Fairies

By way of YouTube I’ve just had a look at Cottingley Beck as it still flows over rocks and is overshadowed by trees. Back in 1917 it was the favourite spot of two cousins, who regularly got into trouble for returning home wet and untidy after playing in and around the stream. Most kids would make some sort of excuse but the one made by 9 year old Frances Griffiths and her cousin 16 year old Elsie Wright was an absolute belter.

Cottingley Beck

When told off they said they went there ‘to see the fairies’. I’d loved to have seen the expressions on the faces of the families. I think I may have been quite impressed by such a tale. Anyway, Elsie borrowed her father’s camera and went in search of proof. It didn’t take long.

Elsie’s father Arthur was a keen amateur photographer with his own darkroom and all the equipment required to develop the image which shows Frances in front of several winged fairy figures. Elsie was interested in photography with a talent for art and experience in retouching photographs. Arthur Wright was suspicious. Even when the girls came back months later with a plate showing Elsie holding out her hand to a small winged figure, Arthur was unconvinced. He knew the girls had been up to something, he just wasn’t sure how they’d done it.

the Cottingley Fairies (i) 1917

Elsie’s mother Polly took the photographs along to a meeting of the Theosophical Society in nearby Bradford and the images appear to have caught the imagination and the enthusiasm of the society’s supporters, and of one of its leading members, Edward Gardner. The photographs were examined by photographic expert Harold Snelling, who confirmed them as authentic images of ‘what was in front of the camera’, a smart move. Gardner used the images in his lectures. Copies appeared in a spiritualist magazine where they caught the eye of Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, a believer in spiritualism himself. He was about to write a piece on fairies for the Christmas edition of the Strand magazine, and asked Arthur and Elsie for permission to use the images.

The Strand Magazine, March 1921

It seems incredible now to think that such a person would be taken in by such a trick because the Cottingley fairies were fakes, probably created by Elsie and staged and photographed by both girls. They had been copied from images in “Princess Mary’s Gift Book”, published in 1914, and then had wings added to them. Three more fairy images were taken, the final one, “Fairies and their Sunbath”, in 1920.

Unbelievably, a debate on the authenticity of the Cottingley fairies continued until well into the 1960s. However, they were not entirely debunked until the 1980s, when Geoffrey Crawley, the editor of the ‘British Journal of Photography’, undertook a major investigation, concluding they were fakes. Extraordinary.

the Cottingley Fairies (ii) 1917

Elsie actually admitted to the trick in 1983. The cousins themselves were astonished at how readily people like Conan-Doyle had accepted the images. Perhaps not wholly wanting to relinquish the story, Frances maintained all her life that “Fairies and their Sunbath”, the fifth and last image, showed real fairies, not fakes.

Some of the information above is from Miriam Bibby (Historic UK) and from Meg Warlow (National Science and Media Museum).

As for a poem to suit the theme how could it not be this:

Fairies

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
It's not so very, very far away;
You pass the gardener's shed and you just keep straight ahead --
I do so hope they've really come to stay.
There's a little wood, with moss in it and beetles,
And a little stream that quietly runs through;
You wouldn't think they'd dare to come merrymaking there--
     Well, they do.

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
They often have a dance on summer nights;
The butterflies and bees make a lovely little breeze,
And the rabbits stand about and hold the lights.
Did you know that they could sit upon the moonbeams
And pick a little star to make a fan,
And dance away up there in the middle of the air?
     Well, they can.

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
You cannot think how beautiful they are;
They all stand up and sing when the Fairy Queen and King
Come gently floating down upon their car.
The King is very proud and very handsome;

The Queen--now you can guess who that could be
(She's a little girl all day, but at night she steals away)?
     Well -- it's Me!

                            Rose Fyleman, Punch Magazine, May 1917

            

Thanks for reading, Terry Q,

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Fairies - Tinker Bell v Titania

Long before I’d ever heard of Shakespeare, I was introduced to ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ through excerpts in story board style in an annual for girls. I was only about eight and thought the illustrations peculiar – who would go about wearing a donkey’s head? That was just one oddity. I wish I still had that book and I wish I knew the proper title. It contained a wealth of information and subjects more interesting at the time, than ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. I did like the fairies, though.

