Using and Maintaining Your Vintage Tools

Like many house-owners I possess some of the tools essential for sorting out problems and making minor improvements around the house. Although this ‘work’ may not extend much beyond hanging pictures, changing plugs or tightening hinges and catches, the quantity of the equipment is considerable.

There is the ubiquitous power drill plus assorted screwdrivers, hammers, pliers, saws, spanners and Allen keys. And then there are gimlets, spirit levels, a power sander, set squares, gauges, wrenches, a power screwdriver, adjustable spanners, mallets, chisels, files, pincers and planes. Note the use of the plural – it seems one is never enough.

After rummaging through one toolbox yesterday to find an appropriately sized electrical screwdriver I started wondering how and why I had amassed this collection. I’m a typical, average, would-be handyman and like to think I can handle those basic repair jobs, but rarely have I embarked on anything more ambitious. So why all the tools? I concluded that, like many others, I cannot pass an opportunity to acquire another piece of kit even it is a just-in-case purchase. I realised I can justify this too. I remember very clearly as a youngster watching my father at work with a plane – he was quite good at making and fixing things around the house and garden – and how he impressed upon me the importance of having the right tool for the job. So that explains the multiple screwdrivers, hammers, etc. A specific job required a specific instrument. However, perhaps what I failed to pick up from him was that you have also to know how to apply the right tool in the right way if you want to get the right result! But I can work on that.

My collection consists mainly of modern tools of variable quality but I also have acquired hand tools from street markets – there is a particularly good stall in Bridport run by the Dawsons, who also sell vintage tools online at www.secondhandtools.co.uk/about.htmfew. A few tools were handed down through the family. My grandfather was a joiner and a great-grandfather was a skilled machinist. Like many professional artisans they had their own sets of tools, many made by themselves and a few of these, following disbursement, have found their way to me.

Despite my lack of experience and ability there is something special about holding a well-used, hand-crafted and beautiful hand tool. You hold it knowing it is truly unique. Add the family connection and there is a little magic at play. For a moment I am suddenly Grinling Gibbons!

Older hand tools are very collectable and there are numerous dealers and specialists, particularly in the UK and USA, who will buy and sell. I presume the buyers fall into one of two camps. There are those who just like vintage tools for their beauty and distinctiveness and those who see them as a useful, working tool for their workshop. I think it is particularly rewarding to see these tools remain in use and, with appropriate care, their longevity is assured. It is not unlike the perennial debate concerning classic cars – use them or cocoon them? There are those cars maintained in concourse condition but which remain unmoving, parked in an environment where the temperature and humidity is managed carefully and the public, if admitted, stand behind a rope. Of course they are a wonder to the eye and seemingly factory-fresh but there is something missing and it seems almost unfair to leave them there. [Rather like an animal caged in the zoo I believe they long to be given their freedom.] In my opinion the best cars are those that are driven as intended. Of course they are well looked after and maintained but they go out in the rain and the revs are pushed up towards the red when the opportunity arises. This approach recognises that they were built for a purpose and that was certainly not to remain static in a museum or collection.

The same applies to good tools. They deserve to be handled; to carve, gouge, saw, plane and hammer. Whatever your skill level or ambition cherish them, but use them.

If you need more advice then take a look at our Vintage Words of Wisdom title WoodworkTools and How to Use Them written by William Fairham and first published in 1925. Despite its ninety years it is packed with information on how to use your hand tools and maintain them in peak condition.

As this is the last blog post before the holidays, we would like to wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Visit us in 2015 for more words of wisdom.

How to be a Motorist? Some Words to the Wise from the 1930s

In 1935 the driving test became compulsory for anyone wishing to hold a British driving licence and a rite of passage for adults, young and old alike, was established.

In the early days of motoring drivers were obliged to hold a licence but this was purchased at the local post office for 5 shillings (25p) and no test was involved. Anyone wishing to drive could simply buy a licence and drive off. The only risk was incurring a £5 fine if you failed to sign your licence in the appropriate place. When the test became compulsory the lucky existing licence-holders were considered experienced enough and were not obliged to go through the stress and anxiety of the exam.

It was just a few years later, in 1939, that William Heath Robinson collaborated with K.R.G. Browne to publish a book entitled How to be a Motorist. No doubt inspired by the scenes of the motoring masses – there were over 2 million vehicles on the road by then – and their resultant antics and madness, Heath Robinson addresses all aspects of motoring, from selecting a car through to etiquette on the highway. He explains, aided by numerous amusing illustrations, how the car works, undertaking simple repairs and how to go about touring the continent in your car, perhaps with your caravan attached.

In true Heath Robinson style there are Expandacars for the growing family, portable petrol pumps, and safety streets designed to minimise damage by and to the learner driver.  His imagination is extraordinary but the scenes are readily identifiable and familiar.

Browne’s narrative tackles those perennial topics of concern for the motorist: the law, and the inconsiderate behaviour of all other road-users from pedestrians and cyclists to farm animals!

