Das Hardwood Modelling Tools, made in Italy by F.I.L.A., Pero (Milan)
I bought these just before the pandemic to model ‘Plasticine’ Wallace and Gromit-style puppets for an animation project that never got the go-ahead. Shame, as I’d asked Karen Chalmers if she could do the music, as she did with my Rhubarb Festival animation, and she’d already come up with a few suggestions of how we might do it.
My unfinished (well, never even started) ‘Waterton and the Nondescript’ stop motion animation project.
It might be time to give it a try although sculptor Wilfrid Wood recently posted a photograph on Instagram showing the effect of a heatwave on Plasticine: his carefully carved head-and-shoulders portrait had been transformed into something that resembled one of The Abominable Dr. Phibes’ waxworks. A shame that Vincent Price isn’t still around to play Wilfrid if there’s ever a bio-pic.
I’ve gone for Newplast for my modelling material.
I’m sure I’ll work out what all those wooden knives, scrapers, probes and spatulas are supposed to do.
In the waiting room at Specsavers and couldn’t draw anyone without them spotting me so it was back to drawing my hand in my A6 landscape sketchbook.
iPad drawing in Clip Studio Paint
I was in for micro suction wax removal so I’ve done a few sessions in preparation lying on the sofa with olive oil in my ear. That’s an awkward angle for drawing and I realise that the Paperlike screen protector has lost its texture after eight months of use so my Apple Pencil was slipping about as I drew, so it’s time to renew it using the spare sheet that came in the pack.
iPad drawing in Clip Studio Paint
I’ve never replaced the drawing tip of my Apple Pencil so that’s something worth trying to give more traction and feedback from the drawing surface.
Fifty years ago today my exhibition, The Yorkshire of William Baines, marking the 50th anniversary of the death of the composer was in its second (and final) week at the Harrogate Festival. According to my diary William’s music and my show were getting a good reception.
I’ve been here before; coming through the darkened room with the piano and sitting down and watching. I definitely remember some of the slides particularly.
“I’ve been here before;” was the reaction of one young visitor, “coming through the darkened room with the piano and sitting down and watching. I definitely remember some of the slides particularly.”
His parents were equally enthusiastic; his mum thought ‘the music was marvellous’ and his dad mentioned that he had a friend who interviewed for Radio 3.
People had been so helpful as I prepared the show, loaning pictures, objects and manuscripts connected to the composer.
Helen Millifanti, curator of the Pump Room Museum, found me an Edison phonograph which we got working. It stood in a mocked-up parlour with an upright piano also on loan from the museum alongside a framed photograph of William as a toddler standing next to an Edison Bell Phonograph. I think that I remember that Mr Baines, William’s father, George William, sold them in his shop on the High Street; the latest technology in his day.
Radio Leeds
Ringing one of the Horbury Handbell Ringers’ bells in a Radio Leeds interview
Radio Leeds had just celebrated its fourth birthday. My interview with Peter Hawkins went well and they invited me to write and introduce a radio documentary on Baines to coincide with the anniversary in November.
Goodnight to Flamboro’
Surprising one of the visitors
The Man from Groves Dictionary
To celebrate William’s sea piece Goodnight to Flamboro’, I painted one of the sections of the clip together displays we’d assembled for the exhibition.
Highlight of the week was a recital by Eric Parkin on Friday 4th August. Peter Hawkins interviewed a cousin of William’s Elsie Hargreaves and his school day’s friend Ernest Hindle and I’m pleased to say that we still have a couple of brief clips in my Hat’s Off Gentleman – A Genius! documentary.
Miss Tiffany, a volunteer who often manned the desk at my Baines exhibition.
Amongst the audience was, according to my diary, a ‘Chorister from York’. That must have been Robin Walker, now a composer himself who has been busy producing a new recording of William’s music to launch this autumn for the 100th anniversary.
Bird and Wells
I got to meet Linda Kitson who was energetically working as artist in residence at the Festival. Drawing at events and recitals during the day and posting the results on a board in the Majestic Hotel in the evening. The ‘Writers Talking’ sessioin on Saturday 5 August included Stan Barstow and Terence Dicks. While Stan’s work is definitely inspired by gritty reality, Terence Dicks, script editor on Dr Who, explained that his ‘life has been free of super villains, space monsters and Cybermen’.
My life has been free of super villains, space monsters and Cybermen
All the while Linda Kitson was squatting on the floor, moving about to to draw the various speakers. I wished that I could be so fearless when out with my sketchbook. She assured me that I’d love working at the Royal College of Art. She’d recently graduated but she said she often dropped in, using the place as ‘her club’. I became a good deal more at ease drawing in public thanks to the weekly sessions drawing at London Zoo during my time at the RCA.