I’m not alone. My sister-in-law collects all manner of fairies made in various materials. Some live outside, some indoors. I think Tinker Bell was in charge, certainly in the dining-room, until I gave my sister-in-law a special gift. At the time, I was still able to do cross stitch and it was usually big projects that would take forever and a day. When I saw a pattern for Titania, I was compelled to make her. I collected everything she needed and couldn’t wait to start. It was a learning experience, too. I hadn’t included sequins or seed beads on anything I’d done before, so I was excited to see those take shape in enhancing Titania. Another new thing, I was working on linen instead of familiar aida. It took many hours to complete and I enjoyed every minute. The end result was stunning. This photo is all I have and it doesn’t do it justice. Titania lives in Scotland with my sister-in-law, pride of place on a wall where she is loved and admired. As Queen of the Fairies, she is in charge, pushing Tinker Bell into second place.

Fairies live at the bottom of my garden and I wish they would tidy it up. When my children, and later on, grandchildren came along, I would send them outside to see if they could find any. I would tell them that the fairies sometimes disguised themselves as pixies or even squirrels, so look out for monkey nuts. I don’t think they believed me.

A fairy they definitely believed in, or didn’t dare deny in case they missed out, was Peggy, the Tooth Fairy. Not only did Peggy leave a generous reward under the pillow, but also a letter of thanks for a perfect, well-cared for tooth.

My chosen poem,

Fairy Song

You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blindworms, do no wrong;
Come not near our Fairy Queen.

Philomel with melody,
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby; ulla, lulla, lullaby.
Never harm nor spell nor charm
Come our lovely lady nigh,
So good night, with lullaby.

Weaving spiders come not here;
Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence;
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm nor snail do no offence.

Philomel with melody,
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby; ulla, lulla, lullaby.
Never harm nor spell nor charm
Come our lovely lady nigh,
So good night, with lullaby.

                             William Shakespeare 1564 – 1616

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Chicanery

Chicanery: clever, dishonest talk or behaviour that is used to deceive people. It is derived from the French 'chicanerie', meaning trickery, (not that the French were/are inordinately deceptive).It's also my word of the week as another war wages.

George Orwell (not his real name) first anticipated life in a 'post-truth' world in his mid-20th century dystopian political satires 'Animal Farm ' and 'Nineteen-Eighty-Four '. The latter, in particular, examines the role of truth and facts within societies and the ways in which by cynical chicanery both can be manipulated. He has bequeathed us such deeply disturbing terms as Big Brother, Doublethink, the Ministry of Truth, Newspeak, Thoughtcrime and Thought Police.

A journalist by trade and a democratic socialist by nature, Orwell had the terrifying models of totalitarian rule in the Soviet Union and the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany close to hand to inform his frightening visions. His inspiration for writing 'Nineteen-Eighty-Four' in particular came in 1943 with the Tehran Conference between the three allied superpowers of Russia, the USA and Great Britain.

Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, Tehran 1943

Fast-forward eighty-odd years and the key personnel have changed. We have Putin, Trump and Xi Jinping, their countries no longer allied, with Starmer ("no Winston Churchill") trying to manage Airstrip One's decline with a modicum of dignity.

And surely anyone who has read Orwell's  dystopian parable of a world in which three superpowers of Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia all fight each other in a perpetual war in a disputed area mostly located around the Middle-East might surely concur that "living in Orwellian times" has become apposite shorthand for the world today..   

Right now we have the 'leader of the free world', the man who considers himself most worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize, being coerced by the Israelis into embarking on an illegal war of choice against Iran. Chicanery is manifest. Netanyahu's clever, dishonest talk has duped the most powerful nation into turning its back on diplomacy and joining forces to do Israel's will in the region against all conscience and common sense. Two weeks into the conflict, the war which Trump has already claimed "is already won" and is "very complete" now sees him demanding on his propaganda channel Truth Social that NATO members should send warships to the region "or it could be very bad for them". Fake news is swirling round from all quarters in an attempt to obfuscate what it really going on. Ironically, Putin seems to be the biggest beneficiary of this global turmoil right now. Nice one, Donald.

Just to add...In the wake of his cheap jibe about Starmer being "no Winston Churchill" for not sending warships and planes to help in the latest assault on Iran, I don't know if  Trump knows (and if he does, even cares) that in 1939 Churchill asked for American support in the fight against Nazi Germany and was politely refused, only to meet with the same uncooperative response in 1940 and 1941. And that even after the USA entered the war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941, they charged Britain (under the lend-lease deal) for the assistance they provided in the eventual defeat of the Axis powers, a war debt (with interest) that this country only finally finished paying off in 2006! 

Who knows how it will end. In the meantime, here's a new poem of sorts. I was going to call it Fuck Knows, but I've rowed back on that. 