On the law he says:

It is impossible to be both law-abiding and a car-owner!’, and continues with ‘the many pitfalls that await the free-born Englishman who has the confounded impudence (from the point of view of the policeman, the pedestrian and the cyclist) to be a motorist.

And on other road-users he warns of the unpredictable:

An Indian mahout, abruptly emerging from a side road, should be viewed with grave suspicion, as where there is a mahout there is very apt to be an elephant, than which there is no more damaging animal to be run into.

The book also alerts us to the perils of not paying attention whilst driving. In particular the distraction caused by an attractive member of the opposite sex. One can imagine that the authors would have enjoyed highlighting the distractions we encounter today – mobiles, texting, messaging and complex sat-navs – as well as the continuing lure of the opposite sex!

Much has changed since 1935. The number of vehicles on Britain’s roads has increased ten-fold. Cars are faster, safer, more efficient and more reliable. The driving test is more comprehensive. There are motorways and congestion zones.

Yet many of Heath Robinson and Browne’s observations remain true today. The problems of parking, envious glances at the neighbour’s new car, breakdowns and all those inconsiderate other road users that provoke annoyance and sometimes rage. They certainly recognise the latter for in conclusion they say,

And if, as a result of our labours in the cause of bigger and better motoring, a nationwide improvement in road-manners generally is not very shortly apparent, we shall both be profoundly grieved, but not – let’s face it – intensely surprised.

Here are some links to marvellous Huntley and British Pathé films about the driving test, driving safety and car gadgets from the 1930s. They make it clear why the driving test was necessary and provide a fascinating glimpse into the world of motoring in the early twentieth century.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3ysancYiow

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/safety-first-no-1/query/Motorists

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/safety-first-no-2/query/Driving

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/safety-first-and-last/query/Driving

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/from-crocks-to-comfort/query/Driving+test

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/essex-mobile-police-in-action/query/Motorists

How to be a Motorist is one of four titles published in the 1930s by Heath Robinson and K.R.G. Browne. The other three books (also available from Words to the Wise – see our Products page) are How to Live in a Flat, How to be a Perfect Husband and How to Make your Garden Grow. In addition, for the driver who also golfs, we offer you Humours of Golf by Heath Robinson.

How to be a Perfect Husband? The Answer from a Man's Perspective!

I think this drawing from How to be a Perfect Husband by William Heath Robinson and K.R. G. Browne conveys the image that most people have of women in the inter-war years. The dramatic change that swept through society at the end of the First World War was nowhere more evident than in the emergence of the 'new woman'. She was sporty, she smoked, she had short hair, wore trousers (and shorts) and, after 1928 if she was over 21, she could vote. We also know from our title Sky Roads of theWorld that, like Amy Johnson, she may have gone to university, she may be learning to fly and she would also have the right to get divorced.

So, like the puzzled husband in the background of the drawing above, where did the confident new woman leave men? Surprisingly, marriage was actually on the increase in the 1920s and 30s. However, during a period of dramatic social change for women the role of the married man was clearly a confusing one. Also, the depression at the beginning of the 1930s caused a fair amount of marital strife, what with men out of work and no money coming in, and led to the development of marriage counselling for the first time. Although How to be a Perfect Husband is obviously meant to be a humorous book it is interesting to see this confusion cropping up in both text and cartoons. As Heath Robinson and Browne point out, although a great deal had been written on advice for the newly married woman, little (apart from sex manuals disguised as marriage guidance books) had been written about relationships for men. So, it is also probable that our authors are gently mocking the contemporary attempts to navigate the tricky changes in the relationship between husband and wife.

One other change after the First World War also made married life a challenge. Interestingly, as highlighted in How to Live in a Flat, for the first time in the 1920s and 30s newly-weds were also much more likely to have to navigate married life without the support of servants. Therefore, many domestic tasks like cooking and childcare would have had to be done for the first time by the middle-class wife without help or training, and Heath Robinson shows her being taught to fritter a banana by her husband (though why he would know how to cook is not explained!). But,

as some lady in black bombazine and a bonnet with bugles will almost certainly demand – what about the husband, hey? Does he contribute nothing to the success or failure of the deal? Is his life to be roses, roses all the way, while his wife turns somersaults at his command and wears her pretty fingers to the bone to keep him neatly underclothed and socked?

Not by a long shot, lady. As I have already implied, give-and-take is the thing that matters, and the wise husband knows that he, too, must play his part if his home-life is not to degenerate into a species of running dog-fight. There are many little ways in which, without unduly exerting himself or missing his nightly mug of buttermilk at the “Archdeacon’s Arms”, he can make himself useful about the house and earn a reputation for thoughtfulness that will stand him in good stead whenever he wishes to touch his mother-in-law for a fiver.

