Victorian schoolboys were not at all Victorian

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Here's more grist for my theory that the Victorians were far less Victorian than we imagine.

In Uppingham the other week I picked up a copy of Gillian Avery's Victorian People. Here she is on the Victorian schoolboy:

Much was to be written of godliness and manliness in reference to the education of Victorian boys. But manliness as understood by the early and mid-Victorians did not include reserve and a stiff upper lip. This was a much later development. Both in reality and in fiction, there were frequent, unashamed displays of emotion in boys' schools. 

Boys wept and flung their arms around each other as they protested eternal friendship; they threw themselves on the ground and clasped their masters' knees as they expressed their penitence, the schoolboys at Wellington wept as they heard their headmaster's last sermon. Master and pupil would kneel together to pray for guidance, a headmaster and his staff sometimes wept during staff meetings if there was a difference of opinion, friendships between boys between master and pupil were of an intensity that would now be considered dangerous.

This must be borne in mind by the modern reader of Tom Brown and Eric. The scenes where the dying Arthur persuades Tom to give up the use of cribs in preparing his Latin; or where Eric, on his knees, "his blue eyes drowned with tears," implores the headmaster to show leniency towards his friend, are not extravagant inventions of the writers concerned, but were perfectly possible in the emotional climate of the mid-19th century.

The caste of mind we think of as Victorian did not flourish until the later years of the queen's reign and it reached its fullest development well into the 20th century. I suspect the British stiff upper lip reached peak rigidity as a reaction to the unthinkable losses of the First World War.

And if private schools were designed to produce men fitted to keeping up the British Empire, they went on doing so for years after than empire had ceased to exist.

Victoria reigned for almost 64 years, so applying her name as an adjective to describe a rapidly changing society across that period is a foolish thing to do. It's almost as silly as using the term "Elizabethan" to describe British society between 1952 and 2022 would be.

Alan Moore and Iain Sinclair in conversation

When I first discovered Iain Sinclair he was obscure enough for me to feel I had him largely to myself. That notion encouraged was by the fact that his early novels – my first was White Chappell Scarlet Tracings – were published in Uppingham by Mike Goldmark.

But that was 40 years ago. Now psychogeography is no longer a novel idea and its big beasts are getting distinctly long in the tooth. So this conversation between Sinclair and Alan Moore, who has fished in the same waters, has a valedictory touch.

I used to count Moore, along with Jeremy Seabrook and Ray Gosling, as part of a post-war Northampton working-class renaissance. Now I've discovered Henry Bird, I may have to move back the date of its commencement.

Thanks to John Rogers for posting this – you can find the earlier video he refers to on this blog too. John has a Patreon account to support his videos and blogs at The Lost Byway.

What Once Was finds an abandoned brickworks in Deep Rutland

Another noseh with the very Leicestershire Steve, who describes it on YouTube like this:

In this video, we explore an eerie abandoned brickworks hidden deep in the countryside. With no records, no signs, and zero history online, this forgotten site is a true mystery. Nature has begun to reclaim the decaying buildings, leaving behind haunting scenes of industrial ruin.

Join us as we walk through rusted machinery, collapsing walls, and the eerie silence of a place time forgot. Whether you’re into urban exploration (urbex), abandoned places, or industrial decay, this location will leave you wondering what stories it once held.

Like, comment and subscribe, my people.

Now The Bonkers Arms is in The Notswolds

Remember The Notswolds? There's another article on the concept, this time in the Evening Standard:

The Welland Valley is part of an area often dubbed 'the Notswolds' on account of it being as beautiful as the Cotswolds, but without the price tag. 

Residents of this stretch of south Leicestershire and north Northamptonshire flanking the River Welland will tell you there’s no comparison, though - it’s more picturesque, more accessible and more affordable.

As to exactly where the region is:

Debate rages over exactly where the Welland Valley starts and finishes, but the stretch between Market Harborough and Harringworth represents the "heart" of this beautiful area to Ellie.

Ellie is Ellie Upall from Three Goats, a company that owns three pubs in this part of the world.

