberforce ‘began to sicken of the profligacy and selfish luxury of the rich, of the hours they wasted in eating.’ He thought he must withdraw from the world, but after correspondence and talks with Pitt and later with John Newton (author of ‘Amazing Grace‘ and many other hymns) he remained in politics. He introduced family prayers in his household, and took ‘the Sacrament regularly. On Sundays he went to church twice, and would neither travel nor discuss politics except in gravest emergency.’ He tried to introduce a new spirit of tolerance ‘ it was his ‘endeavour to promote the essentials of Christianity, softening prejudices, healing divisions, and striving to substitute a rational and honest zeal for fundamentals, in place of a hot party spirit.’

He was buried on 3 August 1833 in Westminster Abbey. Thousands of Londoners mourned.

Two royal dukes, the Lord Chancellor, the Speaker and four peers supported the Pall. Members of both Houses walked in the procession.

‘The attendance was very great’, recorded a Member in his diary that night. ‘The funeral itself with the exception of the Choir of the Abbey perfectly plain. The noblest and most fitting testimony to the estimation of the man.

The Duke of Marmalade and the Count de Limonade

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These names intrigue me and I couldn’t believe they were real when I read about them in Pollock’s Wilberforce. All they meant to me was toast and marmalade and a fizzy drink.

So I looked them up and couldn’t find out much.

Henri Christophe (Wikipedia has an article on him) had seized power in Haiti. He had created a nobility from the former slaves. Their names were derived from the slave holders’ estates and so we have the Duke of Marmalade who was the Commander in Chief and the Comte de Limonade who was the Secretary of State. So, it was oranges and lemons.

I’m always going off on tangents when I’m reading a book – one book always leads to others.

Wilberforce update

Published on by Margaret1 Comment

I’m now about half way through Wilberforce and it is growing on me. It’s quite difficult to read because there is a lot of detail about politics in the late 18th century, at the time of William Pitt the younger. It’s a long time since I did this period of British history at school and then I’m sure it wasn’t in so much detail. There are also big chunks quoting from original sources, which is fine for authenticity, but the 18th century style and terminology differs from the 21st century’s. So, concentration is needed for this and also dealing with the number of people connected with Wilberforce. He was most certainly an active person, involved in many areas both in the political and social scene.

I hadn’t realised until reading his book that Wilberforce and Pitt were such friends, nor that Wilberforce was elected to Parliament for Hull in 1780 at the age of 21. Much of the first part of the book is about his campaign against the slave trade and its long and drawn out progress through Parliament and the struggle against the traders, merchants, planters and landed aristocracy whose fortunes derived from sugar and slaves.

To help with my reading I’ve also dipped into a couple of books on my bookshelves – Modern England: from the 18th century to the present by R K Webb and Who’s Who in British History for background information. The book becomes more readable when giving information of the social scene and personal details about Wilberforce himself. More about that when I’ve finished the book and have an overall view of his life.

What I like to get from a biography is a vivid impression of what the person was like, what made him or her tick and after a slow start I’m being to feel as though I’m getting to know Wilberforce as an individual.

Wilberforce and yet more library books

Published on by Margaret

This is my copy of Wilberforce by John Pollack, which I’ve just started to read for the book group meeting next Thursday. It has a most annoying front cover because it curls upwards, as you can see. D and I are both reading this and not finding it too enthralling! I don’t think we’ll finish it before the meeting, but that will be OK and we will still be able to give our views. When we’ve finished it (if we finish it) I’ll jot down some thoughts here.

These books are beckoning me.
They’re all library books I picked up on Friday. As someone else had reserved it I had to return a book to our local branch library. I didn’t intend borrowing anymore books- I’ve plenty to read. BUT, Arlington Park and Digging to America were on display on the returns counter, along with other books on the Orange Prize Shortlist and so I thought, why not borrow them. The winner, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie had already gone out, or I’d have borrowed that too.

A quick tour round the library shelves and I also found books by Anita Brookner, Joyce Carol Oates, Reginald Hill and Melvyn Bragg that I hadn’t read. So they all came home with me to add to the To Be Read piles. I really like this little branch library as it always seems to have interesting books, good displays and friendly staff.

On Trying To Keep Still by Jenny Diski

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

This book captivated me. I have read some good books this year, but this one outshines the rest. When I wasn’t reading it I was thinking and talking about it. It’s about experiencing an experience, becoming aware of experiencing the experience and so losing the experience.

I have had the experience of experiencing Jenny Diski’s travels during a year when she visited New Zealand, spent three months in a cottage in Somerset and went to sample the life of the Sami people of Swedish Lapland. No need to go those places myself now. Really, I could be tempted by a trip to New Zealand, but that is only a pipe dream. Now, a cottage in Somerset – that is a real possibility.

I can see myself living in that cottage, but I would not want to be there alone. Her description of her drive to Lilstock, in Somerset identifies the pleasure and gratitude of the present-moment experience of being in a beautiful place, even though this then conjures up the consciousness of

that terribly difficult business of experiencing experience. I am so conscious of me being here, of being me here, not somewhere else, having this experience, that I lose my awareness of what is pleasing me in order to think about the pleasure.

To me being in the right company as well as in the right place enhances rather than diminishes my pleasure.

I don’t need to visit the glow-worm caves or Doubtful Sound in New Zealand, now that Diski has described them to me; indeed she had to miss out on an actual visit to the caves but enjoyed a virtual trip courtesy of an imaginative reading of the brochure ‘what more could we want, particularly as the actual visit to Doubtful Sound was disappointing?‘ And I certainly don’t want to go to cold, dark Lapland even though the enchanting, mythical, magical forest ‘glittering fairyland labyrinth‘ lit up with frost ‘making an intricate latticework which sparkled, twinkled, actually dazzled the eyes, as if the forest had been sprinkled with a layer of diamond dust‘ is beguiling. This is counterbalanced by the difficulty in living in such a hostile environment. Intriguingly this visit was aimed at advertising tourism.

Of course this book is not only about travelling. It is also a personal memoir, and is about being still, being alone, wanting to be alone, phobias and the problems of coping with life and especially with ageing. There is so much in this book that I can empathise with that it is almost alarming. Jenny Diski wants to be alone to a greater extent than I do, but I still identify with feelings such as not wanting to make a noise in case people notice that I’m there, not wanting others to worry about me, and worrying that others are worrying about me; feeling the need to do something such as going out for a walk – not the desire to do it for itself but the feeling that I should want to. On a practical level I also have difficulty with ‘left’ and ‘right’. In my mind I see left and say right etc and like Diski I can only visualise a route for a short distance before it disappears in a grey fuzz in my mind.

There is so much more in this book; it describes adventures in places at the opposite ends of the earth intermingled with personal insights and meditations on solitude and stillness, consciousness and belief systems. I found it a moving, amusing, thought-provoking and original book.