More March birthdays. This first one is totally unfair to Uncle Bill and to the innovative ‘funky grooves, 80s synth and jazzy piano a go-go’ sounds of Tom’s brother’s indie rock band but the ‘Scotsman playing Baker Street on the trombone’, was an actual incident at a wedding in Edinburgh, which I remember it well: very difficult to forget, actually!
The big birthday recently has been my brother-in-law John. For the past year because of restrictions, he’s been grounded in South Ossett, so Illingworth Park has been his regular exercise walk. Three times around the park is one mile, so during that time we calculate that he’s walked about 300 miles around the park and another 300 getting to and from it, so the full distance of the Pennine Way and back again, with just about enough mileage left over to complete The Dales Way too.
My first version of John’s card included the regular dog walkers and the occasional mums and children who we see in the park, but I thought the numbers would make more of an impact if the park was empty. I added ink washes to establish the tones but this dulled the watercolour wash that I put over it, so I drew the card again.
Ali is brilliant at sewing and was able to run up some stylish face masks in the early days of lockdown when they were in short supply.
It’s been a busy month for birthday cards, this one inspired by my niece, Sarah, who in real life really appreciates the bad boids visiting her feeders.
We generally used to go into the Church yard, and look with some awe at the Nun’s graves, the earliest of which were already there, the Old Hall at Heath being the Nunnery : this brings to mind an incident some years later, when the youth and beauty of the Nuns of Heath excited a good deal of interest in the neighbourhood. One sultry summer’s afternoon my cousin Ben and I, took a boat from Wakefield down the river, and coming under the shelter of the wood at Heath, made fast our boat and strolled in the grounds. We had not been long there before we heard footsteps, and concealing ourselves behind a tree, saw a long line of Nuns, two and two, approaching us, preceded by the Lady Abbess. We were very much struck by the youthful and beautiful appearance of the young ladies, and my cousin unable to repress some slight exclamation, we were at once discovered by the Lady Abbess, and at a signal from her, each beautiful face was instantly concealed, by the drawing down of a veil, and a retrograde motion immediately commenced by all except the old lady, who came forward in great indignation, speaking angrily in French, of which neither of us understood a word. We of course remained silent. She then broke out, and rated us soundly, in English, in good set terms too, and we retired, making the best excuses we could, the object for which we had really gone, having been obtained.
Henry Clarkson, Memories of Merry Wakefield, 1887
At the east end of Kirkthorpe Church, a row of plain headstones mark the graves of Benedictine nuns who fled the French Revolution to live in exile at Heath Old Hall between 1811 and 1821. The inscriptions give only initials and dates but one records a name, perhaps she had yet to take her vows;
Emilia Monteiro Born at Lisbon Died July 3rd 1816 Aged 15
When Barbara Hepworth graduated from the Royal College of Art, her tutors felt that her drawing was strong but that she wasn’t going to make it as a sculptor. Sculpture at the time typically involved building up a figure as a framework and swathing it in plaster, before casting it in bronze, so it started with a modelmaking process. Barbara preferred to take a block of wood or stone and carve into it.
During her childhood and teenage years in Wakefield, she got the chance to visit the gritstone crags and tors of the Yorkshire moors, carved by natural processes during ice ages and interglacials. On holidays around Robin Hood’s Bay, she saw landforms sculpted by coastal erosion.
While chatting to my mother-in-law, Betty Ellis, in the spring of 2010, when the whole country had snow, and she said ‘It was snowing when John was born.’
‘Was it? – I never knew that.’ I said, and she told me the story and I asked her to write it down, just as she’d told me, so here, in Betty’s own words, is the story of 80 years ago, in March 1941.
Although they’d called her in unexpectedly, she ended up in Manygates Maternity Hospital longer than she expected.
When I was pregnant with John, I was 19 years old, I didn’t have much knowledge of that side of life.
I went to Manygates . . . but my mother having ill health, could not go with me, so a neighbour went with me. We went on the bus, while I was sitting there all I could think was, when I come home again I shall be a mother. It was the most wonderful and exciting thought.
Anyway, I was there about a week and when the Sister who came round the ward every day came and I heard her say “I think we can send her home, but first we will try castor oil” – and it worked John was born I think round 8 in the evening.
Just after he was born the Air Raid Siren went, I asked where my baby was, they said he had been taken to the shelter, but I said could I go too, but they said no, as I had to stay in bed.
The [bomb] that dropped down Thornes when I was in Manygates Mum told me after, that it lifted her from her chair to the other side of the room.
We had a few bombs drop, one doodlebug dropped in Aunt Annie’s spare bedroom it did a bit of damage but not much, I used to go and clean for her and I didn’t like going in that room after.