In Heath Robinson’s drawings we do indeed see husbands who make valiant efforts to pull their weight with household chores and childcare:

However, working conditions in the home remained very hard. Cleaning, washing and cooking took up a great deal of time so, without servants, life became very difficult for many women. This is probably why some men felt the need to help with domestic chores and why Heath Robinson includes cartoons showing men assessing the health and strength of their prospective brides! Thankfully, the invention of new electrical appliances such as washing machines and vacuum cleaners slightly improved the working conditions of housewives in the 1930s. This too is reflected in the illustrations as Heath Robinson demonstrates his considerable talent for devising solutions to every-day challenges in the home. As he points out, anyone can build a vacuum cleaner:

On the other hand, there are some distressing echoes of an earlier Edwardian attitude to marriage and, in particular, courtship.

Refraining, then, from proposing to the first wench who throws him a beckoning glance, the beginner should decide what type of wife he needs. Of girls, as of gin, gooseberries, and gas-meters, there are several varieties – among others, the Sporting, the Studious, the Athletic, the Beautiful, the Thick-Ankled, and the Completely Dumb. (From one point of view, the last-named make the most satisfactory wives, being solid ivory from the neck up and consequently ready to believe anything; but as companions for a lifetime they are not so hot.)

But I am inclined to forgive Heath Robinson and Browne their occasional lapse into a Jeeves and Wooster style of female appraisal because, for the most part, they preach tolerance, patience and consideration as the cornerstones of a happy marriage. For them the perfect husband navigates the ups and downs of marriage with a calm demeanour and an amused detachment – as long as he is allowed off the leash occasionally. They sensibly acknowledge, of course,

…that when strife breaks out in the home and the air becomes thick with harsh words, recriminations, and (in extreme cases) crockery, the little woman is hardly ever to blame. It would appear, in short, that What is Wrong with Marriage is almost invariably the husband.

How to be a Perfect Husband is written from the man’s perspective but it will bring much amusement to both husbands and wives (or those planning to become one or the other). This title, along with the other three ‘How to…’ titles by Heath Robinson and K.R.G. Browne includes a foreword by Geoffrey Beare, Trustee of the William Heath Robinson Trust. A percentage of the revenue from sales of these ebooks is being donated to the Trust as a contribution to their fund for building a Heath Robinson museum in North London. See our Facebook page for a link to the Trust’s website.

How to Live in a Flat? Heath Robinson Knows!

Housing is important in maintaining and improving public health, as well as quality of life and wellbeing for all. As well as dangers to physical health such as damp, excessive heat and cold, and hygiene, poor quality housing also impacts on mental health and wellbeing because people need space, light, security, privacy and quiet. The thinking on housing and wellbeing has been developing over the last 100 years. The focus on morality and basic health concerns in the nineteenth century was replaced in the early twentieth century by broader concerns for wellbeing. For example, The Complete House Book of 1937 pointed out that ‘Insufficient lighting was is not only depressing and a strain on the eyes, but can also cause worse trouble; headaches, indigestion, general lassitude and irritation can often be traced to it’.

Once Britain had recovered from the First World War and the depression, there was a boom in house-building in the 1930s and the clearance of slums was a priority. Although the new homes were often smaller than those built before the war, an increase in flat-dwelling promised to bring exciting new developments in modern urban living. In the Victorian era living in a flat was looked down upon because of the association with working-class tenements. However, such prejudices broke down in the inter-war years, so much so that in 1934 the journal Building devoted its August issue to flat design.

Features of privately built flats in the 1930s included things like bay windows – regarded as important to distinguish privately owned flats from council flats, which at the time did not have bay windows. They also made rooms appear larger, gave residents better views and admitted more light to rooms, which was a very important consideration in modern architecture at the time. In the title How to Live in a Flat you will see that Heath Robinson draws his blocks of flats as lovely Art Deco buildings with clean lines and the large steel-framed windows that were popular at the time.

Flat design also took into account the radical transition from living in a house with servants to living without the support system that had been a feature of home life for everyone except the very poorest for centuries. Modern technology helped to make this easier with things like communal hot water systems. As Leslie Hoskins, curator of the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, told The Daily Telegraph in 2003:

There was still a notion that the most desirable way to live was in a house with servants. It was to counteract this idea that brochures for 1930s flats all talked up the modern comforts and amenities on offer. Great emphasis was placed on the fact that blocks of flats provided round-the-clock hot water – which was something you'd only get in a house if you had a maid who kept the boiler constantly stoked.

A communal hot water system was also designed to show that living in a flat could represent a move upmarket, something that developers were keen to emphasise to counter the prevailing prejudice against living in a flat.

Serviced flats were common too as a way of providing an alternative to a full coterie of servants. For example, The Isokon building in Hampstead, London, is a concrete block of 34 flats that was designed by architect Wells Coates for Molly and Jack Pritchard and which opened in 1934. The flats were an experiment in minimalist urban living. Most of the flats had very small kitchens as there was a large communal kitchen for the preparation of meals, connected to the residential floors via a dumb waiter. Services, including laundry and shoe-shining, were provided on site.
    

