Those magnificent men in their flying machines

I recently came across the official programmes for Blackpool Aviation Week 1909 and 1910. The covers were beautiful and the amazing photographs inside reminded me of a cross between crazy birdman events and the red bull air races. Yet despite their dramatic appearance these events were both serious and important in UK aviation history.

The 1909 Blackpool Aviation Week, suggested by Lord Northcliffe, proprietor of the Daily Mail and taken up by Blackpool Corporation, was the first public and ‘official’ air display in the UK. Doncaster had hoped to run a show concurrently but the ‘scarcity of prominent aviators’, like the fine gentlemen below, led to the Aero Club (now Royal Aero club) withdrawing its approval for the rival event. Blackpool’s show, following the rules of the Federation Aeronautical Internationale and being the sole event verified was now the place to be.

 

The show was by all accounts a massive success, with over 200,000 paying spectators welcomed. Organisers rushed the grounds ready and booked out whole hotels to put up competing teams. Prizes were funded by the Daily Mail and numerous local companies, and were issued to pilots of monoplanes, bi-planes and tri-planes for achievements in long distance, altitude, carrying of passengers, speed and slowness. A signalling system was worked out for achievements but also for messages such as ‘bad start’, ‘record beaten’ or ‘machine has fallen, aviator unhurt’ nothing for ‘aviator hurt’ I noticed.

 

Amongst the competitors was one of the biggest names in aviation at the time. Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe, a Manchester man who claimed to be the first Englishman to make a powered flight (June 1908) attended. Though his attempt to be first to fly the course was scuppered by his machine failing to leave the ground and instead this glory was snatched up by Frenchman Henri Farman. Other competitors included M.M. Rougier, Dufour, Defiers, Baratoux and more. Click here for some great pictures of Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe at the aviation week. 

A second carnival was held in 1910. Rules were tightened: passing on the inside was not allowed, nor interfering with others flight courses, a great development I would have thought. Pilot’s certificates were also required by all competitors this time! Obviously not a system firmly in place at this time, especially if amateur aviators were only learning to fly when they bought their first plane as the advert below suggests.

In 1911 the competitions ended for the site had become a race course. During the 1^st World War it housed a convalescence home for soldiers. Yet in 1919 it’s aviation history caught up with it as A.V. Roe’s company began to fly from it again and in 1927 the site was recommended for the Blackpool Municipal Aerodrome. It has since become Blackpool International. The annual air shows held there now are certainly smoother, as display teams such as the Red Arrows do their thing. Still, I don’t believe that our modern shows can detract from past events, which though appearing shambolic, were in a way even more spectacular for their technological achievements of the time.

  For movies of the 1909 show try the British Pathe.

Other Information sourced from:

http://www.amounderness.co.uk/aviation_week,_blackpool,_1909.html

Fightglobal archive

BBC Lancashire news

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Be prepared … for anything

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energencies, scouts

The Boy Scout’s library (1910) covers the scouting activities familiar to me from my Girl Guide days in London in the 1970s – first aid, keeping fit, and ‘fun’ outdoor activities. Or so I thought, until I looked at the list of emergencies scouts might have to deal with and realised that the scouts of 1910 lived in a different world. First scenario is ‘stopping a runaway horse’. “Everyone should know how to stop a runaway horse. ” (Click on image below for larger view)

Waggon wrecked by runaway horse

Then ‘person chased by a bull’ which has the sort of advice clearly written from the safety of an office: “If pursued by a bull, strip off your coat as you run, and as the bull nears you, throw it over his horns and dart rapidly to one side.”  The word ‘rapidly’ looks pretty redundant there. Oddly enough, not one of these excitements featured in my own ’emergency helper’ award tests thirty years ago.

The best advice however, (and I promise you this is a word for word quote, see p. 41) relates to tackling a mad dog. ‘Twirl a hat rapidly round and round on your  hand at such a height that the dog will have to jump to reach it … then give him a kick to render him senseless.” I can honestly say that even my morose teenaged self would have been impressed by anything like that, but mad dogs were a thing of the past by my childhood. In fact even by 1910 they weren’t a common threat. In 1899 there were about 30 deaths a year from mad dog bites, but only two in the period 1900-1910.  However, I imagine this was something of a disappointment to the boy scouts of the time, probably keen for a bit of excitement and the chance to show off their ability to deal with runaway horses, bulls and mad dogs. Scouting provided plenty of excitement: Baden-Powell’s book Scouting for boys suggests a fire drill “Prepare a heavy smoke fire in a neighbouring room or building … have the alarm given by having some explosive bombs fired .. then tackle the fire.” After weeks of school or early employment, with adults treating you like an idiot, it must have been wonderful to see yourself as the sort of hero who rescued people from burning buildings.

Two fauns and an ogre

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Arthur Ransome

Everybody knows Arthur Ransome wrote Swallows and Amazons; that wonderful adventure tale of children messing around with boats, which awakened a love of sailing in so many of its readers.  Most people also know he wrote another eleven books in the series, set not only in the Lakes, but also in East Anglia and around the world.

 These are books that I have read time and again, but (probably like many others) I must confess I’ve never read any of the rest of his writings.  I vaguely know he wrote books on fishing, edited a collection of Russian fairy tales and was a political correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, but I’d never heard of a small volume entitled “The hoofmarks of the faun” [1911.6.1209].

 This is a collection of some very early works and, to be honest, they are not terribly good on the whole.  Written over twenty years before Swallows and Amazons, he seems to be struggling to find his style.  The publisher lost £25 on it (a fair amount of money in 1911) and needless to say, it didn’t make Ransome’s name or fortune either.

