Clement Scott in Poppyland : 4

 "POPPYLAND."

"What a fool you were ever to let a human being into the secret of your beloved Cromer. Why could you not let it alone? Why on earth did you not keep it to yourself?"

These are the jeering and taunting remarks that are hurled every summer at my offending head. Instead of being a benefactor to the human race, instead of being allowed to pride myself on my own unselfishness, I am, I regret to say, looked upon as a tainted or suspected person.

"Look here, old fellow, I have a delightful little place of my own down in the country," observed a friend the other day, "and I should like to ask you down very much to stay with me as long as you like, but—well—will you promise me on your oath you will not write about it? for, honestly, I do want to keep it to myself, and to give the slip to the tripper."

Quite ten long years ago I first made the acquaintance of Cromer, and it was then the quietest and, I believe, the most romantic seaside nook in England. It had no great hotels, no piers, no bathing machines, and no bands. Sands were good enough for us then: our bathing machines were the clefts in the cliffs, our music came from wandering musicians. I walked out before dinner, and saw the sun sink Runton way a solitary pilgrim.

If ever wakeful at three o'clock in the morning, I could have seen the sun rise over by the Lighthouse Cliff, standing on the turf that I suggested—entirely to myself—would be admirable for golf.

The green landscape was not then starred with red-brick villas. The poppies had it all their own way. One morning, I wandered aimlessly over this soft, turfy cliff, and found myself in the most romantic of Norfolk villages. I leaned over a white gate, and looked enviously into a rose garden.

I broke one of the Commandments. I envied my neighbour's house, and he, the miller of Sidestrand, repaid my ingratitude by making me his friend for life. And here I dwelt, under the shadow of the old mill, and here I discovered the Garden of Sleep, and here I became acquainted with the fishermen and the villagers, and here I have lived on and off, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, up to this very hour.

For l am writing these lines in the very room, at the same table, and sitting on the same chair, as when, in that rash but generous moment, I despatched the first of the Poppyland Papers.

But there are other sinners besides myself. It is not fair to make me alone bear the burden of this crime of publicity. Scarcely was the ink dry that printed Poppyland in the largest circulation in the world, ere George R. Sims arrived to advertise the glories of the Cromer district.

Here, at the table where I write, sitting in my chair, and dipping his pen into the inkstand presented to me one Christmas by the villagers of Sidestrand, the excellent "Dagonet" exchanged sentiment for his own delightful humour. He laughed, he chaffed, and made the place notorious. He opened the stage door and lit the theatre at Poppyland.

Here he brought Wilson Barrett to write plays; here he conducted poor Robert Reece to breathe some fresh air once more when he was in extremis; here came Henry Pettitt to collaborate with George Sims in the old mill garden.

The profession, once tempted, poured into Poppyland. Beerbohm Tree dreamed of Hamlet in the Old Mill House, and actually studied the Prince of Denmark in a secluded arbour at Northrepps. George Alexander is well-known at Runton and Sheringham. Hermann Vezin loves to bathe off Overstrand beach.

Ah! me, but I forget. This old table at which I write is far more famous than any of you imagine. Here, Algernon Charles Swinburne wrote A Midsummer Holiday, whilst his friend, Theodore Watts, composed sonnets in the blue china dining-room.

Plays, poems, essays, stories, leaders, descriptive papers, have all been written in this sunny little room, dear to me by many a delightful memory.

And it is ten years ago since Louie opened the white gate to me, and said that the traveller might rest. Only two seconds ago the faithful Louie opened the door to just such another traveller, and assured him that there was not a bed to be had for love or money between Sheringham and Mundesley.

Well, what do you think! They have built a Grand Hotel, and are designing a new and splendid Pier that is to have kiosques and shops, and a theatre and dancing platform at the end. There are bands of music all over the place. There are as many donkeys and donkey-chaises at modern Cromer as at Scarborough. The primitive little Cromer of old is fringed round with scarlet houses.

Poets, like Mr. Sampson-Locker, and politicians, such as Mr. Broadhurst, Mr. Cyril Flower, and Mr. John Morley, make Poppyland their home.

The golf links that I dreamed about on the Lighthouse Cliff are an accomplished fact. The sands swarm with tents and tennis nets.

Overstrand, that was once a hamlet of humble fishermen's cottages, is a red townlet of bungalows and villas.

The silent lanes, trodden so few years ago alone by the husbandman, fishier, and postman, echo with the shouts of excursionists and holiday-makers. Omnibuses, char-à-bancs, waggonettes, donkey-chaises, go in one continual stream all day between Cromer and Trimingham.

Sidestrand Mill having lost its sails
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

The old mill opposite my cottage has dropped its arms in horror at the change. It has tumbled down and given up the ghost. The Garden of Sleep has been so trampled upon by visitors that it has fallen half-down into the sea.

The tower and gravestones of old Sidestrand church - 'The Garden of Sleep'
Restored, adapted and colourised using Google Gemini

From morning until night the excursionists gaze into our rose garden, lean over my white gate, and babble continuously, "Poppyland! Poppyland!"

Nay, they do more—they enter laughingly, and demand relics of Dagonet, Swinburne, Pettitt, Beerbohm Tree, and Wilson Barrett. They offer bribes for Swinburne's stick and Dagonet's pipe. They have been known—enthusiastic ladies these—to ask if they might sit in the chair of the author of Poppyland Papers, and to handle his pen.

Pretty dears! So, after all, was it wholly wrong to open to the world the gates that lead to Poppyland ?Someone else must decide that question. May they all be as happy there as I have been. Deo Gratias!

First published in The Idler, vol.2, August 1892-January 1892

Clement Scott in Poppyland : 3

 The Garden of Sleep

Clement Scott

The tower and churchyard of the old Sidestrand church, c. 1901
Google Gemini recreation using an original postcard

On the grass of the cliff, at the edge of the steep,

    God planted a garden - a garden of sleep!

'Neath the blue of sky, in the green of the corn,

    It is there that the regal red poppies are born!

Brief days of desire, and long dreams of delight,

    They are mine when Poppy-Land cometh in sight.

In music of distance, with eyes that are wet,

    It is there I remember, and there I forget!

