Before and After the Armada - by Ann Swinfen

Battle of the Armada

The defeat of the enormous and well-trained Spanish Armada fleet by the smaller English fleet in the English Channel during the summer of 1588 is probably one of the most famous naval battles in history, along with Salamis, Lepanto and Trafalgar, not least because the outcome hung in the balance until a strong southwest wind drove the Spanish ships into the North Sea.

As the English said afterwards, in thankfulness mixed with perhaps a touch of complacency, ‘God blew his winds and they were scattered’.

However, events before and after the great battle, which culminated off Gravelines, are rather less well known. Elsewhere in this blog I have written about the retaliatory expedition by England against Spain in 1589, known as the Counter Armada (http://bit.ly/1DNSaAB) but other events surrounding this iconic date are interesting.

 

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester

Elizabeth’s beloved Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, had strong connections with the Dutch House of Orange and with the Low Countries. He was active in persuading the English government to support the United Provinces in their struggle against their Spanish overlords in the Low Countries, who persecuted the Dutch Protestants, and he served for some years as governor-general there. Leicester’s intentions were excellent, but his dealings with the Dutch were not always tactful, although the two nations were united in their Protestant faith and their hatred of Spain.

Leading the Spanish army in their north European territories was the Duke of Parma, a skilled and experienced commander, the greatest general of his day, who totally outclassed Leicester. In battle after battle, the combined English and Dutch forces were defeated or just managed to hold back the Spanish. In one, the battle of Zutphen in 1586, Leicester’s nephew, the gifted and much-loved Sir Philip Sidney, was fatally wounded, dying on 17 October, not quite 32 years old.

 

Sir Philip Sidney

Leicester remained in the Low Countries, although relations with the Dutch leaders were becoming strained. His original principal ally, William of Orange, charismatic leader of the United Dutch, had been assassinated by a Spaniard in 1584, and Leicester himself may have begun to suffer from ill health. (He was to die in 1588, shortly after the defeat of the Armada.) His position was further undermined in late 1586 by Elizabeth’s antagonism to his planned extension of the military campaigns, and her refusal to provide adequate finance for his dwindling army, which was short of rations, materiel, and pay.

Matters came to a head at the siege of Sluys. This vital deep-water port on the Channel was in the hands of the United Provinces, but was eyed greedily by the Duke of Parma, who laid siege to it on 12 June, 1587. King Philip of Spain had long been planning a combined naval and land-force invasion of England. The port of Sluys would provide an essential piece in the invasion plan.

 

Siege of Sluys 1587

The garrison at Sluys was provided by an English regiment, commanded by Sir Roger Williams, together with Dutch allies. Williams was a Welshman, an experienced soldier (later to write a book on military theory) and a determined Protestant. Leicester himself valued him highly. Williams and his soldiers made a courageous stand against Parma, but the odds were against them. Having cut off Sluys from all supply routes by land or sea, the Spanish began their bombardment on 24 June. The garrison was short of food, but, even more dangerously, short of gunpowder and shot. They fought valiantly until all their supplies were exhausted, leaving them helpless. On 4 August, they were forced to surrender.

 

Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma

Parma permitted the defenders an honourable withdrawal, but the soldiers had suffered terribly. Of the survivors, it is estimated that some seven hundred were seriously wounded. Conveyed back to England, the injured soldiers packed out London’s hospitals (an episode included in my novel The Enterprise of England.) The defeat at Sluys, the number of wounded, and the loss of this crucial port to the Spanish was the cause of serious demoralisation in England.

 

Armada signal station in Devon

Thanks partly to poor communications between the Spanish invading navy and the Spanish army stationed in the Low Countries, Philip of Spain’s intended two-pronged attack on England failed, and Sluys did not, after all, play a major part in the conflict the following year. His intention, planned on paper in faraway Spain, was for his navy to cripple the English fleet, then convey his army across the Channel in barges to carry out a land invasion, marching north from the south coast to seize London. (A remarkably similar operation, in the opposite direction, to the D-Day landings nearly four hundred years later.)

 

Seventh day of the Armada battle

The Spanish Armada was defeated, its ships scattered, the Spanish army still confined to the Low Countries. England could celebrate. And did. Church bells were rung. Services of thanksgiving were held. Bonfires were lit on street corners throughout London and other towns. And no doubt a good many citizens passed the night away at drunken parties.