Rudolph Knows

They used to laugh and call him names,

they wouldn't let him join their games.

He vowed one day he'd have revenge,

he'd make them pay. He'd know he'd won
when truth was all undone.

More rabid than eagles his coursers came

as raving and drooling he called out their names:

Now Lancer! Now Dancer! Now Prancer and Cancer!

Epic Fury unleashed to the woe of the world,

dash away, dash away, do it for fun.

And grinning madly at the after party,

a celebration of mendacity, he has them

wheel in the AI deepfake cake

sugar-coated to disguise the taste of death.

Eat your slice and keep your mouth shut.

Rudolph knows that his race is run.

         

I leave you with these words from a silent witness:

"Truth is a fundamental virtue. Without truth, there is no knowledge, no understanding. A society built on lies and deception cannot function. Without truth, there can be no harmony, no peace."

Thanks for reading. Stay wise, S ;-)

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Chicanery

When I first saw Chicanery as the word of the week my immediate thought was to twist it a bit and have a look at the way chicanes are used in motor racing to slow speeds and add some technical difficulties to the track. Well, that thought lasted 0.13 seconds as I realised that I’d have to be thinking about F1 for about 650 words which is beyond my comprehension.

So it’s back to chicanery. According to the website Wordfoolery:

‘the word history of chicanery is enshrouded in enough mystery to suggest subterfuge. It entered English in the early 1600s in a legal context. It referred to quibbling and sophistry and came from the similar French word chicanerie and the Middle French verb chicaner (to quibble or to pettifog).

How it reached French is a little more debatable. It may be from the Middle Low German schikken (to arrange) or may even be from a golf-like game once played in the Languedoc region of the south of France. Perhaps early French lawyers liked to quibble over points of law as they got in a round before court?’

It is not a commonly used word these days and when it is used it can refer to what I’d call sharp practice in areas such as politics or finance. Clever, often legal manoeuvres designed to gain an advantage, sometimes at the expense of fairness or transparency. It’s not necessarily outright fraud, but definitely on the fringes.

To take things a bit further you could ask yourself:

‘Have you ever encountered a situation where things just felt… off? Not outright illegal, perhaps, but certainly not straightforward or honest?

At its heart, chicanery is about deception, but it’s a specific kind of deception. It’s not the blunt force of outright lying, but rather the artful, clever, and often dishonest talk or behaviour used to trick people. Think of it as a sophisticated form of trickery, often involving wordplay, legalistic loopholes, or subtle manipulation to get what one wants.

What makes chicanery particularly insidious is its subtlety. It often relies on the victim not quite realizing they’re being deceived until it’s too late. It’s the difference between a direct lie and a carefully constructed narrative designed to mislead. The investigation into political corruption, for instance, might reveal not just outright bribery, but a web of political chicanery that obscured the truth for years.

So, the next time you feel like something isn't quite adding up, or someone's arguments seem a little too clever by half, consider the possibility of chicanery. It’s a reminder that while honesty is the best policy, not everyone adheres to it, and sometimes, the most effective way to understand deceit is to recognize the subtle art behind it.’

Now the next question is to what extent can chicanery be acceptable? Because all of the above answer to what you were asking yourself was, in fact, what came out when I entered the words:

“The difference between chicanery and dishonesty AI 300 words” into a website entitled Create AI Blog.

So have I been dishonest or used chicanery in this week’s blog?

I should add I’ve never used AI before.

I think this classes as chicanery:

Epitaph On A Tyrant

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

                                                                                           W. H. Auden

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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On Coffee And Cafés

Not such a lengthy blog for a change, this Saturday night. Having written essays in recent weeks about curry and kings and tangerines, this post will be as short and stimulating as a shot of Greek coffee.

The coffee tree was first cultivated commercially in the Yemen, having been introduced there from the rainforests of Ethiopia where it grew wild. For a long time the  Yemenis had a world monopoly on the export of coffee beans. From 1538 to 1636 the Ottoman Empire controlled the southern coastal region of the Yemen, notably its famous coffee port of Mocha. Egypt was the richest province of the Ottoman Empire at that time and the chief commodity it traded was Yemeni coffee. 

Cairo merchants were responsible for moving it from the Yemen to markets throughout the Islamic world - the Arabian peninsula, Persia, Syria and Türkiye. Cities like Cairo, Damascus, Istanbul and Tehran all contained coffee houses by the middle of the 16th century and coffee drinking became a staple feature of Muslim life.