O! heart of my heart! where the poppies are born,

    I am waiting for thee, in the hush of the corn.

     Sleep! Sleep!

                   From the Cliff to the Deep!

                                 Sleep, my Poppy-Land,

                                                Sleep!

In my garden of sleep, where red poppies are spread,

    I wait for the living, alone with the dead!

For a tower in ruins stands guard o'er the deep,

    At whose feet are green graves of dear women asleep!

Did they love as I love, when they lived by the sea?

    Did they wait as I wait, for the days that may be?

Was it hope or fulfilling that entered each breast,

    Ere death gave release, and the poppies gave rest?

O! life of my life! on the cliffs by the sea,

    By the graves in the grass, I am waiting for thee!

     Sleep! Sleep!

                   In the Dews of the Deep!

                                Sleep, my Poppy-Land,

                                               Sleep!

Clement Scott in Poppyland : 2

A DAY IN POPPY-LAND.

[BY A HOLIDAY-MAKER.]

Alfred Jermy, miller, at the gate of his home., c.1910
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

The honest miller who lived in the farm by the sea was as good as his word. The wind was slack, and the corn around his little homestead scarcely cut, so he duly presented himself with the basket-carriage and the fast-trotting pony to fetch me away from the monotonous existence of a seaside resort to the more simple pleasures of a sunny country life. 

We can do original things in these primitive parts, and so it did not seem at all odd to the inhabitants of the seaside village pretending to be fashionable to see a dusty miller conveying his guest to his distant home. It was just the evening for a drive in the country; the sun had set, the bright clear flame of the lighthouse flashed now to sea and now across the the peaceful country, the yellow evening primrose  was closed in the cottage gardens, and the last wagons laden with sheaves were coming home to the barns from the fields.

I left my seaside friends as I had found them, doing precisely the same thing with monotonous regularity. There was a moon in the heavens, across acres and acres of woodland within an easy walk of the hotels and lodging-houses, cliffs to climb although the day was done, and yet no one ventured to depart from the monotony of the orthodox seaside programme, They had done their sands, done their cliff, called for their letters, read their newspaper, eaten their accustomed meals, and now there was nothing to be accomplished except to walk on a wooden pier and to listen to the music of an active but not very distinguished band. 

"If you are not in a hurry for time, I can take you a pretty drive to the mill," observed my host, as he allowed the old pony clearly to see that he was on his way homeward; and the worthy miller was right. We took a road that led through a wood, not quite deserted yet by the light, and passed one of the show cottages of the district, a gabled pleasaunce with a rustic porch, built in a hollowed clearance of some noble trees, and now showing an added charm owing to the lights in the latticed windows.

If the old mill farm looked homely enough in the full glare of the midday sun, with a bright light upon the flower beds, and the business of the day, such as it was, in full swing, you can imagine the hospitable look of it as we drove up to the white rustic gate and saw through an open window a supper table spread with a fair white linen cloth, candles lighted, and vases of wild flowers for simple decoration. 

It was just the room in which such a table should have been arranged. The furniture was of old solid oak of antique pattern; a combined chest of drawers and escritoire contained the odd books that seemed to have been left by successive reading parties; religion and classics hopelessly mixed, Ovid side by side with Baxter's sermons and theological dissertations in friendly companionship with Todhunter's Algebra.

For pictures there were the coloured illustrations from many a Christmas number of the Illustrated London News and the Graphic, framed by the miller during his winter evenings, some German reproductions of Raffaelle's cartoons, and a wonderful series of coloured plates representing the virtues of a temperate man contrasted with the wretched career of a drunkard, on the true Hogarthian model, 

The little drawing-room on the other side of the entrance-door was an apartment evidently held in greater respect and even reverence. It smelt of lavender, and was spotlessly clean; the horsehair sofa was an imposing piece of furniture, the carpet had evidently been a study in green and gold, flowers had been placed in every corner of the room, photographs of the miller's family and ancestors hung upon the walls with more religious prints, coloured and plain; and on a special table in the corner of the room lay in state the huge family Bible. 

The miller's house, though compact and regular in front, was roomy at the rear, and capable of holding a decent-sized family of children and nurses, if their parents were sensible enough to bring them here instead of into stuffy, unwholesome lodgings. As for my bedroom it was almost wholly occupied by a comfortable old-fashioned tent bedstead, but it looked to the front—a south-west aspect—and the road was lost in the interval between the miller's and the acres of ripe corn on the slope of the mill-hill.

Sidestrand Mill with cornfield and Alfred Jermy's home
Google Gemini recreation of an original photograph

"Could I eat eggs and bacon," was the modest request, as the miller’s daughter uncovered a smoking dish, and pointed to the farmhouse bread and fresh butter. What could I not have eaten here, so admirably contrasted as it all was in its homeliness and comfort with the very undesirable food, the secondhand table d'hôte, the inevitable discomfort of crowded hotels and waiters, which I had exchanged for this elysium. 

And, maybe, I could enjoy also, after this frugal and wholesome supper leaning over the white garden gate and up to the sails of the silent mill, that last evening pipe that always seems sweeter in the country air, and prepares the holiday-maker for a good seven hours of unbroken rest, So grateful was the rest, indeed, that it was soon evident that further sleep was impossible after seven o'clock in the morning. 

The prospect of a good breeze had stirred the miller early to set the sails going and begin on the new corn which had already come up from the fields, The first farm wagons were soon passing the miller's gate, and the pigeons were calling under the eaves of the country cottage. 

But the chance of a bathe in the sea was the first consideration. Two fields led on to the edge of the cliff, and a circuitous path down the sandy face of it took me to the utterly deserted beach. Here there was a chance of a swim such as bathers seldom find. Three miles along the coast it would have been necessary to wait in turn for a bathing machine, to bribe the proprietor for preference, and to be strictly confined to the very proper regulations made at such places. 

But what a change here. Had I been cast on a desert island could not have been more alone. Not a human being on the cliff, not a house or cottage to be seen, not a footfall on the beach, a cave to use as a dressing-room, and mile after mile of virgin sand, unsoiled by stone or pebble, to run upon in the in the sun and in the breeze after coming out of the water. 

