BRITAIN IN PICTURES – NUMBER 1
During the Second World War and beyond (from 1941 to 1947), the publisher William Collins produced a series of volumes styled Britain in Pictures. They were not picture books as such, although each contained eight pages of coloured illustrations and upwards of 20 black-and-white paintings, drawings and other graphics. They were slim volumes, uniform in size - 16 inches by 22 inches, close to but not quite the standard A2 - with board covers, each with a simple but different front layout and each of a different colour. And each had a dust jacket, identical in design and colour to the book. The promo about the book and the author was written on the inside flap, but not in the book itself, so any of these books found today without a dust jacket is devoid of authorial information for the prospective reader.
This series was intended by William Collins to be a war-time morale booster, and while the ostensible focus was on the “pictures” it is the text that had the more enduring quality – always around 40 pages only (say an extended essay of 15000 words), each on a recognizably British topic. Each had been the commission of a writer expert in his or her field, or destined to become so. So Neville Cardus on English cricket, Vita Sackville-West on English country houses, George Orwell on the English people, Edith Sitwell on English women, John Betjeman on English cities and small towns, Graham Greene on British dramatists. What riches!
There are 126 volumes in this remarkable and delightful series, and each has a series number. Not only are the books today appreciated for their intrinsic beauty, but they are also targets for the completists among us. Abe Books lists several titles at more than $US200.
The 126 volumes that exist are not the full story: the publishers initially intended to produce132, and the project was so rigidly structured that the six “missing” volumes were nonetheless allotted series numbers. I’ve found no explanation for the abandonment of six volumes, and have been tempted to allocate titles – titles that perhaps may explain why they were aborted:
#41 Personal Hygiene and the English
#42 The Scottish Sense of Humour
#54 English Haute Cuisine
#56 The Myth of English Class Distinction
#114 Cerebral Irish Jokes
#118 Fox Hunting and the English Working Man
I’m on the track to read or re-read my bunch of Britain in Pictures books, a mere 60 or so; and while I’m not contemplating “book reviews” - certainly not of the books that have no thematic interest for me - some observations will inevitably spill out. It will be a lucky dip – the order is random.
#69 British Sea Fishermen by Peter F. Anson
Peter Anson (1889 to 1975) had a lifetime exposure to fishing and to fishermen, not because fishing was his occupation but because he journeyed to fishing ports all round the British Isles; because he went to sea in boats; and because he was a lifetime sketcher of boats in all their variety. Some of his drawings inhabit the book.
Writing in 1944 Anson was looking back to generations of ubiquitous and great fishing fleets, and observing their demise by the 1940s, and he was despairingly surveying the scene in darkest wartime. He divides the nation into regions and their dominant fishing ports, describes the customary practices of each one, and tells the history of each, recounting the ebbs and flows of trade.
The story is amazing, both for telling what an extensive industry off-shore fishing once was, and for telling the depths to which it had sunk by the time of writing [I had to get in one cliché – doubling as a pun]. Anson, and his readers, are in no doubt that British fishing was by then in terminal decline – not only had the industry been captured by nations with more modern, bigger, and better-equipped craft, but the seas were being fished out. If Hanson were alive today he would rather be dead!
Because of its structure the book has somewhat the nature of a long list, and wherever Anson takes us the story of devastation to the fishing economy and to fishermen is identical – different region, different fish species, different fishing practices, but the same malaise. So it’s repetitive, and a bit tedious. But it’s a story worth telling, albeit the story of a dilemma with no possible resolution.
#73 British Maps and Map-Makers by Edward Lynam
Would an ancient map be dry and dusty, you ask? Quite so. Would a book focussed on ancient maps be dry and dusty? Quite so.
Edward Lynam (1885 to 1950) who, “among other things”, was the Superintendent of the Map Room at the British Museum, provides a detailed chronology of the history of map-making, and provides as many examples as exist. From the year 1250 for some hundreds of years the pickings were very slim. They are of interest as social documents of their times, and not because of intrinsic accuracy. In earlier times, the Earth was not universally known to be round, and surveying had not evolved as a reliable science, so contemporary maps were impressionistic rather than factual. And even today, maps still have to bear with the contradiction of being unable accurately to portray a rounded globe on a flat surface.
So earlier maps are as much social documents as guides to actual and relative location. Early county or regional or town maps typically showed important buildings, topographical features, land usages – and didn’t show roads!
