Fancy swimming

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Swimming

Synchronised swimming may come in for a bit of gentle mockery, but displays of aquatic feats and ability are nothing new.  “How to swim” by Harry Austin [1914.6.780] is so much more than just a guide to doing the breast stroke.  Austin was the superintendent of Beckenham Swimming Baths for some years after its opening in 1901 and took an active role on the committee, teaching swimming and coaching the water polo team, as well as orchestrating displays of ornamental swimming.   His wife, incidentally, became the first lady president of the Amateur Swimming Association in 1952.

Apparatus for supporting pupils in use at Beckenham swimming baths

Austin’s book does begin with a general introduction to swimming and its history; going on to describe how to learn to swim and how to execute the different strokes, diving, life-saving and floating, but what caught my attention were the sections on various tricks and displays that could be performed.  Some of these were requirements for attaining the Royal Life-Saving Society’s certificates and no doubt served to promote agility and proficiency in the water, but I can’t see too much of a practical purpose for  learning how to smoke underwater.

However, there are, apparently, two way of doing it.  One can sit on the bottom in shallow water with a clay pipe, well alight, and keeping the bowl of the pipe above water, blow bubbles and smoke at short intervals.  Alternatively, put the lighted end of a cigar in your mouth (being careful not to burn your tongue, I assume) and blow gently through it whilst swimming just below the surface.  One finishes by flourishing the cigar to show that it is still alight.  I feel the proprietors of swimming baths nowadays would take a dim view of anyone attempting this trick.

Spinning, or, The washing tub

Probably they wouldn’t like you eating underwater either: a small orange or banana is most suitable, apparently. “Pull some of the skin off the fruit and let it float up, break off pieces to be eaten and push them through the lips until all are consumed, then come up slowly and without a gasp.”

Perhaps some team swimming then?  Two or three swimmers can combine to emulate a steam tug, or a crocodile and then race against each other.  Or attach a swimmer to a land-based “fisherman” with a line and the one can attempt to draw the other to the side of the pool.  Mounted wrestling?  This requires two men standing in the water, each with another man on his shoulders and the two riders attempt to unseat each other.

For a trick that “never fails to provoke laughter when neatly done” you could get together with some friends and demonstrate the Monkey-on-a-stick.  Essentially this involves crouching under water and then periodically leaping straight up with your arms by your side.  I suspect this is harder than it sounds, especially when it comes to remembering to time your breathing while you are clear of the water.

Writing underwater

Finally, if you really want to make yourself look silly, how about Swimming like a duck?  “Balance on the breast, cross the ankles and bend the knees so that the feet come out of the water behind, to imitate the duck’s tail.  Propel by sculling with the hands under the hips.”

On the positive side, I suspect this last feat is the only one of the above that wouldn’t get you peremptorily thrown out…

Without a shadow of a doubt …

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Edwardian era, entertainment, shadow puppets, shadowgraphy

As the long winter evenings loom ahead, I thought that it might be fun to share some ideas on amusements to keep people busy. Recently I came across a book on shadow puppets which looked like it could inspire hours of fun! 

Hand Shadows

Hand Shadows : the Complete Art of Shadowgraphy by magician Louis Nikola outlines the principles of shadowgraphy, an art that was popular in the  early twentieth century. Most people have an idea of how to make basic shapes such as a bird or a butterfly, but with a little practice people can make some really creative shadows.

The art of shadow puppets died out  due to the rise in popularity of entertainments such as the cinema. People were also more readily able to afford nights out, meaning that they didn’t need so many home entertainments. The invention of the electric lightbulb also didn’t help since electric lights don’t cast the same depth of shadow as candles. But never fear, there’s still plenty of fun to be had by those willing to try!

Each shadow in the book is accompanied by step-by-step instructions on how to make it. The book starts off with quite simple animals such as a rabbit or an elephant:

Rabbit

Elephant

The book then moves on to people in preparation for putting on a shadow pantomime. Some of the characters need props to make them work which could be considered cheating, but it would be impossible to create some of these figures any other way!

Judge

Chef

 

A little play is provided at the end of the book for people to perform. There are multiple characters in the play and a few need props, so it’s not for the amateur. However, I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunity to practice on those long dark nights before spring arrives!