At ordinary seaside places a sea-bath cannot be followed by an air-bath, which is just as valuable to the health and constitution; but here, in this deserted nook, I can honestly say that I have never seen a human creature since I changed my quarters. A bath of this pattern naturally leads to a breakfast with an appetite to which most Londoners are strangers, and after breakfast, at the request of miller, I go up to the old mill to be to see a splendid view of sea and cornfield from one of the upper storeys, and to be initiated in the art of making flour under the process that has existed for some hundreds of years, and is now only gradually dying out. 

Sidestrand Mill
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

For the first time for many weeks the old mill was going, the new corn was pouring in, and my host was anticipating a brisk sale for his flour, his bran, and his pollard, which he sold retail to his country neighbours. Here the good fellow had worked contentedly for many a year, attending to the entire mill himself, and often in the winter-time working morning and night in these whitened chambers and preparing for that rainy day, to him a windless week, when trade must necessarily stop.

Standing, that sunny summer morning, with the blue sea before me and the smiling landscape round about, with the whirling sails rushing through the air, I wondered if these old-fashioned windmills, dotted all over England, could ever be utilised for the collection and storage of one of the forces that are in time to supersede steam. It would be decidedly an original idea to collect force at a country windmill, to pack it up on the spot, and to deliver it, carriage paid, by the parcels post.

The next visit was, of course, to the harvest field, where on all sides they were gathering in the grain with extraordinary rapidity owing to the general use of machinery for cutting and storing. During my visit to these districts I did not see a single farm on which labour was employed for mowing and reaping, and nowadays every farmer with a fair acreage uses his own machinery, and does not share it with his neighbours according to the old plans. I passed an old man, a man of some seventy summers, sitting on a stile as he surveyed the operations, and he was fairly astonished at the rapidity with which the land was cleared as contrasted with his own recollections, but none the less inclined to favour what seemed to him the "new-fangled method". 

I have spoken elsewhere of the courtesy and I might add the reverence of the Norfolk labourer, who seldom announces his determination of visiting any place on the morrow or going anywhere without the addition of "If God spares me, sir." 

And I might here note one of the curious harvest customs that must have come down direct from Norman times, When the reapers are in the field they are allowed, or rather it is the custom, the demand largesse from the passer. Indeed, the very same old French word is used. The phrase goes, "Please da me a largess, sir!" which I made a brown-cheeked labourer translate - "Please give me something to drink your jolly good health with."

Not only the labourers in the field, but the children in the lanes, for ask for largesse at harvest time. The girls and boys with eyes as black as aloes follow the visitor with no cringing importunity, but a laughing downright request, such as "Please da me a copper, sir." The perpetuation to this very day of the Latin da for give me, is as curious as the retention of the largesse.

Sidestrand Mill and the road from Cromer, c.1916
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

It would be possible to walk for miles around this healthy and hospitable country, without the slightest fatigue, amongst the crops and the corn fields, for here, as in Switzerland, the vigorous and bracing air relieves all sense of weariness. 

All the harvesting I have seen is done in full view of the sea; the crops grow to the very edge of the cliffs which so exercise the inhabitants by crumbling away, making huge gaps and ravines of sandy soil that are soon grown over by the poppy, the thistle, and the sea daisy. And then the landscape is so delightfully varied. Now you come across an old church tower, ivy grown and picturesque, surrounded by forgotten grave stones, and the matrices of old brasses,the last relic of the parish church, removed, like the lighthouse, further back upon the cliff for fear its foundations shall totter and fall.

The ruined tower and graves of old Sidestrand church, 1901
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

Now you enter a village, and, desperately thirsty after those breakfast shrimps or Yarmouth bloater, beg for a drink of water, not lighting on any inn in this most temperate county, but finding a curious old cottage, with an old lady presiding over it who has passed the last fifty-seven years of her life under the same roof, never stirring far from the village, and living now in simple content on half a crown given her by the parish supplemented by a share of the earnings of her grandson, a farm labourer, who has sworn never to marry whist his old grandmother is alive. 

Of the temperance of these Norfolk labourers I can speak with experience. They do no apparently need blue ribbons or pledges to keep them sober. For the most part they drink water, because they like it and thrive upon it, and their potations even in the harvest field are very moderate. I have not seen a drunken man since I have been in the place, and have never yet passed a labourer at any tune of the day without being saluted by him in a friendly fashion, and as if I a stranger was made welcome the inhabitants. 

And so slip along with pleasant ease the wheels of a country day at harvest time. There is always something to see, ever something to be done. If tired of the farms and the cliffs, you can stroll down to the deserted beach, and obtain the freedom and space necessarily denied elsewhere. If the day is too hot for exercise the nights are at least supremely beautiful, whether viewed from the old mill mound, watching the fields illumined by the lighthouse tower, or from the cliff's edge with what they call here the "fisherman's moon" making a pathway of gold across the waveless sea.

View from Cromer Lighthouse towards Overstrand, c.1928
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

Such is but a brief outline of existence at a place where there are fields to wander in all untenanted, woods full of wild flowers that bloom unseen by human eye, cliffs that have no wayfarers but the sand marten and the swallow—a sea that I have made my own, and a sand that no one else cares to use as a playground. 

There are no children here, though there are farms in plenty to take them in, milk and butter and eggs to feed them with, gardens full of vegetables and flowers—no, the children are all away in lodgings, that are unwholesome, and are swarming upon sands that are crowded; there are no "sympathies" here, though there are cliffs on which they could rest all day without an interloper near them—no, indeed, the "sympathies" are proclaiming their affection publicly on the pier or esplanade, and dressing for their mutual satisfaction; there are no hard-worked fathers or harassed mothers here—no, they are wheeling perambulators on popular spas, and exposing to an astonished world the pranks of their unruly children. 

Youth and age, married and unmarried, take their holidays elsewhere, and have not yet discovered this Poppyland, which, to state it practically, can be in five hours from Liverpool-street Station. Any one putting himself into a train at 3.30, might be opening the gate of the Old Mill Farm by eight o'clock, and midnight reposing in lavender. 