One of them is mentioned in the article:

Convinced of its potential as a getaway spot for capital-dwellers, the Three Goats has invested £3m in The Nevill Arms, a boutique country hotel and pub in Medbourne, one of the Valley’s most iconic villages. 

"Medbourne epitomises this region," she says. "It has a brook, lots of stone and thatched houses, a village hall, a shop-cum-post office, a pre-school, a church and a sports club. 

"There’s a strong sense of community and many residents work from home or commute to London. Having Market Harborough and Uppingham nearby is a big bonus, plus you don’t have to travel too far to be in Leicester or Nottingham."

Ellie has noticed an upturn in visitors to The Nevill Arms on "scouting missions" ahead of potentially relocating here. "They’re always surprised how easy it is to get to," she says.

If, as most scholars maintain, Nevil Holt Hall is the model for Bonkers Hall, then Medbourne must be "the village" Lord Bonkers talks about and The Nevill Arms must be The Bonkers Arms.*

Of course, I was on to The Notswolds before it was fashionable. In a Guardian article from 2008, I quoted W.G. Hoskins on eastern Leicestershire: "a landscape of sharp hills, woodland, stone-built villages and many fine churches".

And I quoted Peter Ashley, who is mostly on Instagram these days:

On his blog Unmitigated England, the writer and photographer Peter Ashley describes one of his favourite Midlands locations, the lane that circles Cranoe church in a hairpin bend as it drops into the Welland valley: "I once used to say to companions on this road 'Look at this. You could be in Dorset. Or Devon. You'd never think you were in Leicestershire.'" 

But he has managed to raise his consciousness: "I have now realised what a fatuous remark this is. This is Leicestershire, and in fact very typical of the eastern side of the county."

* To be honest, I envisage the Hall being closer to the village than this. Bonkers Hall has an impressive drive, but I'm sure the pub is no more than a pleasant stroll away if you nip out of a back gate. The fact that there is is a secret passage from the Hall that comes out in the cellar of The Bonkers Arms strengthens the case for their not being far apart. A visit to The Bell Inn at East Langton, handy for J.W. Logan's home at East Langton Grange, will give you an idea of what I have in mind.

Rigby Graham at the Goldmark gallery in Uppingham

The obituary for Rigby Graham quoted at the beginning of this video describes him as an "irascible painter whose idiosyncratic landscapes are among the 20th century's best".

Though I met Graham as a teenager, I never experienced that irascibility, but I agree with the obituarist's judgement of his work. I wonder that Graham is not better known, even wildly popular.

The best place to see his work is at Goldmark gallery, which is also one of my lost bookshops of Uppingham.

In the video, the gallery's owner Mike Goldmark, who published Iain Sinclair's early novels at Uppingham, talks about Graham, his art and his working methods.

Rupert Matthews: The lights are on but no one's at home

Rupert Matthews, the Conservative police and crime commissioner for Leicestershire and Rutland, has paid £250 to put up a Victorian-style police station blue lamp in Uppingham.

"The blue lamp is an iconic piece of British policing history and symbolises not only law, order and justice, but safety and sanctuary," he told BBC News.

Trouble is, there is no police station in Uppingham, and the inhabitants of Rutland's second city are far from impressed.

Some of them spoke to Lincs Online:

Uppingham resident Dan Marshall, 45, said: "There is a big difference between a local bobby occasionally using an office to do admin and a police station.

"The issue I have is this lamp, which is lit up at night, gives the false impression that it is a manned police station when it isn’t." 

Another local said: “What happens when someone genuinely needs help and tries to enter the police station at night and finds it’s closed? It’s a gimmick, it’s no more a police station than my two-year-old’s toy police car can chase after criminals.”

I rather lost touch with Mr Matthews's activities while I was caring for my mum, but he used to be a reliable source of stories for this blog.

You can find those stories on my Rupert Matthews label, though sadly the video of him introducing the course he taught for the International Metaphysical University has been taken down.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

The Rutland Bookshop in Uppingham is about to reopen

Good news from Uppingham, where the Rutland Bookshop is about to reopen.