Another dropped in Ossett, Mum and I had gone up to see Aunt Sarah Elizabeth and Uncle Wilson, Mum was in the kitchen with Aunt Sarah and I went into the garden with Uncle Wilson, we heard the Plane then we heard the Bomb coming down, I ran into the house, it knocked Uncle Wilson off his feet into the side of his shed, but he wasn’t hurt but we were all shaken up.
It made you realise what People in London and places [were going through] where they were getting that all the time.
Christmas Cake
Betty as I knew her, still baking
It’s typical of Betty that when the bombs were dropping around her, she was thinking of other people who were having a harder time.
I think this last little story really sums up Betty’s character as it involves a bit of an adventure, a touch of mischief and, of course, baking.
Betty had met Bill at a birthday party. She’d gone with her friend from work, Kitty Hornby, who was going out with Bill’s elder brother Charlie at the time.
That was the beginning of our lives together. I didn’t see him for a few years when he went overseas, but we wrote each other, we were able to get married while he was still in this country.
I would go and visit him when I got chance which wasn’t very often. It was Christmas and I baked Xmas cake, he was near Sheffield so I went and took a Christmas Loaf, but when I got there it was all railed off, and was getting dark, but there was a soldier going round on guard, so I went and called him over and asked if I could see Bill, so he went to find out, but he said he couldn’t, anyway Bill when he knew I was there he came out although he wasn’t allowed to, so I gave him the Cake through the rails, and I had to leave in case some officer saw us.
It wasn’t very pleasant being alone in the dark and the blackout, in a strange place but I made it home okay.
There are plenty of pristine-looking sheds about, but I’m not drawing in technical pen with a ruler and set-square, so this much-patched, leaning shed suits my freehand dip pen and Chinese brush better.
I tried four different nibs when starting this drawing but the one I preferred was the Clan Glengarry. I also filled in a bit with bamboo pen.
In the last of this series of live sessions on Sky Arts’ Portrait Artist of the Week, current Portrait Artist of the YearCurtis Holder drew dancer Oti Mabuse.
Also briefly appearing, Curtis’s sleepy whippet and Oti’s little terrier.
Even George Clarke would struggle to restore this battered old horse box as an Amazing Space.
I drew it with a dip pen with a Clan Glengarry Pen nib, which has a rounded end, so you can draw it across the paper in any direction. It’s De Atramentis Archive Ink, which dries a lot quicker than regular Indian. I used a Chinese brush for the solid areas, which I dragged across the cartridge paper to give a suitably grungy tone.
Catching up with birthdays today and this character has a walk-on part on one of my homemade cards. Not surprisingly he’s soon asked to walk-off again.
The Miss Mosleys make an appearance in my Wakefield Women in History Month series of sketches, as representatives of the women naturalists, often on the botanical side, who have made such a contribution to our local natural history records. In the days before local and national government departments were set up to monitor the environment we relied – and still do rely to a large extent – on the observations made by amateur naturalists, the original citizen’s science.
As I understand it, the Mosley sisters were natural history royalty, the daughters (correct me if I’m wrong) of an outstanding naturalist of his day, Seth Lister Mosley (1847-1929), curator of the Tolson Memorial Museum in Huddersfield. He pioneered an ecological approach to understanding the natural environment. In October 1923 he was invited to the opening of Wakefield’s museum in Holmfield House, in the city’s park.
For many years, the Wakefield Naturalists Society held an unpublished manuscript of British butterflies and moths illustrated and written by Mosley, which has now been added to the archives at the Tolson Museum.
In 1999, Miss A Allen, former leader of Wakefield Naturalists’ Plant Section, recalled the Society’s meetings of half a century earlier:
After the opening formalities at each of our monthly winter meetings, and before we settled down to enjoy the illustrated talk, individual members would tell us of any interesting observations – one of my friends likened this to a Prayer Meeting! We took ourselves seriously, guided by the 60 and 70 year olds in charge.
The summer outings were less formal. The leader for the occasion would have walked the route a few days earlier to ensure that we missed nothing of interest on the Saturday afternoon. Apart from that we just among ourselves and made our own observations.
I was 40 when the 1951 survey was made the Naturalists’ was only one of many leisure pursuits. Looking back, I marvel that I was able to do so much.”
Miss A Allen
Wakefield Naturalists at St Aidan’s last autumn (we were actually more socially distanced than I’ve shown here!)
So Nats meetings were pretty much the same then as they are now! Sadly because of restrictions, we managed just two indoor and two outdoor meetings last year.
In recent years a Wakefield Flower Group was started by the late Pauline Brook. Pauline really would deserve a post of her own. What particularly fascinated me was that, in her younger, hippy years, she had for a while lived in a cave below The Acropolis, Athens. A fascinating and funny lady.