The Isokon Building

The main entrance of the Isokon Building                                            

Furniture too was designed specifically to make living in a small space easier. Drop-leaf and gate-leg tables, which date back to the sixteenth-century, are a testament to the historic lack of space in British homes. In the 1930s flat the nest of tables became popular. In fact, this concept of things stacking away or folding up was close to the hearts of 1930s interior designers, as demonstrated by such remarkable gadgets as the 10-way settee, the night-time dressing table which transformed into a daytime desk and the four-seater dining table which could be packed away inside a sideboard.
All of these developments are caricatured by William Heath Robinson and K. R. G. Browne in How to Live in a Flat. Indeed in the Introduction the authors specifically refer to the scarcity of servants, which they give as one reason why people feel they have to move into a flat. However, what Heath Robinson is best known for are his solutions to every-day problems and he is on top form in this book with his contraptions and devices designed to help with life in a very small space. Thus we have the Heath Robinson Dibedroom – a combined dining and bedroom achieved by moving a wall:

Another proposed solution, similar to the dressing table/desk combo mentioned above, is Heath Robinson’s combined bath and writing desk for business men - not only space-saving but time-saving too!:

Recently there have been several newspaper articles about tiny studio flats being sold and rented for outrageous prices. It seems we are living in ‘rabbit-hutch Britain’. The RIBA says that new-build British homes are the smallest in Europe and the average home is now just 925 square feet – barely half the size they were in the 1920s.One thing that certainly doesn't help is that Britain is the only country in Europe to sell houses based on the number of bedrooms and not on the square footage. In 1967-9 minimum space standards (the Parker Morris Standard) were introduced but these standards were scrapped by Margaret Thatcher in 1980. Since then there has been increasing concern about the harm that lack of space in the home can cause; small may be beautiful - but not if you have to live in it. Therefore, How to Live in a Flat is surprisingly relevant to life in Britain in 2014. In fact, several of Heath Robinson’s space-economising solutions have been used in practice to maximise the use of space in small flats. We have beds that fold down from wardrobes fully-made and ready to sleep in, communal rubbish shoots, central heating and multi-purpose furniture. So Heath Robinson was way ahead of his time and reading Howto Live in a Flat may spark other innovative solutions to making life bearable in a tiny twenty-first century home!

Heath Robinson - ‘I really have a secret satisfaction in being considered rather mad’

RHE Media is very proud to announce the imminent publication of five new titles in the Vintage Words of Wisdom series (keep an eye on the ‘What’s new’ page and the Home page for further details). These are all illustrated by William Heath Robinson with text by KRG Browne:

·         Humours of Golf

·         How to Live in a Flat

·         How to be a Perfect Husband

·         How to Make a Garden Grow

·         How to be a Motorist

Heath Robinson drew simple contraptions that offered solutions to problems that many people encountered in everyday life. You could say that he mostly found solutions for problems that didn't really exist and created inventions for needs and wants people didn't know they had. However, even today, who could argue with the challenges faced by those who live in tiny flats, the problems resulting from garden pests and the difficulties encountered by newly-weds setting up life together? Many of the issues addressed by Heath Robinson are surprisingly still relevant and resonant in the twenty-first century. His inventions designed to leap such lifestyle hurdles as learning to drive, choosing a mate or living in a flat with no soundproofing will strike a chord with many living in the modern world. Heath Robinson is also very concerned with recycling and upcycling everyday items when designing his devices – something very familiar to those who love repurposing vintage items today.

Of course, to Heath Robinson the 1920s and 30s period was a very modern world. For example, owning a car was only recently within reach of a large proportion of the population and the Road Traffic Act of 1934 introduced the compulsory driving test for the first time. The 1930s saw a significant increase in the number of flats and apartments built in Britain so living in a flat in a high-rise building was a novel experience for many people. The period after the First World War also saw considerable social change and this too is reflected in the Heath Robinson titles – the changing role of women, the decline in the employment of household servants, an enthusiasm for fresh air and keeping fit and, given the economic depression in the early 1930s, a prevailing obsession with cost-saving and financial prudence are all underlying themes that appear in Heath Robinson’s drawings and K. R. G. Browne’s text.

The keep fit and fresh air craze that emerged post World War One (exemplified by the 1933 song Keep Young and Beautiful by Abe Lyman - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT2FFfzpzY0 ) is also covered by Heath Robinson in his book Humours of Golf. Geoffrey Beare, Trustee of the William Heath Robinson Trust, has kindly written the forewords for our Heath Robinson titles. Of Humours of Golf he writes:

Heath Robinson’s drawings frequently took the sports that interested the upper classes as their subject – hunting, fishing, tennis, winter sports and most often golf. In 1923 the publisher Methuen proposed that Heath Robinson’s golfing subjects should be collected in a separate volume and the book was published as The Humours of Golf in time for the Christmas market, with an introduction by Bernard Darwin, the leading golf writer of the day. Heath Robinson made a number of small line drawings on golfing subjects that were added at intervals through the book. The fact that he did not play the game himself allowed him to see its more ridiculous aspects.