From the Middle East, the Mediterranean trade route soon took coffee to Greece and Italy and from there on to Germany, France, the Netherlands and England. Coffee houses were well-established in many major European centres by the end of the 17th century. 

The French were initially responsible for taking coffee plants to the West Indies and from plantations there it eventually spread to Mexico and then South America. Today Brazil is the world's leading producer of coffee beans, closely followed by Colombia Guatemala, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Vietnam.

a Greek café

My favourite place to drink coffee (not that I do it so much anymore) is in a Greek καφενείο (coffee house). In truth, it's really Turkish coffee, thick and black (from that Islamist tradition narrated above), but the Greeks stopped calling it that for political reasons in the 19th century. 

A good café, coffee house or kafeneio should be a restful place to read, socialise or just watch the world go by while enjoying an invigorating shot of caffeine. Coffee houses are civilised and hospitable institutions, a kind of universal oasis in the maelstrom of life, and that's all there is to it really.

coffee with my grandson recently

For a café related poem, I have turned again to my favourite Palestinian-American poet, Naomi Shihab Nye. This is from her 1998 collection, 'Fuel'

My Uncle's Favourite Coffee Shop

Serum of steam rising from the cup,
what comfort to be known personally by Barbara,
her perfect pouring hand and starched ascot,
known as the two easy eggs and the single pancake,
without saying.
What pleasure for an immigrant—
anything without saying.

My uncle slid into his booth.
I cannot tell you—how I love this place.
He drained the water glass, noisily clinking his ice.
My uncle hailed from an iceless region.
He had definite ideas about water drinking.
I cannot tell you—all the time. But then he’d try.

My uncle wore a white shirt every day of his life.
He raised his hand against the roaring ocean
and the television full of lies.
He shook his head back and forth
from one country to the other
and his ticket grew longer.
Immigrants had double and nothing all at once.
Immigrants drove the taxis, sold the beer and Cokes.
When he found one note that rang true,
he sang it over and over inside.
Coffee, honey.
His eyes roamed the couples at other booths,
their loose banter and casual clothes.
But he never became them.

Uncle who finally left in a bravado moment
after 23 years, to live in the old country forever,
to stay and never come back,
maybe it would be peaceful now,
maybe for one minute,
I cannot tell you—how my heart has settled at last.
But he followed us to the sidewalk
saying, Take care, Take care,
as if he could not stand to leave us.

I cannot tell—

how we felt
to learn that the week he arrived,
he died. Or how it is now,
driving his parched streets,
feeling the booth beneath us as we order,
oh, anything, because if we don’t,
nothing will come.

                                                   Naomi Shihab Nye

            

Thanks for reading. Have a good week, S ;-)

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Cafés

Writing about cafés is a bit of a problem because I don’t really know where to start. There are so many places I love going to and a few I wouldn’t go within two hundred metres of again (especially that one in Middlesborough).

So as I said choosing one particular café for this blog seemed a bit unfair to all my other favourite cafés. Then I had an idea. I could choose one that I can visit at any time and why not make an actual visit today. So I strolled up to the station and got the 0903 to Carnforth, or Milford Junction, as it is known in Brief Encounter. I have visited the café, or Refreshment Room, by way of the film many times over the years. I have also had many a cheese scone or bun there in person as well.

Milford Junction today

I presume most people have seen Brief Encounter but here are a few reminders:

The 1945 film stars Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in lead roles, alongside Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey, Cyril Raymond, Everley Gregg and Margaret Barton. It tells the story of two married strangers living in pre-World War II England, whose chance meeting at a railway station leads to a brief yet intense emotional affair disrupting their otherwise conventional lives.

It received three nominations at the 19th Academy Awards for Best Director (Lean), Best Actress (Johnson) and Best Adapted Screenplay. Many critics, historians, and scholars consider Brief Encounter as one of the greatest films of all time. In 1999, the British Film Institute ranked it the second-greatest British film of all time. (The Third Man was the greatest and I’m not arguing with that).

Much of the film was shot at Carnforth railway station on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. Although it was a busy station, it was far enough away from major cities to avoid the blackout for film purposes, allowing shooting to take place in early 1945 before World War II had ended. At two points in the film, platform signs indicate local destinations such as Leeds, Bradford, Morecambe and Lancaster, even though Milford is intended to be in the home counties. Noël Coward provided the station announcements in the film.