 

Shadow pantomime

 Hand Shadows : the Complete Art of Shadowgraphy: 1913.7.1578

 

Come dine with me

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Food, London, Restaurants

M. Ritz

Fancy a meal out this evening?  Want to know the best place to go?  Or do you just enjoy reading restaurant reviews?  If so, then “The gourmet’s guide to London” [1914.6.383] is just for you – an entertaining read about the best places to dine in the capital, from humble taverns to the highest class hotels; from City banquets to intimate occasions with a single companion.  It may be nearly 100 years out of date, but many of the establishments mentioned still exist…

Written in a very chatty and anecdotal style and published in 1914, one could also see it as a slightly poignant record of a lifestyle that was about to disappear with the Great War.  The author, Lieutenant-Colonel Newnham-Davis, educated at Harrow and having served with “The Buffs,” clearly moved in certain circles and expected only the best of gourmet dining.  A lifelong bachelor, he ate out as a matter of course and would seem to have been well known at many of the establishments he frequented.

It is interesting to see what he considered part of an everyday meal: he says that,“when men [abroad] … talk of the good things they will eat when they get home to England, the first idea that occurs to them is how delightful it will be to eat a good fried sole.” 

The Cheshire Cheese

Various game dishes, turtle soup, bacon, Oxford marmalade and Cambridge sausages are also mentioned and oysters were a staple – on their own, in oyster soup, scalloped oysters, oyster fries, pheasant stuffed with oysters; “jugged duck and oysters is a good old British dish and there are oysters in the majestic pudding of the Cheshire Cheese.”  This latter puzzled me, but apparently it was a famous dish of larks, kidney, oysters and steak, made at the Cheshire Cheese public house in London and served with elaborate ritual.

For many of the places he dines at, Newnham-Davis gives the full menu (often in French, of course) and sometimes the price.  For example, on a train journey from London to Southend, he dines on lobster mayonnaise, mutton cutlets, roast grouse, straw potatoes, salad, omelette au confiture, devilled sardines, cheese and biscuits and coffee.  The Great Eastern Company insisted on giving him the meal for free (with an eye to the publicity, no doubt) so as he “could not argue with such an indefinite thing as a railway company” he is unable to give the cost of his food on that occasion.

Some of the menus are extraordinarily long to modern eyes.  He lists the food served at the Lord Mayor’s banquet in 1913, which includes turtle, turbot, lobster, beef, partridge, cutlets, tongues, and seven sweets.  The cost, with wine, was about two guineas a head, for what he describes as quite a light dinner.  He may have had a point, as he then goes on to reproduce the menu for a similar event in 1837 which, as printed, was a yard in length!  “No wonder our grandfathers mostly died of apoplexy!” he comments.

There is an entertaining chapter on the Greenwich fish dinner, which had fallen out of favour by the time of writing, but apparently in the early 19^th century the Cabinet ministers of the day would take to barges for an annual pilgrimage downriver to partake of this meal.  The author recounts a visit there with an actress, Miss Dainty and her doted-on fox terrier, which was not altogether a success as she was more concerned with the welfare of the dog, tied up outside, than with attending to her food, much to the waiter’s disdain.

M. Joseph, of the Savoy, carving a duck

Further on in the book, Newnham-Davis reviews a luncheon at a Chinese restaurant, damning it with faint praise as “quite a pleasant experience.”  He boasts that Chinese food was no novelty to him, as when posted to the Far East he “learned by experience which were the dishes one could safely eat and which were the Chinese delicacies that it was wise to drop under the table.”  While out there, he unwittingly ate puppy stew, was at a banquet where many suffered from “Asiatic cholera” afterwards and was once kindly given a slip of cold pig’s liver wrapped around a prune; on which he comments, “I do not think that I ever tasted a nastier combination.”  Undoubtedly these experiences coloured his views, as he appears to have dined very circumspectly at the London restaurant.

Generally, the reports are positive, dwelling on the delights of the occasion, the friendliness of the proprietor and the pleasure of his surroundings and dining companions.  He finishes by explaining why he only publishes complimentary reviews, but I found his statement rather contradictory: “it is not fair to condemn any restaurant … on one trial and … whenever I have been given an indifferent meal anywhere, I never go back again to see whether I shall be as badly treated on a second occasion.”  Work that one out.

For a really good time at a party…

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Autograph books, Fortune telling

Inspired by the pig guest book featured on the blog two weeks ago, I decided to find some of the weird and wonderful ‘party game books’ that I remember cataloguing in the past few months. Four books particularly came to mind; all of them quite bizarre and hilarious, and, possibly, a little worrying… Let no one say that the Victorians and Edwardians didn’t know how to enjoy themselves at a party!

Fortune telling for amateurs

The first is a fortune-telling book that is useful for amusing your friends. You take the first letter of your first and surname, read the table at the beginning of the book (shown below, click on the image for an enlarged version) to see which (completely random) number has been assigned to each letter, subtract the smaller number from the larger and then check the page with the number that results from this sum. Confused? Yes, me too.  The fortunes told range from relatively ordinary pronouncements (“Be prepared for a disappointment”) to the positively riduculous (“A lame person will bring you good news” – really? Um, great…).

