History – Page 13 – Boadicea's Chariot

Rote learning

Before the 11 plus our primary school classroom would be full of the sound of children’s voices chanting their times tables, and other important facts, such as length from inches up to miles, depths in fathoms, areas in hectares and acres, weights up to tons….but most of these facts are lost to me, partly I suppose because of decimalisation, negating the need to know in so much detail. I didn’t find rote learning a useful tool, quite often finding myself speaking the ‘Nine eights are…’ then mumbling the rest. I do know of course now know my most of my times tables and have strategies for checking my memory! What I remember from those classroom days are random things like the texture of the speckled paint, the smells, the anxieties, the friendship inconsistencies, the risk of having one’s head knocked sideways for not knowing the value of a minim….

I wonder if any of the Charioteers can remember the wordings for rest of these classroom chants…. this is to do with a poetry project I’m working on. Interweb searching has not yielded results!

And just to prettify the post, here is a picture. Continue reading “Rote learning”

Give me Liberty………

Yes, I know, it’s all about ships again. Liberty ships in this case. Last year I had a little field trip across the bay to Baltimore to see the USS John W. Brown, one of the last two surviving Liberty Ships in operation. She was built in Baltimore in 1942 and has been part of the city landscape for the last ten years or so. She is fully operational and certified for public use and steams up and down the east coast during the summer months. Here she is out chugging on the Chesapeake Bay.

Continue reading “Give me Liberty………”

The first idea is sometimes the best.

Returning from our boat trip in late last Summer, I only half seriously suggested we should take the boat to the Bahamas for the winter.
Well one thing led to another and the idea was shelved for 2013. The winter here has been brutal, record cold and record snow, another 8 inches overnight.
To this worker in the wilderness that trip does not seem quite so crazy today.

Gin and Fat.

Well this started out as a comment on Sipu’s recent post, then as usual it got so long and convoluted I decided it better belonged here.

A number of unforeseen consequences of Whitney’s cotton gin followed rapidly after its wider application. The rapid growth in cotton fibre production in the southern states was accompanied by a huge supply of cottonseed, for every bale of cotton (480 lbs) an astonishing 700 pounds of cottonseed were produced, most of it was dumped in the nearest river (gins were often water powered) or simply left on the ground to rot.

Continue reading “Gin and Fat.”

War and Gin

Had my father been alive, this month would have seen him celebrate his 100^th birthday. Of course 1914 is better remembered for being the year that The Great War commenced.

It was an earlier great war, what Southern States call, ‘The War of Northern Agression’ aka the American Civil War, that saw the birth of my grandfather, in November 1862; exactly one year before President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.

The Napoleonic Wars had not yet commenced when my great grandfather was born 220 years ago, in February 1794. However, they were well under way when, at the age of 16 he went off to fight with Wellington against the Corsican upstart. Much to his chagrin, my ancestor was wounded at the battle of Quatre Bras, which took place two days before Waterloo and thus was unable to take part in that more famous battle. Continue reading “War and Gin”

Memories of Greece 1963, pt. 4

By now we were old salts, so we could handle the long voyage from Rhodes to Iraklion in northern Crete with aplomb, almost able to ignore the loukoumia problem; but we were glad to disembark to the frantic accompaniment typical of every busy port we visited.

Our focus was to see the work of a famous alumnus of our college, Sir Arthur Evans, the pionering archaeologist who, from the start of the 20th C. first gave meaning to the ruins of the ‘Minoan’ civilisation; he named it after the mythical King Minos of ‘Minotaur’ fame. The fabled bull was a common feature of the frescoes he excavated and controversially restored in the reconstructed ‘palaces’ – probably a misnoma for rooms and streets occupied by more than just royalty.

Continue reading “Memories of Greece 1963, pt. 4”

Memories of Greece 1963, pt. 3

Rhodes was, and still is, a very pretty island, with wooded hills in the ‘interior’ and well-preserved old towns within ancient fortifications – including of course the two arms of Rhodos harbour where Colossus once bestrode the entrance. The three of us found a quiet corner on top of the city wall to make camp, conveniently situated for a water tap and even public toilets, a rarity in 1963; while below us the narrow streets were teeming with stall-holders and buyers of everything from local produce to car tyres, with fresh fish aplenty. Although it was of little use to us, with no means of cooking it!

A highlight of our visit was a bus-ride across the island which dropped us off at a valley called ‘Petaloudes’. Continue reading “Memories of Greece 1963, pt. 3”

Memories of Greece 1963, pt 2

The thing is, I was totally immersed in Ancient Greek language, literature and history at that time, having done my ‘public exam’ in Classics only a few months before. So to find myself setting foot in old Piræus was like coming home. It was a hot, bright, bustling harbour; vendors and hustlers meeting the ferry, children offering to dive for coins from the dock-side, delapidated vehicles of every kind, even some with engines. And livestock being herded all around, presumably to or from the markets. No exaggeration to say almost nothing had changed in 2,500 years.

The local youth hostel was by no means primitive though. In fact we made reservations for a month later, the night before the ferry left for Brindisi – but for accommodation on the roof this time; no sissy matresses for these lads! Because we already knew from the student grape-vine that spending good money on rooms was out of the question. It was going to be ships’ decks, roof-tops and beaches from now on, with our sleeping bags, no tents. Remember: it was July and August when the nights were warm and rarely wet. And nobody had even heard of a ban on sleeping rough in those days; it was just what less-affluent visitors did and we were made welcome wherever we laid our heads.

And we soon ‘did’ mainland Greece. Continue reading “Memories of Greece 1963, pt 2”

Memories of Greece 1963, pt 1

Is it 50 years ago? Can’t be. Yes, it is.

Steam Train the Flying Scotsman Leaving a Station, January 1963 Photographic Print

Two mates and I won college travel bursaries after our ‘first public exams’ – which in those days counted as ordinary degrees taken after 5 terms. Value: £36 each. So we planned a month away in the summer vacation – destination Greece via everywhere in between. It wasn’t called back-packing in those days; we were just travelling students, advised to sew Union Jacks on our rucksacks so that Johnny Foreigner wouldn’t mistake us for undesirables (!). Such innocent times! Continue reading “Memories of Greece 1963, pt 1”