The role of the Refreshment Room is key to the film as it’s where the couple share tea, conversation, and hidden moments. It represents a safe, yet public, space often contrasted with the mundane chatter of other passengers or the intrusive interruptions of acquaintances and that room is both the emotional beginning and final separation of the couple.

Carnforth station retains many of the period features from the time of filming and has become a place of pilgrimage for fans of the film. When I was there today it was packed and by chance a steam train was passing through when I was having a cup of tea. It was wonderful.

It has to be said that the Refreshment Room was recreated in a studio but it really does look like the real thing.

the Refreshment Room (studio recreation)

That place of pilgrimage now houses an award-winning Heritage Centre and the volunteers were just finishing off extensive refurbishment work ready for opening again the next day. It houses various exhibitions, a vintage mini Cinema (mainly playing Brief Encounter for free), a gift shop and a curios and railway collectables shop.

By the way, I actually think it is a happy ending.

As previously stated I have been going to Carnforth Station for ages.

Carnforth Station

Putting my gloves on the table
I was glad I’d made time for tea
The half past five’s always crowded
And not quite the right company
The bookshop in town was quiet
I spent more than I really should
But there’s just enough left over
For those buns that Ann says are good
There’s a nice couple sat in the corner
I think that I’ve seen them before
When suddenly out of nowhere
A steam train roars by the door
But the girl behind the counter
Just smiles as she gives me my tray
And didn’t mention memories
Which is worth the tip when I pay.

(First published in Purple Patch, 2007)

Stanley Holloway and Myrtle Bagot in Brief Encounter

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Cafes

I’m pleased to discover that one of our familiar cafes in Kirkcudbright has re-opened. I think it closed last year and the business was up for sale. It’s under new ownership with a new name and I look forward to visiting on our next time there. We know all the cafes in Kirkcudbright and Castle Douglas, some better than others. We have lunch out most days when we are there, or coffee and cake. Less often at home, but it’s nice when we do venture out.

On my birthday, a few years ago, we were having lunch in the Ashton Pavilion café in St. Anne’s. Someone began to play the grand piano, very accomplished and lovely to listen to as one tune seamlessly flowed into another. ‘Nights in White Satin’, perfectly played, filled me with emotion and reminded me of the time years earlier, when having lunch at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, a small group of us were entertained by Michel Legrand running through his playlist in preparation for the evening. He didn’t play ‘Nights’, but the feeling was the same. Amazing talent.

There’s a fabulous café at the Lowry in Salford. The gallery and theatre, not the hotel, though it might have one. My husband and I had lunch there after a pilgrimage to the paintings, where I can gaze at Lowry’s work and cry and sigh as I love them so much. It was a special day. We spent the afternoon in Weatherfield on a Coronation Street tour, where I cried and sighed again because I love it so much. I would have liked afternoon tea at Roy’s Rolls, but sadly, the door was locked and even more sad, it wasn’t real, just a street frontage. It would be fabulous to be an extra in Roy’s café. I would sit quietly reading, fully absorbed in the book, newspaper or whatever, ignoring everything and everyone around me. Maybe someone will let me.

Edward Hopper’s painting, ‘Nighthawks’ appeals to me. The subject is an American diner late at night, not quite a café, but something about it intrigues me enough to want to be there. The characters look glum, even stern, like there’s something awkward going on. Ok, I’m nosey.

Park’s Art Deco Café at Stanley Park is open after the winter break and we have just about completed our Rushton & Co. style painting and decorating at home. I think we’ve earned a lunch out.

My Haiku poem,

When in Kirkcudbright
There’s a nice, new café
To add to our list.

Lunch in the Lowry,
Spellbound in the galleries,
We should go again.

I went to New York,
The Waldorf Astoria.
Lucky, little me!

I’ll sit silently
When I’m an extra
On Coronation Street.

Let’s go to the park.
We’ve finished decorating,
The café is open.

PMW 2026

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Curry

Curry has become a modern catch-all label for pretty much any spicy stew from Jamaica to Jakarta. The word itself is an anglicised form of the Tamil 'kari', meaning sauce, dating from British Empire days in the Indian sub-continent. As for the origins of the spicy stew itself, they go right back to the Harappan civilisation of the Indus river valley in the region of modern day Punjab, some 6,500 years ago. 

The Indus river was a 'cradle of civilisation' on a par with those of Mesopotamia, the Nile, the Yangtze delta in China, and an Andean society in Peru. These were all primarily stable agrarian communities with sophisticated building capabilities and quite advanced irrigation techniques. The primary cities of the Indus valley region were Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa itself, and it is in the excavated ruins of those cities that archaeologists found traces of both the ingredients and the cooking utensils that the Harappans used to make their various spicy sauces. 