The maps used by early European mariners did not necessarily provide an earnest of safe return from the sea. Uncertainty and peril would continue to exist until longitude was able to be measured, and thence incorporated into maps. As early as 1714 the British Parliament offered a reward to the first person to demonstrate a practical method of determining the longitude of ships at sea. John Harrison’s chronometer, invented 1730 and much modified over ensuing years, took the prize, although the back-sliding Parliament avoided paying the reward until 1775! The first accurate measurement of longitude didn’t occur until 1767……..and even then there remained no agreement among cartographers as to the starting point for measurement. It was not until 1884 that an international conference agreed upon the imaginary line through Greenwich as the base meridian.
The limitations of marine navigation were not echoed on land, and terrestrial mapmakers were able to use surveying techniques. Then from early in the nineteenth century we have ordnance surveys, and the concerted quest for accuracy - pressure both military and civil.
The period from 1800 to 1944 occupies four pages only of Lynam’s book, and he is more concerned with the fustiness of bygone times.
By the way, a fine book about surveying and map-making is John Keay’s The Great Arc, the story of the 70-year survey of India and the Himalayas in the nineteenth century. A spectacular scientific project and a fascinating read.
#55 English Diaries and Journals by Kate O’Brien
The diaries and journals surveyed by Irish novelist, Kate O’Brien (1897 to 1974), produce a surprising amount of material. By definition, these were written for personal reasons, and not usually for publication. So their existence in the public domain is fortuitous. They have not, by and large, been written by “writers”, and as literary efforts they are patchy. Some were maintained for a few years only, others were lifetime efforts.
Their abiding value is in the way they provide graphic pictures of their authors, and of their times. Sometimes, they seem to have provided the only picture available, whether of domestic affairs or national affairs. In this their value lies, and O’Brien is to be congratulated for slogging through.
#49 British Historians by E.L. Woodward
Llewellyn Woodward was an illustrious historian (1890 to 1971), one-time Professor of Modern History at Oxford University. Whether by natural modesty or by editorial fiat Woodward’s book references “historians of the last two decades” (that is, Woodward’s contemporaries of the twenties and thirties) only on the final page of his dissertation. It comprehensively, however, deals with historians of earlier ages.
Mind you, the concept and role of historian as we understand it today did not evolve until quite recently. In elaborating this point, Woodward posits the difference between “map-makers” (those who merely describe), and “landscape painters” (those who interpret what they see). He puts this another way: the difference between facts (reason) and significance (imagination). Thus has evolved the modern approach to history – no longer restricted to the recital of dates and events.
Another more recent development in historical studies is “the moral approach to history”, which Woodward describes as being the sentiment that “the abuse of power brings retribution in this world”.
Woodward makes (what I consider to be) a profound observation about city life and the modern world: “With the increased tempo of social and political change, and with the rapid movement of the population, the average man tends to be cut off from the past of his own people and country. Few people in the large cities of England even know where their great-grandparents are buried. It is harder to visualise the past when you do not live in it as the English and Scots of earlier centuries lived among institutions of church and state which linked together the generations.” Ergo, the people of today lack the sense of history characteristic of earlier times.
Woodward gives us a quotation from Sir Charles Firth, another Oxford historian, whose life overlapped Woodward’s for some 46 years. This is a sentiment meant not just for historians alone: “After all, when a man puts his pen to paper and proceeds to print the result, he is attempting to convey his ideas to some other man. He presupposes the existence of a reader. It is therefore essential that he should arrange his ideas clearly, that he should state them so that they may be understood, and express them so that they may have a lasting impression on the mind of the person to whom they are addressed. If he fails to achieve this, he has done only half of his work.” Most professional historians of Woodward’s day agreed with this.
In summary, Woodward points us to historians who are “landscape painters”, to historians who apply moral judgement to the significance of an event, not merely the fact of it; and who are exemplars of expression………….in the way that so many of the earlier tellers of history cited by Woodward are not.
I offer two diverting quotes to conclude. First, from Woodward himself, said in admiration of Edward Gibbon’s monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “No great ship was ever launched more smoothly”.
Second, from statesman and historian Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon in praise of Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland (1610 to 1643): “His friends thought as highly of his judgment as of his wisdom.” Doesn’t that stop you in your tracks?
#33 British Rebels and Reformers by Harry Roberts
I thought to leave it there, with a final quizzical comment, but Roberts’ presentation is too interesting for me not to offer a précis; not a recital of the several rebellions and reforms described, but some general observations. By the way, Harry Roberts (1871 to 1946) was an East End general practitioner and socialist, committed to improve the lives of the underprivileged.
· *. Not every rebel is a hero. For instance, some are merely gangsters, and some driven by vanity or an abnormal desire for personal power.