Surprise visitors: John Bird and John Wells
I was most star struck though meeting satirists John Bird and John Wells who’d come in to the Royal Baths, where my exhibition was held, to escape from the rain.
Gilbert Mills
A satisfied customer!
On Thursday, 10th August, veteran pianist Gilbert Mills introduced himself. Born ten years before William (so that would be about 1889) he championed William’s music in the very earliest days of radio, before the BBC was founded, giving recitals on 2LO, as it was called.
He demonstrated on the old upright piano in my mock-up of the Baines parlour. He insisted that Eric Parkin hadn’t got it right in his recording of Blackbird Singing in a Convent Garden. He played it with the trilling lilt that you get when a blackbird sings.
he was an odd bod. He was reckoned to be something of a genius even when he used to wander about Cleckheaton; gaunt-looking and huge hands, long fingers he had
A visitor on the final day of the exhibition who knew William
Sketching the ducks, cormorant, Canada geese and in-between black-headed gulls, some juveniles, some adults beginning to lose their black heads. We were surprised how few – if any – there were at the black-headed gull colony at St Aidan’s last week. They’d been so noisy in the spring and early summer. Now I guess they’ve dispersed with a hundred or more – perhaps St Aidan’s birds – turning up at Newmillerdam, where they can perch on fallen willows on the quieter bank of the lake and keep an eye out for hand-outs on the war memorial side.
And yes, I might have drawn more of them if I hadn’t been sidetracked by a Danish cinnamon pastry at the Boathouse.
These coots have raised a brood at the nest site I drew last year near in the corner by the outlet of the lake.
Thanks to instant communication, I was able to message my photograph of the Danish pastry to the far end of the lake as a warning to Barbara that I’d got tied up on essential business, however I beat her and her brother back to the car park and had time to draw two of the chimney stacks of the Fox and Hounds, adding the colour later from a photograph.
Writing in The Wakefield Free Press, ‘The Rambler’ recalls a visit to Coxley Valley, Sunday 22 July, 1888.
Strolling in Coxley Valley
Haymaking, Coxley Valley
I arrived at this much talked of “beautiful and charming resort” with senses refreshed by the newly-made hay and the various wild flowers that send forth their perfume from the woods up the slope. A turn of the road soon brought me in sight of “Belmont Shanty” as it is called, and as I read a bill on the boards my spirits began to revive. Here is a copy of it:
“This way to Belmont Gardens.”
Pleasure Boats
Proposed scheme; there’s no evidence that there was ever a steam launch operating on Coxley Dam.
Following the directions thus pointed I failed to find any, but continuing down the western slope, I reached the bottom, when lo, I beheld a small lake, and on it several pleasure boats plying their living freight, as busy as if Sunday was of no moment to them.
The Photographer
The Charlesworth family photographed in Coxley Valley
In disgust at the sight, I went on my way until I came in close quarters with a photographic establishment, the proprietor of which, finding six days’ work not sufficient, continues to labour on the seventh.
‘Terrible Red Dwarfs’
Danger! Red Dwarfs at work in Coxley Valley!
‘Sad at heart’ (artist’s impression: I haven’t yet discovered the true identity of ‘The Rambler’).
I certainly expect when his plate of the concert of last Sunday becomes fully developed, I shall be immortalised in the same, with a book in hand and sad at heart.
Yes, sad at heart, pained in mind, and trembling for the awful doom that awaited those “terrible red dwarfs” seen in Coxley Valley last Sunday.
And were there really some in the Valley? Yes, and of all the dwarfs that ever did live these certainly did the most harm.
‘Rambler’ is quoting from a satirical book, ‘The Terrible Red Dwarf’ by M. Guy Pearce, popular with the Temperance Movement.
This was all the more wonderful because they were so ridiculously small, measuring only a few inches in length. Then I noticed that the caves in which they lived were dark, low arched, but strongly guarded. Then there were two ivory gates shut them in fast, and outside there were two other gates that were made to fasten quite closely.
There was no other in all the land that was so secured; and yet, in spite of all this, there was not another dwarf that it was so difficult to shut up.
Their conversation from beginning to end was discussing that all-important event to come off shortly between Horbury Bridge St. John’s and Thornhill cricket teams for the Challenge Cup.
The Band Stand
Finding no cessation of their obscene language, I left the dwarfs’ quarters and wended my way to the band stand, when, by the strains of sweet music played from the heart and soul by the bandsmen, my frame of mind came back again to its former self, and for the the rest of the afternoon I delighted myself in listening to the various selections and enjoying the beautiful scenery up the slope, and the warbling song of birds.