 The title piece features a faun from the south, who falls in love with an elf-girl from the north but, although his feelings are reciprocated, they cannot do more than sense each other’s presence.  One day they see each other’s footsteps, but she thinks his are made by some “horrible thing.”  Learning of this from a gossipy starling, the faun sadly leaves to return to his own kind.  Not a feel-good story, then.

 Neither is the closing story, “The ageing faun,” which is another tale of lost love.  In between these two are a rather odd, slightly philosophical, piece on love and dreams and a rather better story, called “The little silver snakes,” which touches on the occult, but suffers from a slightly anti-climatic ending.  Then there is a rather puzzling literary criticism on a chap called Peter Swainson, who allegedly had one book published a few days after his death.  I can find no trace of this book and no trace of this Peter Swainson in birth records of the time.  Did he really exist, or is this some kind of fantasy criticism?

 “Rolf Sigurdson” is perhaps the best work in this collection, with echoes of Norse mythology, a reasonably strong storyline and a happy ending.  This one I read and enjoyed, without needing to wince at flowery prose or wonder quite what Ransome was on about.

 So much for that.  My interest awakened, I dug out another early book of his, entitled “The imp and the elf and the ogre” [1911.6.590].  I expected this to be more twee fairy tales, but no, it is in fact a rather charming and informative children’s book about nature.  Ransome could write for children – that is so very apparent from this book.  In fact, if you’ll just excuse me, I think I’m going to slip away and curl up in a corner with it…

Passion in the stacks – Mills and Boon in the Tower!

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Mills and Boon, romance novels

Modern Mills and Boon Books

 

Summer holidays are here again! As I prepare to jet off to sunny climes my thoughts are turning to what I’m going to be reading on the beach. Mills and Boon books have always been popular summer reads since they are fun, easy to absorb and most importantly packable!

 

It came as something as a shock then when I came across several Mills and Boon titles during my cataloguing with the Tower Project.  I knew the publisher had been around for a while but was surprised to learn that it was actually founded in 1908. What came as even more of a shock was that it wasn’t always an exclusive publisher of the romance novels for which it’s best known.

A selection of Mills and Boon non-fiction

 The company founded by Gerald Rusgrove Mills and Charles Boon actually started life as a general publisher with some quite famous names on the books. Jack London was a particularly notable author who was more than happy with the representation that he received from Mills and Boon. Other famous examples include P.G. Wodehouse and Max Pemberton.

813: A New Arsene Lupin Adventure / Maurice LeBlanc

 

The firm capitalised on the increase in literacy levels and the corresponding increase in reading that occurred just prior to the First World War. Much as they do today, Mills and Boon concentrated on publishing books in a format and price that would attract many people.

 

Although their first publication was the romance novel Arrows From The Dark by Sophie Cole, Mills and Boon also published a wide range of non-fiction titles. These included many school textbooks on subjects such as Latin grammar and chemistry as well as several practical companions to nursing, golf and poultry keeping.

 

There were also works of fiction, such as the decidedly non-romantic looking Adventures of Arsene Lupin illustrated above. Happily, there were some titles which gave a hint to the future of the company. A selection of these from the Tower include When Love Knocks, Royal Lovers and Jehenne of the Golden Lips(!) However, the concentration on romance novels did not begin until the 1930s when the owners saw the potential for escapism through reading during the Depression.

 

A selection of early Mills and Boon fiction

One of the most interesting things about the library’s collection of Mills and Boon books is the fact that they have survived over one hundred years. Today, Mills and Boon titles are only available for one month in bookshops and three months online before they are withdrawn and pulped. Maybe in another hundred years people will want to study what we so easily dismiss as cheesy reads today? This makes it a great example of the benefits of the Legal Deposit system.

 Do blog readers have any favourite Mills and Boon memories? Do you never get on a plane without one? Based on my new-found knowledge of Mills and Boon, I think I know what this years holiday reading might be!

 

Sources:

History of Mills and Boon : http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/history.asp

The Art of Romance : Mills & Boon and Harlequin Cover Designs / J. Bowring and M. O’Brien [2008.10.1643]

 

 

Fancy cycling?

The other day I was watching a student riding a unicycle outside the library, and it reminded me of this brilliant book from 1901.

Fancy cycling

According to the preface, the stunts described below “may be accomplished by any rider posessed of an ordinary amount of nerve, the virtue of determination, and a few spare moments secure from the rude intrusion of unsympathising spectators”.  Well that lets me out  – the description of male cyclists as “hump-backed and ungainly” in  last week’s blog  perfectly describes my riding style.

Here are a few examples – don’t try these at home!

Knitting on wheel

“Mount holding the ball of wool in one hand, and balance. When steady, place the ball on the saddle and knit. When work is finished, stick the needles through the ball, place latter on the saddle and ride off” – easy peasy.

Butterfly dance

Riding backwards seated on handle bar

Skipping and hoop skipping

 

 Heads and posts – a large chunk of the book is devoted to the use of the sword and lance. It’s a shame that the idea of bicycle cavalry never caught on.

Many more imges from the book are available on this website. 

As all the tickets for the Olympic cycling are sold out, we should arrange an alternative event. I’m sure Great Britain would lead the world in bicycle knitting,  and that race where they chase a little moped round the track would be vastly improved if the riders were armed. 

Sadly, as I lack nerve and determination and any sense of balance, I will not be taking part – but if there are any intrepid cyclists or extreme knitters out there do get in touch.