First published in the Daily Telegraph on Monday 3 September 1883

Clement Scott in Poppyland : 1

POPPY-LAND

[BY A HOLIDAY-MAKER]

AT A FARMHOUSE, NEAR THE SEA

Cromer seafront in Clement Scott's day
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

It was during my rambles round the East Coast of England that that I chanced to find such an exceptionally-favoured and smiling corner, a village so secluded and at peace, surrounded by fields already ripe for the harvest within full view of the summer sea that it struck me some description of life in and England farmhouse at harvest-time might be sufficiently interesting to many on their rambles, and to many more who by this time have returned to work again.

The experience of a holiday spent amidst the most beautiful scenery of my own country, of walks from village to village, of many wanderings on down and cliff, of life at watering places, both fashionable and dull, leads me to the conclusion that many a traveller in search of health and rest might do worse than change the restlessness and excitement of travel for the seclusion and stillness of an English farm in a village by the sea.

At this time of year people are never tired of recommending to one another some quiet spot where they can live undisturbed by the great procession of tourists, a place where a table d'hôte is unknown, and the front-door is free from the confusion of arriving and departing guests, a clean, quiet homelike dwelling where literally you can take your ease at your inn.

Never a year passes but some discovery is made, only to be communicated to a few confidential friends. The theory is that when a pretty spot becomes known and popular it is spoiled. I must own that many such confidences have been duly communicated to me, but what surprised me most is that the United Kingdom is supposed to be outside the regions of romance and retirement. 

From time to time it has been whispered in my ear that if I really enjoy solitude and fine air, scenery and seclusion, I shall find it at some "pension" on the Jura Mountains remote from the ordinary Swiss route—in the Maderanerthal Valley half-way up the St. Gothard pass, deep in the heart of the Black Forest at Wolfach, where they brew excellent German beer, at Triberg, where they make the cuckoo clocks, or at Rippoldsau, where they take delicious pine baths for chronic or occasional rheumatism.

I have been recommended villages innumerable in many a Swiss canton, inns on the margin of many Swiss lakes. I have been promised rest in the Island of Man and welcome banishment in the Island of Sark. I have no reason whatever to doubt the good faith of any of my informants, but it must never be forgotten that each and all of these enchanted peace-spots can only be arrived at after hours of agony by sea, or nights of dusty torture in a railway train; you have to get there with difficulty and to return with fatigue.

How is it that we so often turn our tired eyes from these green islands of ours, forgetting that we too possess forests and mountains and deep dark valleys, that we have woods full of wild flowers almost untraversed by human foot, and hills of heather left to the birds and bees?

We steam up the Righi by a mountain railway to see the sun rise above the Alps, but never care to see the same sun ascending from the green sea that encircles our islands; we praise waterfalls abroad and leave our own mountain torrents unvisited; we almost persistently forget that with a couple of miles of some of the most fashionable watering-places in England there are villages, old churches, dreamy farms, flowered lanes, coppices, woods and miles of heather land that are as empty and untenanted as if they were far removed from the confines of civilisation.

It was on one of the most beautiful days of this lovely month of August, a summer morning with a cloudless blue sky overhead and a sea without a ripple washing on the yellow sands, that I turned my back on perhaps the prettiest watering-place of the East Coast and walked along the cliffs to get a blow and a look at the harvest that had just begun. 

It was the old story. At a mile removed from the seaside town I had left I did not find a human being. There they were all below me as I rested amongst the fern on the Lighthouse Cliff, digging on the sands, playing lawn tennis, working, reading, flirting, and donkey-riding, in a circle that seemed to me, as I looked at it from this height, ridiculously small.

In that red-roofed town, the centre of all that was fashionable and select, there was not a bed to be had for love or money; all home comforts, all conveniences to which well-bred people had been inured were deliberately sacrificed for the sake of a lodging amongst a little society that loved its band, its pier, its shingle and its sea.

A mile away there were farmhouses empty, cottages to let, houses to be hired for a song; a mile to the right there were sands with no human being on them, deserted cliffs, empty caves, unfrequented rocks; a mile to the left there was not a footprint on the beach, not a footfall on the grassy cliff. 

Custom had established a certain rule at this pretty little watering-place, and it was religiously obeyed; it was the rule to go on the sands in the morning, to walk on one cliff for a mile in the afternoon, to take another mile in the opposite direction at sunset, and to crowd around the little pier at night. But the limit was a mile either way. No one thought of going beyond the lighthouse; that was the boundary of all investigation. Outside that mark the country, the farms, and the villages were as lonely as the Highlands.

Not desiring to be followed I strolled on, and, attracted by a ruined church tower, took a cut through the cornfields towards a cluster of farms and a distant village. It is difficult to convey an idea of the silence of the fields through which I passed, or the beauty of the prospect that surrounded me—a blue sky without a cloud across it; a sea sparkling under a haze of heat; wild flowers in profusion around me, poppies predominating everywhere, the hedgerows full of blackberry-blossom and fringed with meadow-sweet; the bees busy at their work, the air filled with insect life, the birds startled from the standing corn as I pursued my solitary way.

So great was the change from the bustle of fashion to the unbroken quiet that I could scarcely believe that I was only parted by a dip of coast line from music and laughter and seaside merriment, from bands and bathing machines, from crochet and circulating libraries. Walking to the cliff's edge, I found a deserted sand; looking across the fields there was no sound but the regular click of the reaping machine before which the golden grain was falling.

It was just the time of day when an English farm has such a sleepy look. No one seemed about anywhere as I surveyed the farm buildings, no voice broke the silence. The men and labourers were far afield with the reaping, and the barns were ready for the first loads of harvest. An old horse came to look at me and put his nose over the gate of an adjacent field; the fowls were busy where the barley had just been cut; and on the grass plot in front of the silent farmhouse a deserted tennis net was the only sign of civilisation.

The ruined tower and graves of old Sidestrand church
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

The contemplation of this homestead, close by a ruined church tower, the solitude of the surroundings, the silence of the scene suggested the charm of such a life. As the old song has it, "I said if there's peace to be found in the world, The heart that is humble might hope for here." But it was no use applying for lodgings or farmhouse accommodation in such a place as this; I was to be housed anywhere it must be in a place of quite another pattern.