· *. Great popular uprisings hardly ever occur when the bulk of the people are in a state of abject material want – personal needs are too pressing, and effectively debar successful rebellion.
· *. Behind any extensive popular uprising there is nearly always a real or imagined economic grievance. However, we do not find that the extremely poor, those who have been socially downtrodden for generations, readily respond to appeals to rebellion.
· *. Among the outstanding personalities of nearly every revolt or revolution – no matter how material the interests and aims of the militant leaders and of the more vocal of the insurgents – has been a small number of idealists, whose ultimate influence has, time and again, markedly affected the final outcome.
· *. Most of the rebellions and nearly all of the reforms mentioned in Roberts’ book have been backed by individuals not themselves suffering from the grievances which they aimed at removing. Genuine philanthropy is a real thing in human life.
· *. And finally, an anonymous quote: “All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land”.
#2 British Sport by Eric Parker
We can see by its series number that this volume appeared early in the Britain in Pictures project, doubtless because the topic was one thought by the publishers to have general appeal. Sadly, though, it’s a dreary read, and is little more than a string of commentaries on diverse sporting pursuits. However, Eric Parker (1870 to 1955) does give some introductory comments that strive to paint a backdrop. He commences by observing that the word “sport” exists in the lexicon of no other language than English, and he then builds on this “fact” with the assertion that indeed “the character of British sport as a whole deserves a word to itself”! The spirit of “game-playing” was fostered by the public schools, says Parker, and “valued for its physical and moral effects”. “The ideas of teamwork, of fair play, and playing the game are essentially original contributions to the conception of sport, and have given the English word ‘sport’ its special significance.”
It is not surprising that someone with this blinkered attitude goes on to assert that “sport is the enjoyment of manly exercise in the open air”. Query female players, query indoor, query disabled participants. Parker may be right to observe that “wherever an Englishman may find himself, in India or Africa, in desert or jungle, he will seek opportunity for sport”, but why the overtones of Empire? And in any case, the first three “manly exercises” to which Parker allots a chapter are hunting, shooting and fishing.
Probably enough said about where the author’s predilections lie, but there’s further evidence at the tail-end of the book, where supposedly minor sports are covered in a few words – bowls (quarter page), hockey (one paragraph), curling (for the Scots, half a page), golf (half a page). Rackets, squash and fives are mentioned although they’re “less national games than games of the public schools, the Universities and the Army”. Nevertheless, they are treated to a quarter page only. Lawn tennis gets two sentences.
Unrelated to the subject matter, I note that my copy of this little book is pristine and flawless, my guess never read; and for a moment I fantasised that as I turned each page I was releasing some molecules of air and smidgeons of dust that had been trapped since the bindery squeezed them together in 1941 – rather like (but actually not at all like!) the vapours that emerged upon the opening of King Tut’s tomb in 1922. The blimpish author of this book could have profited from a touch of the same imagination.
#31 Life Among the English by Rose Macaulay
Rose Macaulay’s appointment in 1942, at age 61, to author this survey would have been seen as a coup by William Collins the publishers.
Macaulay (1881 to 1958) was a significant novelist and literary figure. She published her first novel at age 25, and thereafter had an important place in British letters. She was Oxford educated, and was responsible for 23 novels (21 of them before 1942) and 21 non-fiction volumes including three of poetry (11 of them before 1942). Included are studies of Evelyn Waugh, John Milton, and E.M. Forster, and several travel memoires of Portugal.
The title, Life Among the English, misleads, I think. Surely it implies day-to-day life for English persons - contemporary life, of which there must have been so many permutations in 1942 to occupy a volume much larger than this. Instead, Macaulay presents tranches of history – British, Saxon, and Danish/Feudal/Tudor/Stuart/Eighteenth Century/Nineteenth Century/Twentieth Century – and recounts “life” in each. On further reflection, this is possibly more diverse and interesting than contemporary life, particularly during wartime. But………the book is a bore. It dwells on the frivolities of the privileged, and the vacuous existence of the worst of the “haves” of each era – maybe socially important, maybe economically important, but surely not “the English”. Macaulay includes endless lists of pastimes, foods, fashions, occasions, and numerous quotations from obscure observers. Evidence of her wide reading, no doubt, but not of her or her publishers’ good judgement.
#101 Life Among the Scots by Janet Adam Smith
This Scots volume was alongside its English counterpart on my shelf – honest Injun, hand on heart, call George Washington.
Interestingly, while the chapter headings follow a chronological order as in Rose Macaulay’s exposition of English life, this Scottish survey interpolates a chapter on The Highlands. Therein lies its principal charm.
