No.27

Hylas and the Nymphs

by J.W. Waterhouse

Manchester Art Gallery was in the news recently when this 1896 painting was removed from public display and postcards of the painting withdrawn from the gift shop. The reasoning behind this change was to encourage debate on how depictions of women's bodies should be displayed. Visitors were encouraged to write their commenŧs on the post-it notes provided. After a week the painting was on show again.

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Just a brief indication how the "upper class" lived in 1900

“By modern standards my father was a lazy man. It was the days of independent incomes, and if you had an independent income you didn't work. You weren't expected to. I strongly suspect that my father wouldn’t have been particularly good at working anyway.

“He left our house in Torquay every morning and went to his club. He returned in a cab for lunch, and in the afternoon went back to the club, played whist all afternoon, and returned to the house in time to dress for dinner. During the season, he spent his days at the cricket club, of which he was president. He also occasionally got up amateur theatricals.

“He had an enormous number of friends, and loved entertaining them. There was one big dinner party at our home every week, and he and my mother went out to dinner usually another two or three times a week.” - AGATHA CHRISTIE

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When we were small, we were taught to be polite to adults. For little boys, that meant we had to salute grown-ups who were known to us, especially teachers.

Some people we were afraid of - the policeman, the headmaster, the janitor, some old spinsters, and in my case the black-faced coalman who would shout after me that so-and-so was my girl friend.

When we were a bit older, there was someone else who scared us (she scared some adults too) - Miss Rumbles!

Many parents encouraged their children to join the Junior Section of the local library, and that’s where Miss Rumbles was all-powerful. Small, tight-lipped, with little eyes that pierced you through her glasses, she was probably a very nice lady outside the library, but we children felt that we were definitely not wanted there. The library was always spotlessly clean with highly polished floors, and I got the impression that our presence was making it untidy.

I can’t remember at what age we joined, but certainly by the time we were in our early teens my sister and I were avid readers. 

What was I reading? I suppose mainly detective books in the beginning - Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, G.K. Chesterton, but later I discovered Phillips Oppenheim and Marie Corelli. Maurice Walsh, P.G. Wodehouse and others. 

For light reading, my great discovery was the work of Caryl Brahms and S.J. Simon. This clever partnership created a series of humorous books including A Bullet in the Ballet, No Bed for Bacon, Don’t Mr Disraeli, and Six Curtains for Stroganova. Those books are probably out of print now but I imagine used paperbacks will often be available from Amazon.

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From next week the blog will be updated on
MONDAYS  and THURSDAYS

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