The Joy of Six 1515

"We need to have the courage and vision to support the Jewish community without destroying a fundamental and necessary right. It is Jews who will ultimately be harmed too, as members of the UK population, if the right to protest is further eroded." Jo Glanville argues that banning pro-Palestine protest in the UK is no solution to antisemitism.

Glen O'Hara on the government's stealthy culling of Britain's universities: "This way, they get to make the whole sector smaller with little political pain on their part. They can dump responsibility on bad managers, risk-taking, too much borrowing. The dark side of Higher Education’s pain and toxicity will dribble out on the local and regional news, all the better for voters not to join the dots. The rundown will look piecemeal, disorganised, random."

Helen Currie, Irene Gregory-Eaves and Steven Cooke are our guides to research on how to build cities for wildlife, not just people.

"The film interviews landowners such as Francis Fulford, who has long been the media’s favourite outspoken reactionary toff, a sort of posh version of Viz’s Farmer Palmer, snarling “Get off my land”. There are other, more thoughtful landowners, including Hugh Inge-Innes-Lillingston, who cheerfully admits how silly his name is, and is open to developing new ideas about managed access." Peter Bradshaw has been to see Our Land (2026).

"Just one thing remained to be done before the 1923 FA Cup Final could take place on 28 April. The structure of the stadium had to be tested, to make sure that it was safe for spectators to use. All 1,200 workmen on the site had to march round the stadium as a group, visiting all parts of the terraces and stands. Following instructions and in unison, they had to stamp their feet, lean against the safety rails, and sit down then up on the seats, to recreate the effect of the crowds at an actual event." Philip Grant looks back to the construction of Wembley Stadium.

Matthew Lyons reviews Peter Ackroyd's biography of W.H. Auden.

A BFI Q&A with members of the cast of Oliver! (1968)

This session was recorded in 2012, three years before Ron Moody died. As well as Moody, who played Fagin in the 1968 film of Oliver! having first created the role on stage, it features Kenneth Cranham, who was Noah Claypole, and Mark Lester, who was Oliver himself.

As Kenneth Cranham says, it was Moody's reinvention of Fagin that made the film's worldwide success possible by moving the story away from the medieval antisemitism that Dickens drew upon. I wrote about this aspect of the novel in a book chapter a few years ago - there a short extract in another post on this blog.

But then Dickens long ago lost control of Oliver Twist. Such is the power of the novel that it has entered folklore and, like a folk tale, it now changes with every telling of its story. I wrote more about this in 2015 when Ron Moody died.

Lord Harborough's Curve and Oscar Wilde's first biographer

Lord Harborough's Curve: photo by John Sutton

Many railway enthusiasts will know the story of the Battle of Saxby and Lord Harborough's Curve, told here by the Leicestershire Museum Collections site:

In mid-November 1844, railway surveyors were making their way slowly through the Leicestershire countryside. George Stephenson had sketched out his preferred route for the Syston & Peterborough Railway and now they were taking the levels. 

Four miles east of Melton, near the village of Saxby, they reached the estate of Lord Harborough, whose ancestral home of Stapleford Hall stood nearby. His Lordship hated the very idea of railways and had put up signs warning the surveyors to keep off his land. 

The railway men attempted to avoid causing offence by following the towpath of the Oakham Canal, but this added insult to injury, as Lord Harborough was a shareholder in the canal, which faced ruin if the railway was built. His servants and estate workers set about removing the surveyors by force, leading to four days of fighting between the two sides.

Sidetracked adds some colour:

Pistols were allegedly drawn by surveyors, clubs and iron pointed staves carried and bare fists used.  Artillery was even mentioned! The estate Fire Engine was deployed as a primitive water cannon and the railway company was threatened by letter that:

"We have barricaded the towing  path and have in readiness a few cannons from Lord Harborough’s yacht. If you force us to use them, as a last resort, the blood will be upon your hands."

Lord Harborough won his dispute with the railway company, so its engineers were forced to construct a tight curve in order to avoid his land. "Lord Harborough's Curve", as it was known, remained in use until 1892, when a route through Stapleford Park was finally built. You can see the wooded embankment of Lord Harborough's Curve in the photograph above. But the title died with him, as he did not father any legitimate children.