“The Highland way of life was based on two main ideas: war, and the family. A Highland clan was essentially a large family, extending its arms to receive cousins of whatever degree of distance.” The clan chief was law-maker and judge; and more importantly, father, protector, and provider. “The clansman, however humble, had the same name as his chief; wore the same tartan; at feasts, sat at the same table.” “Illegitimate children were made welcome as members of this greater family.” “Most households had one of these ‘accidental children’, no mystery being made of their birth, no shame attaching to them, and the family all anxious to see them make their way and marry well.” “There was every reason to welcome them, for in war, men are riches, and the clan was organised for war.” Sometimes, Highlanders “fought for King and Scotland, but in general they fought each other” – chiefly for better grazing land or a patch of arable soil. And as the occasion arose, they plundered the Lowlands for corn and cattle.
Janet Adam Smith lived from1905 to 1999. She was with the B.B.C. from 1928, and for some years was an editor with the house magazine, The Listener. Her 1965 biography of John Buchan was acclaimed as magisterial. In a memorial tribute, Leonard Miall, BBC broadcaster and administrator, wrote: “Biographer, mountaineer, critic, literary editor, textual scholar, comic versifier, visiting professor, hostess, anthologist, traveller – there seemed to be nothing at which Janet Adam Smith did not shine. And she shone with an intensity that made others glow in response.” Some tribute! And this book, in its modest way, is a tribute too.
#106 English Essayists by Bonamy Dobree
It’s not surprising, I suppose, to find that someone who authors and shares essays under the disguise of Pieces to Share is someone who admires essays, possibly more than any other form of writing. It’s not simply the ability to burble on about something that may of itself be quite inconsequential, but it’s the ability to make others want to keep reading; and, in particular, the skill of weaving more than one theme into a comprehensible narrative.
I guess I discovered the essay form in the writings of Walter Murdoch. Murdoch was a man for whom the word “distinguished” was surely coined. Born the fourteenth (and last!) child of a clergyman in a fishing village near Aberdeen in Scotland, he arrived with his migrant family in Melbourne, aged 10, in 1884. He attended Camberwell Grammar School, and Scotch College, and Ormond College at the University of Melbourne – gaining first class honours in philosophy and logic. He spent some years as a rural and suburban schoolteacher, then his first academic appointment as assistant lecturer in English at the University of Melbourne. He wrote a weekly essay column for The Argus from 1905. He was, in 1913, founding professor at the University of Western Australia. He contributed a fortnightly piece to the Western Australian for many years, and broadcast regularly from 1933. Later his column was syndicated in the Melbourne Herald and Weekly Times to a wide readership. Numerous volumes of his essays were published. Murdoch died in 1970, at age 96. My exposure to his newspaper columns and radio broadcasts extended through twenty or so of my growing-up years, and was reinforced in volumes of his collected essays.
His biographer, La Nauze, wrote: “No other writer in the history of Australian letters has built so wide a reputation on the basis of the essay as a form of communication.”
His biographer, La Nauze, wrote: “No other writer in the history of Australian letters has built so wide a reputation on the basis of the essay as a form of communication.”
The English essayists discussed in Bonamy Dobree’s book (were I to read them) would have a hard job in competing with Murdoch. Dobree (1891 to 1974) was Professor of English Literature at Leeds University for some 19 years until his retirement. His survey takes us from the mid-1500s to essayists alive at the time of writing. The roll-call is sparse, confirming that essay writing is rather a rarefied vocation – at least the published version of it. Most are well-known writers, although not necessarily well-known as essayists, and a recital here of names and dates would be a bit pointless without a short analysis of their attributes and influences, courtesy Bonamy Dobree. Instead I give you Dobree’s modern-day (that is 1940s) conclusions. The essay is the most adaptable form of writing, and it’s likely that essays will always be written. Their form will depend on the means of publication, and the reading public. Dobree sees the future as rosy, given the existence of the weeklies, the monthlies, and the quarterlies.
Notwithstanding the decline in the publication of literary periodicals, the future for essays is no doubt still rosy, because electronic media have massively widened the means of dissemination. The ability to self-publish has changed the dynamics for both the writer and the reader.
Last words to Dobree: “I hope that there will always be people who want to be intelligently amused, who like to have a silent conversation by the fireside with a friendly person who does not make too great demands upon their mental activity, and who will, as he talks, bring to being a literary object which is in itself a delight.”
Last words to Dobree: “I hope that there will always be people who want to be intelligently amused, who like to have a silent conversation by the fireside with a friendly person who does not make too great demands upon their mental activity, and who will, as he talks, bring to being a literary object which is in itself a delight.”
Gary Andrews
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