A note on the shop's Facebook page says:

I am very pleased to note I am re-opening from Thursday 16th November.  Opening times will be Thursday - Saturday 1pm - 5pm.  

To welcome customers old and new I will be offering a 20% discount on all stock for the rest of November.

Looking forward to seeing you - good books and a cheerful chat guaranteed.

You can find the Rutland Bookshop at 13 High Street West in Uppingham.

I visited the town in August and blogged about all the second-hand bookshops it used to have. Now one of them is to resume trading.

The lost bookshops of Uppingham

I visited Uppingham - Rutland's second city - on Thursday. When I came to file away the photos I had taken, I was surprised to find I was last in the town in December 2016.

Because Uppingham used to be a town of second-hand bookshops, with the result that I went there regularly. On Thursday I found none of them still trading.

The photograph above shows Don Paddy's, a wine bar and coffee house on the Market Place. But I can remember when the first floor of the building was occupied by a bookshop. And if you doubt me, a little exploration of the area will yield this frieze of books, that marks what used to be the rear entrance to the shop.

Goldmark's is still there in Orange Street, but no longer sells books from its extensive premises. These days it concentrates on selling 20th-century British art and is well worth a visit if that's your taste. Mike Goldmark, its owner. has also been a publisher and brought out Iain Sinclair's early novels.

There used to be another bookshop in Orange Street and, after taking local advice, I can say it was in this modern building. I remember fishing a Roger Fulford paperback on Queen Victoria's Wicked Uncles out of the bargain box here once.

I looked for Staniland Books in High Street East, where it had moved from Stamford in 2011 or thereabouts, only to find the shop empty. The photo below was taken when it was still very much open.

On to High Street West and what used to be Forest Books, a shop that used to go back and back forever. It was the people in the print shop who told me where the other shop in Orange Street used to be.

They also told me of another shop in Uppingham that used to sell second-hand books and records that I can't place, so this post is clearly not a comprehensive list.

And, a few doors down, I wasn't surprised to find that The Rutland Bookshop wasn't trading. Over the years, a fair percentage of my collections of T.H. White and Richard Jefferies came from trips up the narrow staircases to its upper floors.

But let's end on a hopeful note: this sign was in the shop's window.

Perchance it is not dead but sleepeth.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: 3/6 a bottle from Boot’s in Uppingham

Not only was there really a Wise Woman of Wing, but legend persists that it was indeed possible to buy her pills and potions in Boot's of Uppingham well into the 20th century.

Friday

Despite the Wise Woman of Wing’s excellent embrocation (3/6 a bottle from Boot’s in Uppingham), I will admit to being a little on the stiff side these days to have made Gareth Southgate’s final 26. So it was little hardship for me to announce my personal sporting boycott of Qatar, but cricket is another matter. 

For some years now my own eleven has opened its season with a chilly April fixture against a team selected by the President of China. Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that the Chinese government’s persecution of the Uighurs leaves me with no choice but to abandon the fixture. 

Today, therefore, I have written to the Chinese Ambassador withdrawing my invitation. There will no Lord Bonkers’ XI v. President Xi’s XI next spring.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Earlier this week...

• No camel could have sacrificed his penis in a finer cause
• "A mulligatawny is pleasantly warming at this time of year"
• "What about the Young People?"
• The Marxist Groupuscules XI

Lib Dems win Uppingham by-election as Rutland's Tories implode

Forget the Red Wall and the Blue Wall: Rutland is where the action is tonight.

Stephen Lambert has won the Rutland County Council by-election in the Uppingham ward for the Liberal Democrats.

The result:

Lib Dems - 661
Independent - 327
Conservative - 206
Reform - 36

The by-election was caused by the resignation of a Green councillor.

Meanwhile Rutland's Conservative group has continued to fall apart, with three more of its remaining members leaving.

They included the council's leader Oliver Hemsley, who has issued a rather rambling statement saying he intends to stay in this post as an unaligned Independent. As far as one can tell, he is frustrated by the level of funding Rutland receives from central government.

At Rutland's 2019 all-out council elections, the Conservatives won 16 of the 27 seats. Today, thanks to by-election defeats and defections, they are down to 6.