The utensils were pestle and mortar and clay and metal cooking pots. The ingredients were locally foraged or farmed  spices such as black pepper, cardamom, cassia, cumin, ginger, fennel, mustard, saffron, tamarind and turmeric. The spices would be ground to a masala (literally 'spice blend') paste in differing combinations and then turned into a sauce by the addition of oil (usually sesame oil). This was cooking for flavour, making stews with aubergine, chicken, lamb or mango, the world's first 'curry' cuisine.

'curry'

When the Harappan civilisation came to a fairly rapid end around 2,000 BC because of climate change and the drying up of many of the rivers in the basin, the population migrated out east, west and south to Mesopotamia, to Egypt, to India, South-East Asia and beyond, taking their culinary traditions with them, and eventually catalysing what became the global spice trade.

The Arabs of Mesopotamia (effectively modern day Iraq) became the principle traders, going to India to buy spices to sell in the west and in turn introducing western herbs and spices like bay leaves and fenugreek to the Indians. Indian spices commanded high prices in the west and were thought of as luxury items, prices kept abnormally high by the tall tales of the traders about how difficult such exotic produce was to obtain. (For instance, cassia reputedly grew in shallow lakes patrolled by dragons, black pepper was extracted from fiery caves, cumin had to be harvested from snake-infested waters.)

spice market

Eventually the Europeans, initially Portuguese and Italians, opened up sea routes to India and the East and the overland spice road became less important. These maritime trade routes also led to other key ingredients getting added to the recipes of Indian masalas, with cloves, coconuts, mace and nutmeg incoming from Sumatra in the east, and chillis, coriander, okra, potatoes and tomatoes arriving from the west. Soon the resourceful Indians were growing the new fruits, spices and vegetables and not just importing them.

Our own national love affair with curry started back in the 18th century with the gradual British colonisation of the Indian sub-continent. The British in India developed a liking for curry and when they returned to Britain they brought that love with them. The earliest recorded use of the word in English is in a recipe of 1747 in Hanna Glasse's ' Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy'. (I love such optimistic titles.) Hers was a fairly basic approach, but I suppose it served a purpose.

Hanna Glasse's 1747 recipe

Of course, English curries 'made the India way' rarely lived up to the magic of the original. There were a few restaurants, such as the Hindoostane Coffee House and Hooka Smoking Club that opened in London in 1810 and served authentic Indian cuisine, It even offered a takeaway service. But it was one of only a handful, catering to ex-Raj families and Indians living in the capital. For nearly two centuries we had to put up domestically with ordinary stews that had a couple of spoonfuls of Venkat's Curry Powder stirred in, and even Vesta packet curries (just add water) were not much better.

That all changed markedly after WWII, the partition of India, and India and Pakistan becoming independent. For a variety of reasons, there was an influx of people to Britain from the sub-continent. Some were displaced by geopolitical shenanigans, others had trained as chefs on ships whose useful life was being superseded by container vessels. They brought with them both the culinary skills and also the market for proper Indian food. Curry houses began to open up in many large towns and cities.

It also led eventually to a market for pre-prepared spice mixtures, the most common being garam masala, which typically comprises black pepper, cardamom, cassia, chilli, cinnamon, clove, coriander, cumin, fennel, ginger and nutmeg. The availability of such items has raised the quality of home-cooked curries immensely.  

The first curries I ever ate were at Indian restaurants in Cambridge when I was in my late teens, at the Taj Mahal and the New Bengal in Regent Street. They were probably owned and run by East Pakistanis (or Bangladeshis once the East declared separation from West Pakistan in 1972), but like the terms curry and curry house, many establishments were labelled Indian restaurants, regardless of whether they were Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani or Sri Lankan and regardless of the regional variety of their cuisines.

During my years at Warwick University and living in Coventry, regular visits to the Rajah were in order, and less frequently the Simla (pricier and not as good). That was in the days before Indian beer (Cobra, Kingfisher) had been invented, and Mateus Rosé was the drink of choice. 

Nowadays, such 'Indian' restaurants and takeaways proliferate across the land. There are at least twenty in and around Blackpool and I've eaten at the many of them. My yardstick dish is Methi Gosht, a lamb curry with fenugreek. It's what I ask for when I go to anywhere new, just to get  measure of the place.  