On the other hand, Heath Robinson reflects aspects of the British character that could be regarded as timeless. After all, an obsession with gadgets, inventions created in sheds from collecting ‘things that might be useful one day’ and ‘sledgehammer to crack a nut’ solutions have appeared time and again throughout British history. The eccentric inventor crops up frequently in both fiction and fact. Heath Robinson himself said: ‘I really have a secret satisfaction in being considered rather mad’. From Caractacus and Grandpa Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to Wallace and Gromit, from ‘Q’ in the Bond films to the bizarre inventions that appeared in the early days of rail and air travel (described beautifully in our titles The Railway Age and The Boys’ Book of Aeroplanes) – we have a proud tradition of ingenuity and problem-solving that, though often apparently potty, is actually widely respected and admired around the world.This is because the drive to invent solutions to problems often does, eventually, produce some impressive and genuinely useful results. Indeed there are many germs of genius in Heath Robinson’s designs. For example, using grey water (i.e. bath water) to water the garden is now incorporated into the design of eco-homes. Other examples include chairs that help you get to your feet, machines for making coffee and contraptions for keeping cats off carefully prepared seed beds. These and many other ideas suggest that, far from being crazy, Heath Robinson was often way ahead of his time!

Many of Heath Robinson’s inventions involve one vital component – string. Indeed, in How to be a Motorist, K. R. G. Browne acknowledges the crucial role string plays where motor cars are concerned:

The reader who has kept his head and reached this point without succumbing to ennui, sleep, or a craving to go to the movies, will have realized, we hope, that the intelligent use of string can do much to improve the appearance and performance of any motor car. Where no string is available, twine, tape, or even plaited bimbo-grass (which grows only on the Patagonian plains in alternate Leap Years) can be utilized instead; but the principle – “a knot here, a knot there, and save what’s left over” – remains the same.

Keen string-fanciers to a man, Mr. Heath Robinson and I hold pretty strong views about this valuable, inexpensive and under-estimated commodity. And if our joint efforts to make Britain thoroughly string conscious meet with only half the success they deserve, we shall feel that we have not half-lived in vain.

I have my own reasons to be thankful for the existence of string. In my early days as a motorist I was the proud owner of a Triumph Toledo. This classic of its kind was named Sybil (because her number plate began SYB and ended with an ‘L’). She served me well as a first car but she did have a distressing tendency to break down at crucial moments. On one occasion the brakes failed as I was approaching a large and busy roundabout, another time the clutch gave out as I was driving along a very icy road, but the most memorable break down occurred on the M5. I was playing a game of tag with a minibus full of rugby players (yes, I was a young and foolish girl!) – they would overtake me with much rowdy glee and then I would overtake them when I could with a cheerful toot on Sybil’s horn. However, all the enthusiastic overtaking was too much for Sybil’s rather matronly workings and the accelerator cable snapped. Luckily I was in the slow lane at the time so I ignominiously limped on to the hard shoulder, much to the amusement of the rugby players who sped past without showing one jot of concern for my plight. At the time I was not a member of the AA or the RAC so I had to walk to the emergency phone and plead with the person on the line to contact a local garage. Luckily someone was willing to come and rescue me and, sometime later, a tow truck arrived.

The garage man started rummaging about in Sybil’s innards and saw immediately that the problem was a broken linkage in the accelerator cable. He popped his head up over the bonnet and asked me if I had a piece of string. Luckily, being a good Girl Guide, I was prepared and I had a piece of string in the glove compartment. I handed it over and a few minutes later the garage man called me over to show me what he had done. Basically, he had used the string to tie the two ends of the accelerator cable together. When I expressed some doubt and concern about his fix, he told me that his solution was good enough to get me off the motorway and the rest of the way home. He was absolutely right – Sybil made it to my parents’ house with no further trouble and Dad and I went to the local junk yard the next day to find a suitable linkage to mend the accelerator cable properly, which we did. So, I had much cause to be thankful for string and I too think it is a much underrated commodity. I like to think that Heath Robinson would have been proud to see string play such an important role in my rescue!

Thus, if you live in a flat, are a keen gardener, play golf, drive a car and/or are married (and many of us are and do) you will find that Heath Robinson and K. R. G. Browne have many valuable and relevant words of wisdom for you, even though their books were written nearly 100 years ago. Heath Robinson’s drawings are, of course, also very funny and K. R. G. Browne’s text is an amusing accompaniment; they obviously worked extremely well together. For further useful advice you might also turn to our titles on Room and Window Gardening (ideal if you live in a flat), Poultry Keeping (also, according to Heath Robinson in How to Live in a Flat, useful for flat-dwellers!), and Ferns and Fern Culture if you are a keen gardener. For more on Heath Robinson I can recommend this BBC programme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMqjyynNYaM

Embroidery, Wellbeing and Hair Oil!