Projected scheme by George F. T. Charlesworth for Coxley Valley pleasure gardens. Only the right-hand bay of the building below Sun Wood was ever constructed.
The band, which consisted of about 21 performers, played remarkably well, under the conductorship of Mr Wm. Atkinson, the bandmaster, andd the following programme was gone through :- The “Gloria,” from Mozart’s 12th Mass; chorus, “Maritana,” by Wallace; “Hallelujah Chorus”; rect. &c., “Comfort ye my people,” “And the glory of the Lord,” “The hours of beauty,” concluding with the National Anthem.
Wicken Tree Hall
Wicken Tree Hall and the ‘Rose Garden Pleasure Grounds’, Coxley Valley, from the Ordnance Survey 6 inch map 1888-1913, National Library of Scotland.
During the performance a collection was made in aid of the band funds, and, it now being turned four o’clock and threatening water clouds hanging overhead, I drew myself together, went on to the old well-established Wigantree* Hall (kept by an old lady over 80 years of age, and her daughter), refreshed myself with a cup of good tea, and after becoming the recipient of a bit of grand-motherly advice from the old lady, I made my way back home again, and on the journey determined to let your readers know about the Sunday visit to Coxley Valley of the poor, old “Rambler.”
*Wicken Tree Hall, probably a transcription error from ‘Rambler’s’ handwritten article.
Extract form The Wakefield Free Press, Saturday 28 July, 1888
Link
Coxley Valley I’m reprinting my A6 booklet later this month
Teddy is a puggle – a cross between a pug and a beagle – which, according to his minder (his owners are away on holiday), means that he always looks slightly bad tempered. On the contrary, he keeps his cool when a passing border collie challenges him with a barrage of barking, looking the over excited passer by as he was thinking just what is the matter with you.
At Wakefield Naturalists’ Society’s first annual dinner, Tuesday, 17 February 1874, at the Strafford Arms, overlooking the Bull Ring, vice-president Mr G. Porrit, F.L.S., was called on to propose a toast:
I am gratified at having to propose “Success to the Wakefield Naturalists’ Society.” I feel certain that all visitors and others in this room wish the president and officers of this society every success and prosperity (hear, hear). Whatever they do they do it well, and so long as they can keep their respected president with them there need be no fear so far as the success of the society is concerned (hear, hear). I have much pleasure in proposing “Success to the Naturalist Society,” and am sorry I cannot remain longer with you, as the train for Huddersfield is already due. Before I go, however, allow me to couple with the toast the name of the president, Alderman Wainwright.
The toast was drunk amid loud applause
The Wakefield Free Press, 21 February 1874. British Library Board, all rights reserved.
What could possibly go wrong?
Strafford Arms, detail of a drawing of the Strafford Arms, the Bull Ring, Wakefield, c. 1890, by Henry Clarke. Copyright, Wakefield Historical Society, 1977.
In 1862, on Monday and Tuesday, 2nd and 3rd June, the Society staged an exhibition at the Music Salon to raise funds for the formation of a library for the Society.
‘The Exhibition will consist of several thousands of objects in Natural History, comprising choice specimens in Ornithology, Entomology, Conchology, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology. The greater part of the objects have been taken within six miles of Wakefield.’
The Reason for the Failure
‘Beyond explanation’ – the 1883 Annual Report
But an exhibition staged by the Society in the 1880s proved over ambitious. Here’s a reaction from a former member of the Society who thought that he could do a better job himself:
In the interests of science I hope you will allow me to explain the reason for the failure of the Wakefield Naturalists’ Society, which the annual report in the papers say is beyond explanation . . . The late Exhibition met with only half-hearted sympathy from some of the members. Since the Council Chamber [Wakefield’s old Town Hall in Crown Court off Wood Street] was rented there has not been a single lecture or essay – in fact not one meeting of the members has been advertised in any way . . . Are not these facts a sufficient reason to account for the large proportion of the members withdrawing their names. Then dog in the manger like when they will not go forward with the proposed Museum, and I set to work to do what they say they have abandoned for the time being (having packed away their specimens at a public house) . . . What is the use of ten members at the annual meeting keeping in existence only the name of an association.’
G. H. Crowther, letter to the editor, Wakefield Free Press 29 September 1883
The Saw Hotel
But four years later the Society was back on its feet again.
Remember those specimens ‘packed away in a public house’?
WAKEFIELD NATURALISTS’ SOCIETY
THE SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL SESSION of this Society was opened with an EXHIBITION of NATURAL HISTORY OBJECTS, in the SOCIETY’S ROOMS, SAW HOTEL on Wednesday, October 5th, 1887.
The Exhibition will remain open TO-DAY from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and also on MONDAY, TUESDAY, and WEDNESDAY next, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
The Public are invited. Admission Free.