 

 

 

Instructions and the mystic alphabet

 

So that you can play along, here’s a list of the possible fortunes with their numerical values:

  1. Good fortune awaits you at the next moon. 2. Let not the dark-haired one gain too much influence. 3. Look toward the sun and health shall be yours. 4. Guard well your treasure, a loss is indicated. 5. Happiness comes in your train. 6. Trust your own judgement and abide by the result. 7. It shall come as you desire. 8. Make the most of the sun, clouds are gathering. 9. A kindred soul is travelling toward you. 10. Wednesdays are unlucky for you. 11. Your outlook grows brighter. 12. Your courage will shortly be tested. 13. The owner of this house has something for you. 14. A fair person will be responsible for your misfortune. 15. Show your affection and you will be surprised at the result. 16. Remember the value of silence. 17. A lame person will bring you good news. 18. Beware of the flesh-pots, therein lies danger. 19. A happy old age awaits you. 20. Be prepared for a disappointment. 21. There is some one who loves you passionately. 22. Be guided by your second thoughts. 23. You have no cause to worry. 24. You must learn economy. 25.Pay attention to detail.

Kelly, from the Isle of Man (apparently)

The other books are, if possible, even more bizarre. The one I liked best has to be My favourite microbe, in which your friends are supposed to draw a humorous rendering of an (entirely made-up) microbe and endow it with a name, an occupation, recreations and its main source of food. The one shown on the cover is also on an example sheet in the book with the following details: “Name: Kelly, from the Isle of Man. Occupation: Reading works by Hall Caine (a Manx author who wrote novels and plays and was well-known among contemporaries). Recreation: Forgetting them (I detect subtle criticism of the author’s works…). Food: Manx cats (or possibly bats, it was quite hard to read).”  See – hilarious! I have the sneaking feeling that you might have to be incredibly bored or quite drunk to enjoy these party books properly.

The last two books both work on a similar principle to autograph books, although the autograph itself is not the main point of either book. The first, worryingly entitled The Ghosts of my friends, has a vertical fold down the centre of each page. The instructions then go as follows: “Sign your name along the fold of the paper with a full pen of ink, and then double the page over without using blotting paper.” This results in a smudged signature which resembles a ghostly figure. Hence the ghosts of your friends; murder, mayhem, ghostly moaning and groaning and the rattling of chains in dark dungeons definitely not involved. Phew, what a relief…

Kiss o graphs

The final book, entitled Kiss o graphs, is the one that I thought was the weirdest of the lot. You might agree when I tell you that instead of (or rather as well as) signing the book, you painted your lips with glicerine and cochineal (red dye)  and then kissed the book, signing your name next to the impression of your lips. My first thought was “How horribly unhygenic.” The microbes (real or imaginary) must have had a field day with this one…

Don’t look a guest’s pig in the mouth

The Edwardians appear to have had a bit of a penchant for pigs if several of the books in the Tower collection are anything to go by. Amongst the many curiosities we come across in the Tower Project, the most recently observed is  a trend for guest or visitor books  in which instead of writing that you had enjoyed your stay / had a lovely time etc., you were encouraged by your hosts to draw a pig, whilst blindfolded.

Instructions are given in a few neat verses at the beginning of ‘A guest book’…

When visits, dinners, luncheons end, this book is brought to every friend. One is not asked fine prose to write, or yet a poem to indite; one only needs his eyes to close, and draw a pig, from tail to nose. This outline now fill in with ink, leave pig an eye, his tail a kink.

The idea is that the artist must hold a newspaper in front of their face, or be blindfolded, and draw a pig without lifting the pencil from the page (except to add the pig’s eye). The artist then signs and dates their drawing as a record of their visit.

A typical page from 'Pig book'. Each page has decorative borders of anthropomorphic pigs accompanied by a quotation about pigs.

 These books are an entertaining change from the usual guest books I have seen and I imagine they provided plenty of amusement for both host and guest alike, perhaps even more so at dinner-parties if the guests drew a pig when they were a little worse for wear!

The people in this photograph even have pig figurines on the table to inspire their drawing, so this amusement clearly became quite competitive!

In the name of research, and to cheer ourselves up on a rainy afternoon, we decided to have a go at this ourselves. So here is a selection of  Tower Project staff pigs for your amusement. As you can see, it’s not as easy as you’d think! …

Towerpigs

•  Pig book. Classmark 1905.8.483
• A guest book / arranged by Florence L. Sahler. Classmark 1910.8.354 & 1907.8.238
• Essays in Bacon: an autograph book / compiled by G.E. Farrow. Classmark 1907.8.32