So I pursued my journey in a contented frame of mind in the direction of the village. Even the village itself contained few signs of the stir of human life. A small number of children, released from school, were resting from the sun under the shade of the roadside hedge; a cart waited at the door of the village inn; but not a face was to be seen at any cottage window; the fishermen were away trawling in the North Sea, and there was uncommonly little trade at the village shop set back in a garden full of homely cottage flowers.

'Poppyland Cottage' in 1919.
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

At last my patience was rewarded. Half a mile beyond the deserted village, at a bend of the road under the shadow of a windmill, there was presented to my sight what appeared to be a very cosy spot. It was one of those farmhouses which is an exact reproduction of the cottage that all children are set to draw when they begin their first lesson. A little red-brick house with three white windows on the first floor, a little white door in the middle, a window at either side and a stack of chimneys at each end of the house. The house was divided from the road by a white gate and palings, and in front of it was a garden brilliant with flowers.

I could not resist the temptation to lean over the white gate and contemplate so peaceful a scene. On the right of the gate was a bright bed of yellow evening primrose; on the left was a kitchen garden divided from the circular plot by rose trees, and in the middle was a perfect holiday ground for bees, a brilliant bed made up geranium, calceolaria, phlox, clarksia, and French marigold.

'Poppyland Cottage' and Windmill c. 1890.
Courtesy National Library of Scotland

This was evidently the miller's house, for it was not fifty yards from the slope of cornfield that was topped by the windmill, and here I thought I might venture to suggest the desired accommodation which had everywhere been denied to me at the adjacent seaside town. My question as met with that natural courtesy and cheerfulness that seem to be characteristic of the county of Norfolk.

I may pause here to remark upon a most pleasant feature of country life in this hospitable district. You never pass along the road morning, noon, or night without being treated to a cheery greeting; it is either a good morning or a good night, a chat about the weather or the crops, a bow from the lads or a curtsey from the lasses, as the stranger threads his way among the Norfolk lanes. I never felt more at home or was made more welcome than I have been in East Anglia. 

These things seem small and immaterial, but life goes along somehow pleasanter when the labourer trudging to his toil in the morning can exchange greetings with his neighbour, and when at nightfall a gruff "Good night" comes out of the darkness on the road as people pass on their way homewards.

Louie Jermy at the gate of 'Poppyland Cottage', c.1905
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

"Could I be allowed a lodging for a few days?" "Indeed you could," was the answer of the miller's daughter, who opened the hospitable doors of the farmhouse that sunny morning. 

The family that had occupied the house all the summer had just gone away, and father would be delighted to have me as a temporary tenant. I was told that father would not quarrel about terms; that the fare at the farm was simple enough, but that every one would do their best for me; that I could come in at once, that very night if I liked, for all the rooms were ready, and that father was the possessor of a fast pony and a basket chaise, quite strong enough to bring me over with my traps whenever I cared to order it.

Need I say 1 closed with the offer at once. A farmhouse within two fields of the sea, a garden full of flowers and fruit, a bed-room spotlessly clean, with a full view of the windmill and the cornfields, a sitting-room full of old oak and old-fashioned furniture, country lanes bright with poppies and the wild Michaelmas daisy, not a sound but the drone of the bees in the flower beds and the busy presence of insect life, a hospitable host glad to welcome me and a civil little daughter determined to make me comfortable, early to bed and early to rise—these were some of the advantages held out in prospect to me. 

Many a time I have crossed the Channel and travelled many a weary mile in search of some such place as was here ready to hand in my native land. How far my ideas were fulfilled, and how pleasant holiday life can become in such a retreat, may more conveniently form the subject of a subsequent letter.

Notes

1. The author and journalist Clement Scott was commissioned by the Great Eastern Railway to write a piece to encourage visitors to the Cromer area. This article, published in the Daily Telegraph on Thursday 30 August 1883, was the result.
2. In it Scott coined the name Poppyland - or Poppy Land or Poppy-Land - for the first time. The expression had been used before to describe opium poppy growing lands in China. This association with opium poppies was followed up by Scott in his poem The Garden of Sleep.
3. The miller's house was occupied by the Jermy family. Alfred, the miller, and 'Louie' (officially Maria Louisa), his daughter.

Delia - an Icon for Now

Written by Kit Hesketh-Harvey and performed by him with Richard Sissons at the piano (as Kit and the Widow), this dates back to a time when Delia Smith was the darling of BBC TV.

Many years later, I wrote to Kit about it and he was kind enough to send the lyric back to me in 2010. It was sung to the refrain of Vilja's Song from Lehar's The Merry Widow.

Delia, oh Delia, you're sweet and you're dear

But we've had your recipes right up to here.

Night after night, everywhere that we do

"This one's from Delia, you know!"

I cannot face one more sad soggy prawn

With salsas which then make me fart like Cape Horn.

That dull little voice that's so sad and so flat

And you don't say an-cho-vies like that!

Delia, you've started a new wave of crimes

As shoppers in Sainsbury's fight over limes.

Delia, your recipes may be well-read -

But I'll look up Fannie's* instead.

*A reference to Fanny Cradock, a TV cook of the previous generation.

Image: I am grateful to Damian Cugley for making his photo of Delia's Complete Cookery Course at a second-hand sale available to be used. I have cropped his original. It is used in accordance with his original Creative Commons licence.

The 1888 Handel Festival recordings at the Crystal Palace

The supposed centenary of Handel’s birth in 1785 and 25th anniversary of his death were the spur for London’s first Handel Commemoration. 

Subsequent festivals, many held in the Crystal Palace, took place regularly until 1926, ten years before the Palace itself was destroyed by fire. 

One of Thomas Edison's new Perfected Phonographs arrived in London during the three days of 1888 festival. Edison's agent Colonel George Gouraud lived close to the Crystal Palace and took the new machine along. 

As a result we can hear the 4,000 voice Handel choir and orchestra, conducted by Sir August Manns, performing on 29th June 1888. It is the world’s oldest surviving recording of a choir and orchestra.

The 1888 Handel Festival at the Crystal Palace

Martin Harvey as 'Sydney Carton' in "The Only Way"

Martin Harvey as Sydney Carton, by James Shannon

The Only Way, a play based on Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities by the Rev. Freeman Wills and Frederick Langbridge, was first produced at the Lyceum Theatre on Thursday 16 February 1899.

