I’ve drawn Rob as a grizzled mariner: the guy who scans the horizon for pods of rogue orcas; a safe hand at the wheel as the sun rises over the Sahara off the port bow.
The Ikinoo sailed safely past the rocks where my great 4-times grandfather Billy’s ship, HMS Africa, was stranded in the great storm after the battle of Trafalgar before being towed to Gibraltar.
I’m so sorry now that Barbara and I didn’t take the opportunity to join Rob and Karen at Gibraltar or Barbate to follow in Grandad Billy’s foootsteps, but so glad that we caught up with them in Greenock two years ago, we’ll miss him.
Rob died in Lanzarote on the 9th February, the day before what would have been his 53rd birthday.
A heist, a tapestry and a flood. Councillor Oddie and novelist Stan Barstow feature in my article in February’s ‘Dalesman’ magazine, ‘Stones, Stitches and Stories’ celebrating 120 years of Horbury’s Carnegie Free Library.
To hear more – including the connection with the formidably talented Marie Corelli – you’re welcome to my short talk, admission free, at the library, 10.30 am, Friday 13th February.
Novelist Stan Barstow at Lumb Bank, leading an Arvon Foundation creative writing course, 1975. Drawn from a photograph, photographer not credited, in his 2001 autobiography, In My Own Good Time.
This is the first drawing I’ve made using Procreate on my iPad Pro for quite a while. I used one of the new brushes from the latest version of the program: the Bellerive brush from the Pens folder. It approximates my Lamy fountain pen drawings.
Private in Royal Marines, 1815 by S, C H (artist); Stadler, Joseph Constantine (engraver); DUPLICATE Colnaghi & Co – NMM PAF4247, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27324067
A bit of a breakthrough in tracing my great, great, great grandfather, ‘Billy’ Swift, who was present at the Battle of Trafalgar.
Thanks to a death notice in the Sheffield Telegraph, from November 1862, I now know that, as I suspected, he changed his name when he enlisted but not as I suggested in my previous post, his Christian name: he enlisted using his mother’s surname, Firth.
He served in the Royal Marines, so he was Army rather than Navy. As an infantryman, he wore a red uniform so he was a ‘Lobster’ in Navy slang.
HMS Africa was the smallest of Nelson’s ships of the line at the Battle of Trafalgar.
Separated from the rest of Nelson’s fleet, the Africa arrived late at the battle and sailed down the French and Spanish line exchanging broadsides with most of the vessels it passed.
It then joined the general melee.
HMS Conqueror towing HMS Africa off the shoals at Trafalgar, three days after the battle. By James Wilson Carmichael – https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2005/marine-paintings-l05135/lot.40.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?00curid=112440410
With it’s masts shot off the Africa drifted onto shoals during the storm that followed the battle. Two paintings by James Wilson Carmichael show the HMS Conquerer towing the Africa away.
DIED
On the 15th inst., Mr. William Swift, aged 78. Deceased had been in the employ of Messrs. Joseph Rodgers and Sons upwards of 20 years. He was at the battle of Trafalgar, on board the ship Africa, and was wounded in the leg, which wound annoyed him through life, and was the cause of death. He was discharged July, 1807, without pension, at the age of 23. He enlisted in the Marines, in his mother’s name, Firth, being then an apprentice.
Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 22 November, 1862
Body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth for building Africa (1781), a 64-gun Third Rate, two-decker at Deptford by Messrs Adams, Barnard & Co. The plan may also relate to Inflexible (1780) and Sceptre (1781). Signed by John Williams [Surveyor of the Navy, 1765-1784]. This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer.Detail from HMS Conqueror towing Africa off the shoals at Trafalgar, three days after the battle. By James Wilson Carmichael – Christie’s, LotFinder: entry 5794044, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=111022409
The ship’s pay book records that he was discharged 3 November 1805 to Gibraltar Hospital, twelve days after the battle.
I assume received the Trafalgar Medal but I can’t find a record of him sharing in the prize money from captured vessels. As the death notice points out, he didn’t receive a pension when he was discharged in July, 1807. He worked in the cutlery industry in Sheffield.
‘Absolutely fascinating,’ said my niece, Karen on Facebook, ‘We visited Trafalgar cemetery in Gibraltar. There are only two graves there from the battle of Trafalgar. They both succumbed to their wounds some time after the battle and had been hospitalised in Gibraltar after the battle.’
The Lobster Red Uniform
At Deborah Lough Costumes, I learn that as a private my ancestor Billy would have worn a uniform dyed in rose madder, slightly to the orange side of red. Officers would wear a brighter red scarlet uniform.
My thanks to Florence for this portrait, drawn at Isabel and Declan’s wedding celebration in Mexborough last month. Colour added by me in Adobe Illustrator. That’s how I’d like to look (I requested a bit more hair on top) so I’ll update my social media.