In another part of the forest, I have noticed that whenever I search for pictures of Market Harborough in photo libraries, portraits of a writer called Robert Harborough Sherard come up. He was a friend of Oscar Wilde and his first biographer.

Sherard's father was the Revd Bennet Sherard Calcraft Kennedy, who turns out to have been one of three illegitimate children that our Lord Harborough had with an actress called Emma Love. Through his mother, Sherard was also a great grandson of the poet William Wordsworth.

Sadly, he is not an attractive figure. His books on the poor of England generally lay the blame for their sufferings at the door of Jewish landlords.

Still, we have our Trivial Fact of the Day: Lord Harborough who won the Battle of Saxby was the grandfather of Oscar Wilde's first biographer.

The Joy of Six 1304

Peter Oborne reviews Sayeeda Warsi's memoirs: "For many years, Warsi devoted her life to the UK Conservative party. When she joined it two decades ago, it seemed to embody everything she believed in: family values, decency, tolerance, fairness, the rule of law. Slowly, the UK's first female Muslim cabinet minister's eyes opened. She came to realise that it wasn’t like that at all. In Muslims Don't Matter, she records the betrayals, the bullying, the abuse, the insults." 

"The nation’s bank clerks showed their gratitude for their extra days of rest by subscribing to a testimonial for Lubbock, who used their gift to fund two school scholarships." Kathryn Rix introduces us to Sir John Lubbock, father of modern bank holidays.

Will Young talks to Byline Times about the pressures of fame and the stories he believes are still to come to light about reality TV music shows. Me? I voted for Darius.

A London Inheritance reads London After Dark by Fabian of the Yard.

"Ellis’s torch could not illuminate the railway bridge, but he feared the worst. The railway line was about fifty metres from where he had stopped, so, leaping a barbed wire fence, he sprinted to the track and ran towards the locomotive, waving his torch." André Brett tells the story of New Zealand's worst every trailway disaster, which took place on Christmas Eve 1953.

"Homes would be adorned with ivy, holly and mistletoe, as well as laurel, conifers and bay. Yule logs burned and tapers were lit. Carolling was a popular activity that involved dancing as well as singing. Gifts would be exchanged during the festive season, but more typically at New Year rather than on Christmas day." Diane Watt on Christmas in the middle ages.

To him that hath shall be given: Hilaire Belloc's Mr Petre

Our leaders' appetite for the good things in life, and getting them for free, has put me in mind of a satirical novel I read years ago - Hilaire Belloc's Mr Petre, which was published in 1925.

My hazy recollection was that the hero was taken to be a rich man and so was never asked to pay for anything. Showered with gifts, soon he really was rich.

A contemporary review from the Manchester Guardian fleshes out the plot:

The story begins in 1953 with the return of Mr Peter Blagden from New York, and for a page or two the irony seems to be held in reserve; we have time to think that Mr Belloc could, if he would, give us a very interesting "ordinary" novel. But Mr Blagden loses his memory completely, and from no particular cause; chances combine to identify him with Mr Petre, the great American millionaire. 

So he becomes involved in enormous transactions, and on the strength of an occasional "Exactly" or "I quite understand" his reputation as the most astute man of his time becomes assured. He puts up at the Splendide (or, as the proof-reader leaves it on one occasion the Savoy), and so courted is he that he must bolt to the country sometimes for breathing space.

If he buys everybody follows, and his chance expression of opinion breaks up a luncheon party, everybody rushing for the telephone. Perhaps the loss of memory is a little arbitrary in its working, but it is a good device for the display of Mr Belloc's scornful irony. 

For, of course, everything that Mr Petre says and does is idiotic. A man reputed to have fifty million pounds must be a master-mind, and financiers feel that they must crawl before him or be ruined.

Belloc was Liberal MP for Salford South between 1906 and 1910. Though he was a raving antisemite, his book of political theory The Servile State is worth seeking out. I think of it when I read that the government is to give itself powers to investigate the bank accounts of people receiving welfare benefits.

Another feature of Mr Petre is that, according to that review, it was illustrated by Belloc's great friend G.K. Chesterton.

These days we think of illustrations as suitable for children's books but not fiction written for adults. Yet some of the greatest 19th-century novels were illustrated.

And in Vanity Fair, where the text says one thing and Thackeray's own drawings suggest something more sinister is taking place, we instinctively trust the picture over the words.