The leading male part of Sydney Carton ("It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known") was played by John Martin Harvey, a member of Sir Henry Irving's company. The part of the seamstress Mimi was played by his wife who used the stage name Miss N. da Silva, also a member of Irving's company.

The play, produced at Irving's Lyceum while it was vacant, was an overnight success, with the good-looking Martin Harvey becoming an instant heartthrob. The Manchester Evening News published that evening gives a flavour of the anticipation:

The unfortunate illness of Henry Irving, from which he has now quite recovered, has been productive of some interesting experiments on the part of members of his company. But none has excited more attention than that which being conducted by Mr. Martin Harvey, who tonight produces at the Lyceum Mr. Freeman Wills' new play, The Only Way, himself enacting the part of Sydney Carton. Surely Mr. Harvey is the youngest man who has ever had the boldness to take his hands even for few weeks so costly a theatre as the Lyceum. 

There are many who, entitled to speak with authority on matters theatrical, foresee for Mr. Harvey brilliant future, and safe to say that the main idea in the undertaking rather to secure for the actor a chance of exhibiting his abilities to the public in a leading part. We are not with those who complain that great talent often buried in the persons of minor actors of great companies, such as, for example, Sir Henry Irving's, but it is noteworthy that few people gave Mr. Harvey credit for his high talent until his recent success in Maeterlinck's  Pelleas and Melisande.

The same newspaper's review the following day suggests that the excitement was well-founded:

The anticipations formed in this column yesterday to Mr. Martin Harvey's bold experiment in securing the Lyceum for the production of The Only Way were realised the full. The house which assembled for this curious and interesting premiere designed to be critical was prepared to resent sheer assumption and brought every turn and phrase and gesture to the touchstone of the Lyceum tradition. 

Mr. Harvey accepted every challenge, and with irresistible courage marched on to a well-merited victory. Youth, skill, self-reliance justified his hopes, and the result was a welcome and unmistakable triumph...

...the supreme merit of the new actor-manager's triumph lay in this that his audience knew their Sydney Carton by heart already, although they may never have encountered him the stage. 

And Mr. Harvey's Carton proved to be theirs—Dickens's and Fred Barnard's—pathetic profligate swayed the noblest human virtues, who went guillotine in the place of a friend unflinchingly. The trial scene in the revolutionary tribunal was excellently done, and the success of the production was instantaneous.

Violet Manners, Duchess of Rutland, made many pencil sketches of Martin Harvey as Carton, and at least one of those was sold in lithographic reproductions.

In 1904, with his fame ever-increasing Martin Harvey sat for the artist James Jebusa Shannon as Carton, and the resulting portrait was exhibited at the Royal Academy in April.

It is unclear whether Harvey and Shannon knew each other. In 1889 Harvey studied at the Heatherley's School of Art but he was already a friend of George Frampton by then.

Shannon's portrait was received well, but with some reservations. The Era (30 April 1904) expressed the view that:

Mr J. J. Shannon has not quite caught Mr Martin Harvey's likeness in his picture of the actor as Sydney Carton; but the work, with its dash of tricolour and excellent handling, is very effective. 

The Illustrated London News (21 May 1904) hinted that Shannon's health might explain any lapses:

Mr. Shannon, who has had some passing trouble with his eyesight during the past year, manages to make a good appearance at Burlington House, as elsewhere. He has four canvases—two of them portraits of men. Mr. Martin Harvey as Sydney Carton is suitably sentimental almost the putting on of the fluent and responsive paint.

The World (3 May 1904) pulled fewer punches:

Mr. J. J. Shannon sends a portrait of Mr. Martin Harvey as ‘Sidney Carton’, the likeness is good, but the technique is most unsatisfactory and the colour muddy... Sir Ernest Waterlow's large landscape, A Showery Summer Day, is delightfully grey and restful in tone; and next to it hangs Mr. J. J. Shannon’s portrait, Sir William Emerson, which is far more carefully painted than the portrait of Mr, Martin Harvey. 

In his Autobiography (Martin-Harvey 1933) the by-then Sir John Martin-Harvey indicated that the by-then Sir James Shannon's portrait was in his ownership. It does not appear to have been amongst the collection of his possessions sold after the death of his grand-daughter Jacqueline Squirl in 1995.

It formed Lot 288 sold by Rosebery's in 2018. Its current whereabouts are unknown.

Reference

Martin-Harvey, Sir John, 1933 The Autobiography of Sir John Martin-Harvey (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co. Ltd.)

Cut the crap

The BBC original

Superstar violinist Nicola Benedetti joins the Philharmonia in Elgar’s tempestuous and tender Violin Concerto.

Nicola Benedetti is one of the best-loved violin soloists of our time and a regular and popular collaborator with the Philharmonia.

Her chart-topping recording of this formidable work was praised for ‘a sure sense of direction and lots of heart’ (The Guardian) – an accurate description of Benedetti’s approach to everything she does. 

Debussy’s La Mer was inspired by the paintings of Turner and Hokusai, and of course the sea itself – ‘my old friend, the sea… always endless and beautiful.’ In three evocative movements the composer described as ‘symphonic sketches’, the orchestra, with added sparkle from harps and percussion, conjures up the movement of wind and waves. 

To complete this programme full of poetry and invention, conductor Cristian Măcelaru has chosen the suite from Cécile Chaminade’s 1888 ballet Callirhoë. It’s a beguiling introduction to her music for the Philharmonia’s players and listeners alike.

And without the unnecessary verbiage

Nicola Benedetti joins the Philharmonia in Elgar’s Violin Concerto.

Nicola Benedetti is a regular collaborator with the Philharmonia.

Her recording of this work was praised for ‘a sure sense of direction and lots of heart’ (The Guardian) 

Debussy’s La Mer was inspired by the paintings of Turner and Hokusai, and the sea itself – ‘my old friend, the sea… always endless and beautiful.’ In three movements the composer described as ‘symphonic sketches’.

Conductor Cristian Măcelaru has chosen the suite from Cécile Chaminade’s 1888 ballet Callirhoë. It’s an introduction to her music for the Philharmonia and listeners.

'Widow Rowbottom'

'Widow Rowbottom',
photographed by Frederick Downer in 1865.