Rutland County Council Tory group splits: Councillors cannot support national party "on moral grounds"

Three Conservative councillors on Rutland County Council - Gordon Brown, June Fox and Nick Begy - have left their party's group to form one of their own: Together4Rutland. The new group has also attracted Paul Ainsley, who was elected as a Conservative but more recently sat as an unaligned Independent.

The Together4Rutland website says:

In recent months, the three councillors have become increasingly concerned with the direction of travel of the Conservative group, and as backbenchers have felt marginalised, finding it harder to provide the support for the residents for whom they took up public service to help.

In addition, they cannot continue to support the national Conservative party on moral grounds, with Ministers and senior MPs having lost the respect of the public and failing to recognise the serious financial position of Rutland County Council caused by a lack of government funding compounded by additional burdens from new legislation.

The new Group feel that now is no time for party politics in local government in Rutland and wants the opportunity to openly question policy which impacts all residents and not just follow the Conservative party line.

At Rutland's 2019 all-out council elections, the Conservatives won 16 of the 27 seats. Today, thanks to by-election defeats and defections, they are down to 9.

As far as I can work out, the political balance of the council is now: Conservatives 9, Independent group 5, Liberal Democrats 4, Together4Rutland 4, Independents (unaligned) 2, Green 1, Labour1.

There is one vacancy, which will be filled by a by-election in Uppingham on 5 May. The Liberal Democrat candidate is Stephen Lambert.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: "A haughty old boot"

You know, I sometimes suspect that relations between the Bonkers and the Dukes of Rutland fall some way short of cordiality.

Friday

Back in Rutland, we are still racking our brains to solve the problem of the blocked canal. Hard as we try, the transhipment docks behind Oakham Quay continue to fill and no solution emerges. 

Really, if it were not for the memoirs of a previous MP for this part of the world (I do not mean my own 20-volume work), I should despair. 

Fortunately, Alan Duncan has published Noises Off and given us all a Jolly Good Laugh. He details a row they had in The Falcon at Uppingham – a pleasant watering hole, but it’s not the Bonkers’ Arms –  with the Dowager Duchess of Rutland and describes her as “a haughty old boot”. Reader, I roared.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Earlier this week...

• His spaceport on the outskirts of Thurso
• I have no memory of their Landslide from 1906
• A party of well-meaning water voles
• One of the great sites of London

Six of the Best 963

Jonathan Chait offers a way of understanding Donald Trump: "He is a brilliant con man, who has, throughout his career in business and politics alike, honed the singular skill of identifying marks and exploiting them with spectacular lies."

"Senator Bankhead, the uncle of Tallulah, managed to get a bill drafted in Congress which would have authorised $1 billion of stamp scrip to be issued the following year." David Boyle girds up to make the case for local money again.

Jessica Grose says that though devices for tracking children calm parents' fears, they hamper the children's development.

"'Sport confirmed that in England, you could do as you pleased,' he writes, and to this end he takes us on a dizzying journey from the bull-runners of Stamford to the public school cricketers of ­Uppingham, from the militaristic pomp of the fox hunt to the bloodied bare-knuckle heroes of the prize-fighting ring, from the Peterloo ­massacre of 1819 to the stirrings of modern football." Jonathan Liew reviews This Sporting Life: Sport and Liberty in England, 1760-1960 by Robert Colls, who taught me on my Master's course at Leicester many years ago.

Adrian York celebrates Kate Bush's election to fellowship of the Ivors Academy, the independent professional association UK for music creators.

Will Carr looks at Anthony Burgess as a Mancunian.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: From Whissendine to Essendine

You have to hand it to the old boy: he called this one right.

Wednesday

Never mind Bournemouth: the talk of the Bonkers’ Arms when I call in this morning is the rumour that Boris Johnson is to desert Uxbridge and stand for Rutland and Melton instead.

One regular tells me the prime minister is already known to have fathered children from Whissendine to Essendine; another has it on good authority that he has been taking technology lessons in the red-light district of Uppingham; a third tells me Johnson has given the address of the crime correspondent of the High Leicestershire Radical to a school friend so he can have him beaten up.