WILLIAM RUSHFORTH
Honorary Secretary
Wakefield Free Press 08 October 1887
The Saw Hotel was on Westgate.
The good news is that the Wakefield Naturalists are still active today, with the next outdoor meeting a week on Sunday at Adel Nature Reserve: ‘super reserve for dragonflies and flowers which was closed throughout lockdown’.
The British Newspaper Archive provided jointly by the British Library and Findmypast. You can access the archive – and Findmypast – for free if you’re a member of Wakefield Libraries.
I’ve been reformatting my Waterton’s Park booklet and this detail of three figures is the final illustration. Could this be a photograph of the camera-shy Waterton? Taken around 1860, it may show his Charles Waterton’s son Edmund on the left, one of Waterton’s sisters in law, (so a Miss Edmondstone) and Waterton himself.
Dr Hobson and friend at the farm, Walton Hall, c.1860.
But looking at it again, it does look more like Waterton’s friend Dr Hobson, who had a series of photographs taken of Walton Park at the time. There’s the cane, as in the Hobson photograph, the top hat and light-coloured trousers and there’s even a hint of those Victorian whiskers around his face.
Hobson keeping Waterton talking while his photographer takes a photograph
Hobson himself says that this back view of Waterton was the nearest that he came to capturing Waterton on camera.
While digging the foundations for a garden room extension at the back of Smeath House, Horbury, last week builders came across this brick-lined cavity.
These two massive Yorkstone slabs covered the hole.
Photograph by Arden Aspinall.
Photograph by Graham Mouser
It was completely dry and hadn’t ever been filled in, so there was no dating evidence, other than the structure itself. As far as I could see the bricks had no maker’s name stamped on them.
Photograph by Graham Mouser
Two lead pipes extended up from the base of the cistern towards the house. You can see that a few loose bricks have been placed around the open end of the pipes, perhaps either to keep them in place or to trap any sediment that might find its way into the cistern.
There were two inlet pipes close to the top of the cistern. One came from the direction of the house and would have channelled rainwater from the roof and the other presumably fed in rainwater from outbuildings which have since been demolished.
There was a small amount of mortar between the bricks, which had fairly shallow frogs. It’s not all that obvious in the photographs but the hole tapers in gradually towards the top.
The Wash House
The wash house extension. Photograph by Amy Hacker
When my mum and dad bought Smeath House in the 1950s the Victorian extension to the original house (above, the window and door on the right) housed what we called the wash house. It was stone-flagged inside with a large enamel sink below the window which is now in use as a plant trough at Spinkwell House next door. We used the large Victorian mangle for years, until woodworm got into the wooden rollers.
There was a cylindrical galvanised boiler which my dad later used as water butt sunk into one of the beds of his greenhouse.
The Victorians used rainwater was used for laundry as it was softer than water from the well. A well which might have served both houses gave its name to Spinkwell and is still there, covered over, at the corner of an ivy-covered rockery.
My mum was resident at Smeath House for about 60 years but during that time we never suspected that there was a cavity under the back yard. The back yard was probably concreted over in the late 1940s or early 1950s when the house was converted into two flats.
Corner of ‘the wash house’ extension. The cable was installed by my dad in the 1960s to light and heat his greenhouse at the top end of the back lawn.
The foundation trench for the garden room has exposed the foundations of the ‘wash house’ extension. l’m not sure if that the sandstone is bedrock or a massive flagstone.
Barbara and I got a chance to see the structure yesterday as they started to fill it in. It looks as if it is approximately half-filled here.
Capacity
Very roughly, I’d guess we’re looking at a storage capacity of a cylinder 6ft across and 6ft high, which would hold about 170 cubic feet of water, over 1000 gallons, nearly 5 cubic metres (my thanks to Harvey who pointed out that my original calculation was way out because I’d confused radius with diameter).
The Mortimer Row Mystery
Steve Hunter and Bob Durham at the ‘mystery hole’ behind Mortimer Row. Wakefield Express photograph
In 1979, a very similar structure was found less that 100 yards to the north west of the Smeath House water cistern at the back of one of the houses on Mortimer Row.
Wakefield Express article
When Gillian Simpson posted this article on the Horbury and Sitlington History Group Facebook Page, Bob Durham recalled:
We found all sorts of things in that ‘well’. Old childrens lace up shoes, bottles, cups and saucers. Metal work files. It wasn’t round tho! It was more egg shaped and the red smooth faced brickwork was so tightly. It was a pity to fill it in.
Bob Durham
As the article mentions one of the items was a cup, dated 1911, belonging to Horbury Urban District Council, unfortunately there was no similar dating evidence in the Smeath House water cistern.