Sarah Rowbottom, née Edwards, died at her home in Stanmore, Middlesex, on 5 November 1885. Her death certificate gives her age as 101 years. There was some discussion as to the accuracy of this. She came to the attention the Press before her death and was named 'Widow Rowbottom'

Hertford Mercury and Reformer - Saturday 18 February 1865

Longevity.

Among the illustrations of occasional longevity, we may refer to the widow Rowbottom, an old woman now living at Stanmore, where she has been a notability for some years past, and who states that she was born on Christmas Eve, 1759. According to this account, widow Rowbottom is now in her 106th year.

It is impossible, however, to furnish evidence in support of her statement, though there is no reason for disbelieving it; but we have before us satisfactory proof that she is more than 100 years of age, in the certificate of her baptism, of which the following is a copy:

"Sarah, the natural daughter of Elizabeth Edwards, travelling woman, was baptized December 16th, 1764."—Extract from the register of the parish of Shabbington, Bucks. by the Rev. B. Norland, vicar, April 4th, 1859

The Sarah Edwards mentioned in this document, married a man named Rowbottom. She has been, as her mother was before her, a "travelling woman," and until three or four years ago, tramped about the neighbourhood selling tapes and cottons.

Latterly she has become very feeble, but her mind is comparatively unimpaired, and she is as merry as a young girl, fond of joking, and full of sly humour.

We have before us a portrait of this centenarian, taken by Mr. Frederick Downer, Watford, an accomplished photographer, whose skill in the art he cultivates has seldom been surpassed.

The eye of the old woman is very bright, the expression of her face shrewd and intelligent but the wrinkles are wonderful. Her skin is like the latest railway map of England; the lines run in every direction, and cross each other at all points. This alone in the case of healthy woman, is evidence of great age. 

Considering the circumstances of her birth, and the times in which she was born, it is extremely likely that she was not baptized until five years after her birth. On the whole, we think there is reasonable proof that widow Rowbottom was born in 1759, and is therefore in the 105th year of her age.

Watford Observer - Saturday 13 May 1865

A Centenarian.

Amongst the many well-executed Carte de Visites exhibited by Mr. Downer, photographer, of this town, is the likeness of an old woman living at Stanmore, named Rowbottam [sic], who represents herself as having been born on Christmas Eve, 1759, and therefore in her 105th year.

The following extract from the baptismal register of her native parish proves her to be at any rate a centenarian.

"Sarah, the natural daughter of Elizabeth Edwards, travelling woman, was baptized December 16th, 1764.” This extract was taken from the register of the parish of Shabbington, Bucks., by the Rev. B. Moreland, vicar.

The above is now Widow Rowbottom, who represents herself as having been bom on Christmas Eve, 1759. She is still in full possession of her mental and physical faculties 

Berkshire Chronicle - Saturday 11 November 1865

Death of a Centenarian.

On Sunday last there died at Stanmore, Widow Rowbottom, an old woman, who represented herself as having been born on Christmas Eve, 1759. She would therefore be in her 106th year at the time of her death.

She was baptised when five years of age, December 16, 1764, at the parish of Shebbington [sic], Bucks. The following is the record of her baptism extracted from the parish register of Shebbington [sic], by the Rev. B. Moreland, vicar

Sarah, the natural daughter of Elizabeth Edwards, a travelling woman, was baptised December 16, 1764. 

Like her mother, Sarah Edwards (afterwards Widow Rowbottom) became a travelling woman, and got her living by hawking small articles for sale. For many years she had been a well-known character in the neighbourhood of Bushy [sic], Stanmore, and Watford.. 

During her life she had been constantly in the habit of attending all the fairs and feasts in the surrounding district, and was very fond of dancing and merrymaking on those occasions.

It must be confessed that her extreme longevity cannot be attributed to temperate habits; the truth was she frequently gave way to habits of excessive drinking.

For some time before her death, however, she was a reformed character in this respect, though up to the last she was very partial to a "drop of home-brewed." Her mental and physical acuities, with the exception of her sight, she was in wonderful possession of, considering her age, till within short time of her death.

Daily Telegraph & Courier (London) - Thursday 16 November 1865

THE LATE WIDOW ROWBOTTOM. 

TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

Sir

In justice to the memory of an old parishioner of mine, whom, during my knowledge of her for several years past, I have highly esteemed and honoured, I wish to state that whatever may have been the shortcomings of the centenarian widow Rowbottom during part of her life, she has, during its later period, shown herself a thorough and consistent Christian; and I think is hardly fair of your informant, in your paper of yesterday, to allude to her intemperance, which, as I fully believe, God has long since pardoned - so I think man should have forgotten or passed over in silence.

Her age I do not think was so great as your correspondent assumes. She was baptised December 16, 1764, but, as she always told me, upon the very day of her birth. She had, therefore, not completed her 102nd year.

She was entirely uneducated, not being able either to read or write; but her memory was wonderfully stored with Scripture and hymns, in the use of which she was to the last singularly acute.

She was in my church, and a communicant, not more than five months ago; and until the last month her intellect was as clear and her mode of expression as striking as usual. She had been for a long period a most regular communicant and church-goer, and was in no sense of the word a beggar.

I rarely have met with any one with a clearer or more independent mind.

Whatever her early life may have been, I, in common with many of my parishioners, regret the loss of one whom we called a friend.

Her daughter, with whom she lived, is about 75: but she has a son in the Watford Union, said to be above 80 years old.

It may give your readers perhaps more notion of her age when I mention that I have baptised here her grandaughter's grandchildren.

I am, Sir, yours, &c

L. J. BERNAYS, Rector of Great Stanmore, Nov 10.

Hertford Mercury and Reformer - Saturday 18 November 1865

Death of a Centenarian.

On Sunday, the 5th of November, there died at Stanmore, Sarah Rowbottom, a widow, who represented herself as having been born on Christmas Eve, 1759.

If this story was true, she must have been in her 106th year at the time of her death.

She was baptized when five years of age, on the 16th of December, 1764, at the parish of Shebbington [sic], Bucks, and the parish register states that she was the natural daughter of Elizabeth Edwards, a travelling woman.