Detail from great-grandma's tablecloth.

I received my National Trust magazine on Saturday and I opened it to find an article about a quilt made by volunteers at Killerton House in Devon. This gorgeous work of art, known as the Pride of Killerton, took two years to make and was created by volunteers. The Pride of Killerton quilt is decorated with images of apple trees as Killerton has its own orchards and makes cider from its apples (see our blog posts on cider-making and apple varieties). For more information on the quilt visit http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/article-1355854006193 

I was delighted to see the article because I volunteered at Killerton as a room steward several years ago and I loved spending time in the vintage clothing exhibition they have at the house. Many of the dresses on display were decorated with intricate and beautiful embroidery, representing many hours of painstaking work. For more on the Killerton fashion exhibition visit http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/killerton/things-to-see-and-do/events/exhibitions

Killerton House also has lovely gardens and serves excellent food so a visit to the house, and to other National Trust properties, is a great way to restore one’s feelings of wellbeing. October is the perfect time to visit as the trees are dressed in their autumn colours and there is nothing more restorative than a walk through woodland on bright and chilly day followed by afternoon tea. I have always felt thankful that the creation of the National Trust has provided access to this country’s most beautiful houses and gardens for everyone – a most civilised and British form of common ownership. In 1944 Sir Richard Acland (who was a socialist who believed in common ownership) donated Killerton House and gardens to the Trust. Sir Richard also sold some of the surrounding land to the Trust to raise money for the Common Wealth Party that he founded. I think that, perhaps, the National Trust today offers us Common Wellbeing – the opportunity to appreciate beauty both natural and man-made, to take exercise in the fresh air, to enjoy good food in attractive surroundings with our friends and to take time out from busy and stressful lives. It is also focal point for community activities, environmental conservation and volunteering – all of which are key aspects of wellbeing.

Creative hobbies also contribute to our wellbeing. Several of the embroidery techniques employed in making the Killerton quilt are described in our new book – Lillie London’s Needlework Book. The book includes lessons on embroidery, cutwork, appliqué and quilting, as well as over 80 projects from the 1930s. My grandmother (who was a skilled tailor and dressmaker) and my great-grandmother (who made some of the items in the photographs below) would have made the cushions, tablecloths, chairbacks, etc. from pre-stamped fabric kits that they bought by mail order. However, this is not to detract from the needlework skills they had to employ to produce such high quality results. The slideshow below shows examples of vintage embroidery created using the skills that are described in Lillie London’s Needlework Book.

By the way, the chairbacks were earlier known as antimacassars. Oiled hair was fashionable in Victorian and Edwardian times for both men and women and Macassar oil was often used to achieve the desired look.  It was so named because it was reputed to have been manufactured from ingredients (such as coconut or palm oil and ylang ylang oil to make it smell nice) purchased in the port of Makassar in Indonesia. However, it left nasty greasy marks on the back of chairs and sofas. Therefore, an antimacassar was used to protect upholstery as it was easier to remove the antimacassar and wash it than it was to clean your chair and sofa fabric. Antimacassars are still used on trains, planes and coaches today to preserve the life of the upholstery and for reasons of hygiene.

Vintage embroidered tablecloth. The crinolined lady was a popular motif and appears in our Lillie London Needlework Book.

Embroidered dressing table or ‘Duchess’ set.

Another dressing table set.

A pretty embroidered vintage tray cloth.

Embroidered linen napkins by my grandmother on another tablecloth worked by my great-grandmother.

Vintage appliqué and cutwork tray cloth or small tablecloth.

Our new title - for more details visit www.wordstothewise.co.uk/Products 

A corner of a cut-work tablecloth embroidered by my great-grandmother.

The centre of the cut-work tablecloth made by my great-grandmother.

1865-1872 carte de visite photo of a fashionable young man in suit and tie by John Eastman Palmer, of 58 Union Street, Stonehouse, Plymouth, Devon, England. His hair is long enough to cover the top of his right ear, where it is oiled and swept back from the front.

What's on the Menu for your Chickens? Chicken Wisdom from 1918

I was really delighted to receive October’s edition of Your Chickens magazine yesterday as it includes a lovely review of our book on Poultry-Keeping by Jeremy Hobson (see below).

As Jeremy says, much of the advice given in Poultry-Keeping is as relevant today as it was when the book was first written in 1918. In fact, as I was flicking through the rest of Your Chickens I noticed a striking example of this. The magazine includes an article entitled ‘Are You Our Mother?’ about using a chicken to hatch turkey chicks. Our book includes a section on raising turkeys and the authors have the following to say about brooding turkey eggs:

Some breeders, Mr Cattell included, prefer putting the turkey eggs under fowls, allowing these to hatch them, and then transferring the day-old chicks at night to turkeys which have been broody about fourteen days. The turkeys usually take to the chicks all right, and certainly make the best mothers, as they find the youngsters so much natural food. An advantage of this plan is that as many as twenty-five turkey chicks can be given to one turkey hen to mother, and there is less risk of the eggs being crushed by a fowl than by a turkey, which is often a clumsy although a good sitter.