Curiously enough, of all the curries I've eaten in all the curry houses from San Francisco to Cairo, the best I ever had was at an Indian restaurant on a Greek island. This was back in 2006 at the Bombay Garden in Skiathos town.

Skiathos Bombay Garden

The holiday on Skiathos was fun, we had an apartment on a hillside overlooking the bay, the weather was great (it was mid-August), the beach was lovely (and I often shared my sunbed with a local cat), the dining was invariably outdoors, but the Bombay garden was something special. The setting was beautiful and the food was exquisite, prepared by chefs who had been brought in from Bengal, I was told by the English proprietor. It was a meal that lives long in the memory and even made it into my morning glory poem (except I haven't called it that).

Swallows
Stirring stiffly in the seams of last night's fading dreams,

(thank you Mythos beer and Skiathos Bombay Garden) I

taste spices on your sleepy smiling lips, aromas linger in

your golden hair, mementos of saffron garlanded delight.

From where I lie in bright sunlight, the sight of swallows

picking insects out of the air on another perfect morning.

I thought we might get up, shower and take coffee on our

balcony, but you have other ideas, of enjoying this bounty

beneath rumpled sheets, ask was I dreaming of concubines?

A sly tease, you're good at those, but I'm happy to comply.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Curry and My Family History

When I was in the top end of primary school in 1959 or thereabouts, I used to go to Burnden Park every other Saturday to watch Bolton Wanderers home games. Sometimes I even travelled to away games on specially provided supporters coaches. I wore my black and white bob hat and scarf wrapped up against the cold. It was always cold in Bolton. Once or twice I even got my photo in the Bolton Evening News as an avid supporter. Only fifteen seconds of fame, not the full wack of fifteen minutes.

In those days part of any well-equipped football fans’ gear was a wooden rattle. You held it above your head and whizzed it round to make a clunky noise when it seemed appropriate. Goal!!! Clunk. Clunk. Seems incredible now that all grounds let supporters in with these lethal weapons. They were banned in the 1970’s.

Mine was quite special. It was even more chunky and looked like an antique in comparison to the fashionable light weight models my mates had. Because it was indeed an antique, even a family heirloom. It had been my grandad’s who was an Air Raid Warden in the WW2 and used to tell people to get to safety.

The final piece of what every trendy young football supporter in the 1950’s needed was a flask to keep you warm. I guarded it from rattle clunks of others and opened it at half time and carefully poured it out.

“Whoa? What’s that smelly stuff?” came the fortnightly cry.

“It is mulligatawny soup” I replied. “Curry soup”

“Curry soup?” I got looks of doubt and bemusement.

“I always eat it. It comes from India. My mum was born in India.”

“Born in India?”

Looking at me with more looks of doubt and bemusement, not sure what to make of it. Cutting off their “Well you don’t look Indian” I quickly jumped in and said, “Her dad was a soldier. He took his wife, my gran, and went there with the Army after the First World War in 1919. My mum was born in Mhow in December 1920.

Funny to think now that curry is the most popular food in Britain because in those days no one had ever really heard of it. The family returned in 1932 and brought this exotic taste back with them. Where she got the mulligatawny soup from I’ll never know. In those days all you could get was Heinz Mulligatawny Soup. It was one of Heinz 57 Varieties. Probably number 57 in terms of sales and popularity.

Whether the Wanderers won or lost it always did the trick, kept me warm and because everyone else thought that it smelt horrid I didn’t have to share it.

At home she would sometimes “make” curry. This was a dish she made in a frying pan with a small amount of water, fried onions, peas, chicken, sliced boiled egg and sultanas, with rice, most people only knew about rice in rice pudding but we knew more than that. and, of course, curry powder. It was expensive and hard to get. But she got it.

She also made curried potato hash. Potato pie, no crust and curry powder. Fusion food before it was invented. She made curried pasties with what was left. For my 70th birthday I asked my sister to make some. Comfort food.

The next step on the nation’s culinary journey to chicken korma, and poppadoms was Vesta Curry.

Vesta Curry was introduced in the early 1960s and by 1970s it had become popular. It came in in a brightly coloured box and was seen as an exotic, accessible, and trendy with boil-in-the-bag beef or chicken with rice meal. Home cooked, of course, when funeral directors were thought to be the only kind of takeaways. How things have changed but you can still buy it on Amazon at £80 for 12 boxes.

Right now there are said to be more than 8000 curry restaurants and takeaways everywhere in Britain. It has been suggested that the curry industry contributes £4.5 billion annually to the British economy annually.