Setting out for the celebrations, I packed everything that I needed for sketching – fountain pens, water-brush, A6 sketchbook – then forgot to pack the bag itself, so for the weekend it was back to basics, borrowing Barbara’s Uniball signo gel pen, which is great for drawing, and her notebook, which luckily is unlined.
View from our room at the Pastures Grange Best Western Hotel.
Five minutes walk down the road from our hotel, the Pastures Grange at Mexborough, Denaby Ings Yorkshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve lies alongside the river on the Doncaster and Worksop extension of the Trans-Pennine Trail. Gadwall and heron joined mallards, coot and moorhen on a small reed-fringed lagoon.
After the buffet . . .
As soon as the music started I had to give up any attempt at chatting and switched to drawing.
Florence joined me and we took turns with the one-and-only sketchbook.
I was impressed by the way she caught the action of the dancers, including the bride performing a forward roll.
The man of the moment: I was delighted to get the chance to interview him for an article in this month’s Dalesman.
No, not Elon Musk, who addressed the Unite the Kingdom rally in Trafalgar Square via a video link yesterday, but Wakefield comic artist and New York Times bestselling author Darryl Cunningham, who has just launched his latest book Elon Musk, American Oligarch, described by Alan Moore as “an exceptional piece of work, right when we need it most.”
September’s Dalesman also includes my regular Wild Yorkshire nature diary which focuses on Addingford Cutting, a surprisingly well hidden local landmark.
I’m hoping that this acrylic on canvas, 5ft x 2ft painting of Wakefield Market might soon get a second showing as it was last exhibited in 1982.
I think this is my favourite corner of the painting. I can reveal that Barbara played the role of ‘old lady in striped coat’. I’d drawn a figure on location and took a Polaroid of Barbara in as near to the striped coat and dotted headscarf as I could find.
The painting is unfinished: that case should contain a random selection of 1970s/80s ladies’ shoes! I’d sketched a children’s tricycle on one of the stalls and was able to borrow a similar one from the Ebenezer Hall play group in Horbury to paint.
My ambition was to make it into a triptych, a wrap-around experience like the market itself, which was a bit of a maze in those days.
‘Cockney Mick’
‘Cockney Mick’ Lawton had his fruit and veg stall at the entrance to the covered meat market. He spotted me drawing and liked the drawing, so I did a him a photocopy of it. In return he got one of his assistants to fill a small paper sack with every kind of fruit from the stall. He was going to send her around with another bag for a selection of veg too, but I told him it would take me a week to finish the fruit.
Meet the Guys
At that time the first row of stalls nearest the old Cathedral School were all fruit and veg. I sat on the wall in front of the school and thought I’d be able to work unseen. No such luck:
“Penny for the Guy, Mister?”
I made a deal, I’d give them a very small amount if they’d sit for me to draw them.
I’m guessing that Kelly, Banger and Mizzy are now successful entrepeneurs.
Great celebrities who trod the boards at Horbury School:
David Munrow, early music historian
R. D. Woodall, local historian and head teacher
Jane McDonald, singer, who appeared as Snow White in a Pageant Players’ pantomime (she’s now starring in pantomimes at the London Palladium, so we taught her well!)
Sir Christopher Chataway, runner (one of the pacemakers for Roger Bannister when he ran the first 4-minute mile), who officially opened the school in 1963 when he served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education in Harold Macmillan’s government
Allan Schiller, classical concert pianist
. . . and not forgetting:
My brother Bill who played a pirate on the Hispaniola in the Pageant Player’s performance of the Mermaid Theatre version of ‘Treasure Island’ (we used their scripts and Bill told me that one of them was dotted with odd doodles: we suspect it was the script Spike Milligan used when he played Ben Gunn)
My sister Linda, who played Lucy Lockit in the Ossett Grammar School production of ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ (a new assembly hall was under construction at Ossett so they used Horbury’s stage for several years)
And me. I never performed on stage but I painted scenery for the Pageants for 40 years and, as a young member of the Horbury Concert Society, I illustrated and designed posters, leaflets and programme covers, including those for David Munrow and Allan Schiller
Happy birthday to Zac, who may get tread the boards at Horbury Academy in the next few years.
Link
Jane MacDonald, singer and BAFTA award winning TV presenter
A smelter, a cook, a domestic servant and a chauffeur. Joseph, Hannah, James and Helena – my great uncles and aunts – stand alongside my Grandad Robert on the back row of the c.1904 photograph of the Bell family of Lound, near Retford, Nottinghamshire, which I’m currently researching.
The handwriting that I’ve added is that of the 1891 census enumerator for Lound, John Wragg, 54, Certificated Teacher at the School House, Sutton-cum-Lound Church of England School.