So, back in 1918 it was recognised practice to use chickens to brood turkey eggs, particularly where the turkey hen is a first-time mother.

Your Chickens magazine also includes adverts for modern chicken feed that includes all the nutrients chickens require to live healthy lives. In 1918 too, chicken keepers were very concerned to keep their chickens well-nourished. Poultry-Keeping provides extensive daily menus, which vary month by month, in order to ensure chickens had a varied diet that incorporated all the ingredients to keep the birds fit, well and laying successfully throughout the year. For example, in September and October the authors recommend that chickens kept in confined earth runs are fed:

SUNDAY, TUESDAY AND THURSDAY—Breakfast, 8 a.m., stout white oats or white Canadian peas. Dinner, 1 p.m., meat scraps and cooked vegetables, such as cabbage, cauliflower, turnips, or carrots, but not potatoes. Also green food each day. Last feed of day, at 5.30 p.m., to be wheat, if oats given at breakfast time; but if peas are given for breakfast, then let the last feed be oats.

MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY—Breakfast, soft food, biscuit and meat meal and fine bran; scald these together and let stand for a few minutes, then add sufficient middlings to make the whole crumbly. If biscuit and meat meal are not procurable, then use equal parts pea meal, ground oats, and fine bran, scalded, and dried off as above, and to this should be added a cup of granulated meat or meat greaves to every four cupfuls of meal, and this meal should be scalded well with boiling water before adding it to the meal and before the latter is scalded. When this is done, there will be no necessity to give cooked animal food at noon. The same applies to biscuit and meat meal. Dinner, green food, such as cabbage leaves or cauliflower leaves, hung up in the run about two feet from the ground. Last feed, oats, wheat, or peas, alternate nights, but do not give mixed.

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY—Soft food as on Monday; but should the weather be cold or wet add a handful or two of maize meal to the biscuit meal and bran before scalding—about half the quantity of the biscuit meal—and this must be allowed a little extra time to swell before adding the thirds or middlings.

It looks as though the early twentieth-century chicken keeper had to be a chef and run a restaurant for his fowls! It is much easier today when you can just open a sack of ready-mixed chicken feed. By the way, middlings are a by-product of the wheat milling industry – the coarse-ground wheat and bran that is left over after making flour – and meat greaves is an edible by-product of rendering animal carcases. Therefore, chicken-keepers in 1918 were feeding their birds the unprocessed leftovers that are today processed for inclusion in animal feed (which looks and smells a lot nicer than the basic ingredients from which it is made!).

A bronze turkey (one of many beautiful illustrations in our title Poultry-Keeping)

Amusing Extracts from The Comic Bradshaw and other Peculiar Railway Stories

Amusing Extracts from The Comic Bradshaw and other Peculiar Railway Stories

While editing our title TheRailway Age by Cyril Bruyn Andrews I was rather puzzled by this illustration, taken from The Comic Bradshaw of 1848, as our author provides no context for the cartoon. I hunted down a copy of The Comic Bradshaw and discovered that the illustration relates to a section entitled ‘Remarkable Phenomenon in Second Class Carriages’. It reads as follows:

It is a curious fact in connexion with the wood used in the construction of second-class carriages, that the further you travel the harder, and tougher, the rougher, and knottier do the seats become. At first they seem smooth enough, - in fact handsome, polished planes. In about thirty miles, they get nutmeg-graterish on the surface; by fifty, lumps be­gin to grow out of them; by seventy, the lumps are sharper; and ere the hundred be completed, you would exchange your throne for an arm-chair full of broken bottles.

The following diagrams will give a notion of the odd phenomenon we have endeavoured to describe.

The portraits beneath [i.e. the ones at the start of this post] show the changes, correspond­ing to the degree of discomfort of the seat, produced on the countenance of the gentleman who sits on it.

Several illustrations in The Railway Age are taken from The Comic Bradshaw but Mr Andrews has not included some of the most peculiar sections of this very odd little publication. For instance, there is the following strange prediction of events a hundred years hence (i.e. hence from 1848!):

OUR PROPHET AGAIN.

This invaluable gentleman has again been, in Campbell's phrase, sending his spirit, like one of the new street-cleaning machines, to

"¾sweep

Adown the gulf of Time."