But back to my mum to finish with. Although she spent the first twelve years of her life in India, early years, often regarded as the most formative years of your life, she never spoke about her time there much. However apart from the curry she, along with her parents, brought back artifacts particularly paperwork that now stand as some of the most important in my collection of family history documents.

As kids, my sisters and I, used to love to look at photos of my mum and her parents in India. It must be said that their India was an expat colony where my granny and my mum lived in privilege while my granddad was away defending the Khyber Pass with the British Raj Army. Photos in the big brown cardboard albums kept in the bottom of a wardrobe in my mum’s bedroom, provided us with a glimpse of what was going on in their life, including (below) her and her friend sitting on a leopard skin that my granddad had shot dead. Not politically correct now, of course.

Amazingly there was also my mum’s school report. How documents like that have quite literally travelled across the world and ended up almost one hundred years later in Blackpool would tell a stories all of their own. It’s the photos and documents that make family history exciting. 

And I still love mulligatawny soup and- you can get it everywhere now. Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Asda, Aldi, Lidl, the lot- perhaps the beginning of Britain’s love affair with curry. Try it.

Thanks for reading, Bill Allison

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Curry

I have a feeling that some of my colleagues on this blog will be delighted to write about curry. Probably go out for one to research in greater depth. So I’m going to curry favour with them by not writing about food but the following.

To curry favour is to flatter and seek favour by courtesy and kindness. It dates back to the 1500s and came to English from Old French corrier fauvel which means to be hypocritical but translates literally as to curry the chestnut horse (obviously). In medieval French chestnut horses are symbols of cunning and deceit. There’s a similar expression in German “falben hengst streichen” meaning to flatter or cajole but literally translating as to stroke the dun-coloured horse.

currying a chestnut horse

This association of horses with duplicity had linguistic roots. Fauvel meant a chestnut horse but favele meant deception. It comes from fabula (fable) in Latin. In Middle English favel was a common name for a horse but the same word in French meant duplicity. The connection was an easy one to make.

Let’s look at both words. To curry a horse dates to the late 1200s. This word for grooming is from curreier in Anglo-French and before that from correier (to put in order) in Old French.

Favour came to English at the same time for beauty and charm from Old French favor (a favour, approval, praise. Originally it came from favorem (good will) in Latin and was coined by Cicero from the verb favere (to show kindness to).

However the word favour in currying favour is an eggcorn. An eggcorn is a word or phrase that arises from mishearing or misunderstanding the original. Somebody may use sir name instead of surname, or tow the line instead of toe the line. In this case it’s curry favour instead of curry Fauvel.

Hang on a minute, that eggcorn sounds a lot like a Mondegreen. We covered that term back in December ’24 where it was described as a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning so eggcorns and mondegreens are both misheard or misinterpreted phrases, but eggcorns are plausible but Mondegreens are nonsensical.

The above information comes from the fascinating website ‘Wordfoolery’.

Fauvel was the main character in the 1300s poem “Roman de Fauvel” by Gervais de Bus (no, I’m not going there) and Chaillou de Pesstain (no, I’m very definitely not going there). 

manuscript of Roman de Fauvel

Fauvel, though he is a horse, no longer resides in a stable, but is set up in a grand house. He changes his residence to suit his needs, and has a custom manger and hayrack built. In his garderobe he has members of religious orders stroking him to make sure "no dung can remain on him." Church and secular leaders far and wide make pilgrimages to see him, and bow to him in servitude. They brush and clean Fauvel from his head to tail.

The poem was popular in Britain, and the phrase currying Fauvel came to mean flattering a false leader for personal gain.

Interestingly the word Fauvel in the poem was written as an acrostic on each letter of his name.

F: Flattery
A: Avarice
V: Villainy
V: Variability
E: Envy
L: Laxity

De Fauvel descent Flaterie,
Qui du monde a la seignorie,
Et puis en descent Avarice,
Qui de torchier Fauvel n'est nice,
Vilanie et Varieté,
Et puis Envie et Lascheté.
Ces siex dames que j'ai nommees
Sont par Fauvel signifies

Joel Cohen’s translation goes:

The first “F” stands for flattery
Who rules the world, as all can see.
In our poem’s hypothesis
The “A” is meant for Avarice;
Unfaithfulness, then Villany
Then Envy, and then Laxity.
These six vices I’ve just named
Are by the name “Fauvel” well framed.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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