Like her mother, Sarah Edwards (afterwards Rowbottom) travelled about getting living by hawking small articles for sale.

For many years she had been well known in the neighbourhoods of Bushey, Stanmore, and Watford.

Her extreme longevity cannot be attributed to temperate habits, for, at least, during a portion of her life, she gave way to a habit of excessive drinking.

Her mental and physical faculties, with the exception of her sight, hardly appreciably failed till within a. short time of her death.

She was born in the reign of George II., in the year in which Handel died, was baptized in the year in which Hogarth died, and was contemporary with Johnson, Garrick, and Goldsmith.

Some very excellent cartes de visite of the ancient dame were taken before her death, by Mr. Downer of Watford. The deeply furrowed wrinkles her face, were a sufficient indication that her life had very much exceeded the ordinary span of human existence.

Widow Rowbottom died in her cottage on Stanmore Hill (in the lane leading down to the Church).

She will be buried in Stanmore churchyard on Sunday, and will be followed to the grave by numerous descendants, among whom is a daughter about eighty years of age.

Sarah's remains were interred in an unmarked grave in the churchyard of St John the Evangelist, Stanmore, on 11 November 1865. A cross was later erected to mark the burial of her daughter Charlotte which gives Sarah's dates of baptism and burial.

Ernest Nicolas (Ernesto Nicolini) - the Daily Telegraph obituary

Nicolini, by August Weber

Born at the Rue du Change, Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France, on 23 February 1834

Died at the Hôtel Gassion, Boulevard du Midi, Pau, France, on 18 January1898.

Obituary syndicated in the Manchester Evening News on Wednesday 19 January 1898

DEATH OF M. NICOLINI

M. Ernest Nicolini, properly Nicolas, formerly and for a considerable number of years the leading tenore robusto of the European stage, succumbed yesterday at Pau to a malady which he suffered without intermission for nearly twelve-month.

He was the second son of a Breton aubergiste, or innkeeper, resident at Dinard, and was born at Tours on February 23rd, 1834.

As during his boyhood he displayed a strongly-marked taste for music, his father, being sufficiently well-to-do to indulge the lad's predilections without inconvenience, entered him as a pupil at the Conservatoire, where he studied harmony, the pianoforte and singing with conspicuous success, taking a prize for pianoforte-playing in 1853, and gaining two years later an “accessit” in comic opera.

Shortly after his connection with the great Parisian school of musical and dramatic training had terminated, he was engaged by management of the Opéra Comique, on the establishment of which he was retained from 1855 to 1859, though without making any special mark either as singer or actor.

Early in the latter year he assumed the professional surname of Nicolini, and went to Italy, where he sang at Milan, Florence, Turin, and in several other provincial capitals, and soon established himself solidly in public favour.

In 1862 he returned to Paris, and was promptly re-engaged at the Salle Ventadour. It was not until the season of 1866 that he made his debut at Covent Garden Theatre as Edgardo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (May 29), on which the agreeable impression created by his superb voice and remarkable good looks, reminding the London operatic public of its favourite Mario when in the prime of manhood, and was somewhat modified by his vibrato method of production, which been expected from distinguished élève of the Paris Conservatoire.

Hence his reception by the audience of the Royal Italian Opera House and the comments passed upon his initial performance by the metropolitan press proving to certain extent unsatisfactory, he did not revisit London until April, 1871.

He then appeared as Faust at Drury Lane—under the management of Colonel Mapleson—and sang several times in the course of the season, making a brilliant hit in the part of Raoul de Nangis, the hero of immortal Meyerbeer's immortal opera Gli Ugonotti Thenceforth he was engaged as "absolute first tenor" at Covent Garden for several successive seasons, and attained a high degree of popularity by his efficient and impressive rendering of such heroic roles as Lohengrin and Radamis.

Starring engagements at the Imperial Opera Houses of St. Petersburg brought M. Nicolini into a close and enduring artistic connection with Adelina Patti, shortly after her marriage to her first husband, Henri de Roger de Cahusac [Louis Sébastien Henri de Roger de Cahuzac], Marquis de Caux, from whom she was subsequently separate and ultimately divorced.

At the time of his operatic association with Madame Patti, Ernest Nicolini was also married to a lady of some professional notoriety, by whom he had two sons—one of whom is at present an officer in the French army—and three daughters. In the long run, however, his marriage proved an unhappy one, like that of Madame de Caux, and was eventually dissolved under the divorce law passed by the French Chambers during the second decade of the Third Republic.

In the early spring of 1886 Adelina Patti also succeeded in obtaining a legal divorce from her husband, and as soon as the decree had finally been finally confirmed was united en seconde noces to the eminent vocalist who had shared her countless artistic triumphs in Russia, Austria, Germany, and the United States during a good many years of her transcendently brilliant career.

The wedding was celebrated, amid popular rejoicings, on August 10, 1886, in the parish church of a Welsh village near estate of Craig-y-Nôs, in the acquisition of which it stated that the diva had been mainly inspired by a desire to gratify M. Nicolini's predilections in the direction of field-sports.

Like Albert Niemann, long the principal robust tenor of the Royal Opera House at Berlin, Ernest Nicolini was an expert and assiduous fisherman, devoted to the practice of the "gentle art", and Castle Craig-y-Nôs, a reddish-grey old chateau nestling in a bight of the Swansea valley, offered exceptional facilities for sport to the skilled angler.

A well-stocked trout-stream, the Tawe, runs through its spacious grounds, and the Usk, a teeming salmon-river, the fishing on which could be rented without difficulty by the owner of "The Rock of Night," is conveniently within a mile or two of the castle gates.

These inducements proved irresistible to Madame Patti, who purchased Craig-y-Nôs with a view to making it her permanent home, and laid out large sums of money upon improvements which have converted it into one of the most picturesque and commodious country residences in the United Kingdom.

In the course of the past twelve years she has added two handsome wings to the massive corp-de-logis, as well as a tastefully decorated theatre capable of accommodating an audience some three hundred strong. All the main buildings and annexes are brilliantly illuminated by electric light, and the original acreage of the estate appertaining to te case has been more than tripled by Madame Patti-Nicolini's successive acquisitions of woodland tracts, on which she keeps up a large head of game.