The following is one of the scraps which the mental broom in question has brushed up from the highway of posterity. It is an extract from the Times of the 1st of April, 1948

“RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

“Some surprise, and not a little uneasiness, was created yesterday, at the Mesopotamia Station of the United Grand Junction European, African, Asian, American, and Ponder's-end Railway, by the non-arrival of the slow train, due at twelve o’clock. Half­-a-dozen policemen were, in consequence, dispatched up the line per the new patent passenger electric telegraph, and the cause of delay was ascertained to be as follows. It appears that the train was proceeding cautiously round a rather sharp curve, at a rate of not more than three hundred miles an hour, when the breathing apparatus of the driver ¾ a steady man, who has been for some years in the Company's service ¾ gave way, and he was, of course, immediately suffocated; ¾ not, however, before he had managed to stop and reverse the engine. The injudicious effects of this last step were, however, soon apparent; for the train, as might have been expected, started backwards at rather a fast rate of 700 or 800 miles an hour ¾ the passengers being in a state of considerable alarm. Fortunately, the accident was observed from one of the new line of patent safety balloons, which, in company with a couple of ordinary hack flying machines, gave chase, and having flung their grapnels at the speeding engine, managed gradually to stop its career. The unfortunate engine man was then attended to, and being promptly conveyed to the Galvanic and Electro-magnetic Hos­pital for the cure of complaints of the respiratory organs, he was skilfully unsuffocated by the house­-surgeon; and after a short delay, was providentially enabled to resume his place upon the locomotive, and conduct the train to its destination. No blame attaches to any of the officials of the Company."

This extract is both amusing in its predictions of the world in 1948 and also interesting because it repeats (perhaps facetiously) the myth that circulated in the early days of train travel that travelling at speed would render people either unconscious or dead!

Our title The Railway Age also includes several engaging and amusing railway stories (for more details visit www.wordstothewise.co.uk. There is, for example, the story of the fire at New Cross in 1841. While the fire itself was not funny, its cause was most peculiar:

The disastrous fire was made all the more thrilling as it broke out at the exact moment when Louis Philippe’s train was announced ready to take him to Dover. The King of the French had to walk over hose pipes and through a scene of great disturbance. The flames, only 100 feet from the railway carriage window from which the King watched them, were reflected in the helmets of the soldiers drawn up as a guard of honour, and the combined noise of those who were fighting the flames and those who were cheering the King was terrific. It was difficult at a moment when the King was arriving and departing to ascertain the cause of the fire, but it was afterwards found to be the spontaneous ignition of some vegetable stowed in a paint room.

Another example is the description of a terrified vicar:

One dark night in the year 1784, the venerable Vicar of Redruth, in Cornwall, was taking a quiet walk in a lonely lane leading to his church. Suddenly he heard an unearthly noise, and to his horror, he saw approaching him an indescribable creature of legs, arms, and wheels, whose body appeared to be glowing with internal fire, and whose rapid gasps for breath seemed to denote a fierce struggle for existence. The vicar’s cries for help brought to his assistance a gentleman of the name of Murdoch, who was able to assure him that this terrible apparition was not an incarnation, or a messenger of the Evil One, but only a runaway engine that had escaped from control.

The Railway Age is full of similar accounts of events, personal reactions, poetry, songs and other reflections on the early days of the railway. As such it provides a fascinating window on how everyday life and ordinary people were affected by the dramatic changes that came with the advent of rail travel.

The Comic Bradshaw includes a list of railway jokes that were venerable in 1848 and are therefore so old now that they have whiskers! Unlike rail travel itself, rail humour has not travelled well down the decades. Thus, I began with a joke about a sore behind and I end on some more sore points that will surely elicit a groan:

LIST OF THE PROCLAIMED JOKES.

Nobody is henceforth permitted to say­

1. That an elderly gentleman connected with rail­roads is a Railway Buffer.

2. Nor, that a locomotive is like a policeman ­because it takes people up to the Station.

3. Nor, that a slow train followed by a quick one is like the letter W - because the X presses on behind.

4. Nor, that a partizan of the Great Western line is like a stout exciseman - because he is a broad-gauger.

5. Nor, that a man with a levelling instrument must be a great wag - for he can take a rise out of anything.

6. *Nor, that the wheels upon railways are lubricated with train oil.

*To encourage merit, anyone who laughs at this joke may apply for half-a-crown to the Publisher.

7. Nor, that railroads intended for the conveyance of luggage are therefore to be caned trunk lines.

8. Nor, that the boilers of express engines are supplied with brandy and water.

My favourite railway story comes from the days of the old ‘slam-door’ carriages and before carriage doors were centrally-locked. A bowler-hatted business man was fast asleep in a compartment filled with other passengers. The train stopped unexpectedly between stations. The business man woke up suddenly and, thinking the train was at his station, he leapt up, opened the door and fell on to the track. Obviously a bit disoriented he wandered up and down for a bit (just his bowler hat was visible to the other passengers through the window) and then, realising his supposed mistake, he scrambled back into the carriage, said ‘Silly Me!’, crossed the carriage, opened the opposite door and fell onto the track on the other side of the train.

What is your favourite railway joke or funny story? Do let us know (clean jokes and stories only please!).

Our second-class passenger – clearly at the start of his journey on his hard wooden seat!