By the time I return to the pub this evening it has been settled by the regulars that this rumour is what the young people call ‘fake news’.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary:

• The Well-Behaved Orphans have been carefully measured
• Buckled inside the large wicker hamper

Rutland vs Ronald McDonald

BBC News reports on McDonald's bid to open a drive-through outlet on the outskirts of Oakham, the county town of Rutland:

"It's such a small town to have a McDonald's," said Gaz Ali, who has managed Indian takeaway Eastern Delights for 20 years. "And at the end of the day it's going to bring riff-raff."

Rutland is wealthy, but one of the nice things about Oakham is that it is a proper working town. It's not twee.

The county's second town, Uppingham, dominated by its public school, would rather like to be twee. But it falls well short - I mean, Iain Sinclair's early novels were published there.

One of the abiding concerns  of small-town shopkeepers is to keep competition at bay.

When I was a councillor in Market Harborough more than one older resident told me that the former urban district council, which was dominated by the town's business interest, had actively dissuaded national chains from coming to the town.

The worry was that they would provide competition for existing traders and - horror!- put up wages.

So this is a battle where I have some sympathy for both sides. I shall not be heartbroken if McDonald's does come to Rutland.

Forget Brexit: What about the threat to Uppingham's only bank?

The group Uppingham First has lived up to its name in a letter to Theresa May.

It hasn't quite demanded she "puts Brexit on the sidelines to intervene before the last bricks and mortar bank in the town closes on April 26," as the Leicester Mercury says. But it has come close to it.

The paper quotes from the group's letter:

"This is a critical blow to the town’s economy, given that our post office building is already a busy place, does not have mobility impaired access and the nearest Barclays branch is a substantial car or bus journey away. 

"A financial transaction centre of some kind will, however, be vital to the town’s economy and future way of life. 

"We recognise and understand your preoccupation with Brexit and its implications for the country. However, the issue of vanishing small town banks is equally urgent."

It's all a bit Ealing Comedy, but the decline of banks in small towns is a problem.

There is, incidentally, still a branch of the Bank of Rutland in the village at the gates of Bonkers Hall, but I am not sure I can recommend using its cashpoint,

See Rutland in 1957

Click on the image above to view this film on the British Film Institute site.

There's no commentary, but you will see Uppingham and Oakham, Stoke Dry church, the sculptures at Exton (which was more than I could when I went there) and the turf maze at Wing.

A Weston by Welland road sign

At least it could still be found in that Northamptonshire village when I photographed it in 2013.

Armed police on the streets of Leicester

There are no immediate plans to deploy military personnel on to the streets of Leicester, Leicestershire or Rutland, the Leicester Mercury reported yesterday.

I can't speak for Uppingham or Oakham, but I did not see any troops in Leicester today.

What I did see were police armed with automatic weapons.

If this was a response to the level of terrorist threat, then fair enough. But if it was meant to be reassuring, then in my case it failed.

I suspect it is a generational thing. I am old enough to imagine I remember the England of Gideon and Dixon of Dock Green - a country where we were proud that our police did not carry guns.

Seeing those weapons just reminds me how much things have changed. (Somehow the decades of Irish Republican terrorist attacks on the mainland get forgotten in this reaction.)

Someone younger than me, without that baggage, would have taken it more in their stride or even have had the reaction the authorities desire.

But these things are very personal. I work with someone who grew up in Northern Ireland. He says the sight of armed police makes him feel nostalgic.

The stables at Uppingham station

The London and North Western Railway Society tells us the history of Uppingham station:

The London & North Western Railway opened this short branch in 1894. Five trains were provided daily all connecting with services to and from Rugby. Passenger services were withdrawn in 1960 but the station remained open for school specials until the line closed to all traffic in 1964.

It also says

The site of Uppingham station is now a small industrial estate but the goods shed and stables survive.

I went to look for them after travelling to Uppingham on the 747 bus. I didn't find the goods shed - it may not still exist - but the photograph above shows the former stables.