But that was not quite the end of the story.

The English fleet returned, bearing the heroes, the soldiers and sailors, who had saved England from invasion. But while the civilians celebrated, the men on the ships waited. And waited. Where was the pay they had been promised? Where, indeed, was the food to feed them? Supplies ran out. No one seemed to have planned for this. No one was prepared to take responsibility for them. It was not the first time, nor would it be the last, when a returning victorious army was to prove a neglected embarrassment.

The men remained on the ships, many of them tied up at Deptford, and they began to fall ill. And then to die. Men who seemed healthy enough one day would not rise the following morning, having died inexplicably in the night. Others would collapse suddenly and without warning. Some terrible disease was rife amongst the men, and in panic the authorities refused to allow them to land. It is now believed to have been both typhus and ‘the bloody flux’ (dysentery). This may have saved civilian lives, but it meant that the very men who had fought and saved the country were left to starve and die of disease. In their droves. This was the discreditable end to the Armada story.

Sadly, it was not unique.

Ann Swinfen

http://www.annswinfen.com

Playing Blind Man's Buff - researching the world of the war-blinded by Christina Koning

Most writers of fiction, historical or otherwise, like to set themselves challenges - whether it’s delving into the near or distant past, researching aspects of a skill outside their usual frame of reference (loading a nineteenth century rifle; flying an early twentieth century aeroplane), or mastering the nuances of behaviour and speech of an unfamiliar world. I’ve done my share of all of these. But I can honestly say that nothing has presented me with so many difficulties and potential pitfalls as writing from the point of view of a blind man - which I’ve had to do for my last two books (Line of Sight, and Game of Chance), and the one I’m currently working on (Time of Flight). I hasten to add that it wasn’t mere perversity which made me choose a blinded veteran of the First World War as the hero of my series of 1920s detective stories. 

My character, Frederick Rowlands, was inspired by my grandfather, Charles Thompson, who was blinded at Ypres in 1917 at the age of twenty-seven, and later trained as a telephonist at St Dunstan’s, the institute for the war-blinded, which celebrates its centenary this year. I always knew I wanted to write about Charles, and this gave me my opportunity. It also meant I had to do quite a bit of research - not only into the history of the late 1920s and early 1930s, but also into the day-to-day realities of coping with blindness.

I was fortunate in having access to some very good books on the subject - many of which were lent to me by Bill Weisblatt, the father of a friend of mine, and a former Treasurer of St Dunstan’s. Over the forty-odd years he spent in the job, Bill had amassed a fine collection of memoirs by distinguished St Dunstaners, as well as more general books on the history of this remarkable organisation. Of these, the one to which I had the most frequent recourse (and of which I myself have a copy), is Ian Fraser’s wonderful account of his time at St Dunstan’s, which he joined in 1916 as a newly blinded young man of eighteen, before taking over as the organisation’s head at the age of twenty-four, following the untimely death of its founder, Sir Arthur Pearson. Here is Fraser (or Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, to give him his full title) on his first impressions of St Dunstan’s:

‘I could hear that the hall inside was large, and there seemed to be a lot of people moving very quickly and surely about… The whole hall was carpeted, but paths of linoleum ran through the carpets to help us to walk about… Blind men who were familiar with the place moved with some speed and great certainty. Some whistled or sang out to announce their approach, others just brushed past.’

Here he points up the importance of hearing to the blind:

‘I learnt to make use of all sorts of sounds that I had not bothered to hear before. The difference in echo when going from a room into a corridor, or into another room; the ticking of a clock (usually indicating the mantelpiece); the crackling a fire in winter, or the sounds of birds though an open window in summer - these are some of the sounds that only a blind man needs to hear to form a picture of his surroundings.’

Adding wryly that, contrary to popular supposition, ‘A blind man’s ears do not become sharper - there is no increase in the acuity of his reception of sound-waves. But if the sense of hearing is considered to include the interpretation of sounds, it is certainly improved by the loss of sight…’

Because Fraser was himself having to come to terms with blindness - having to re-learn, not only basic skills such as getting dressed, and shaving himself (‘I have tried various kinds of razor, including safety and electric, but I still use a cut-throat today’), but also having to acquire more specialised skills such as reading Braille - his account has a powerful immediacy. With its wry humour, complete absence of self-pity, and the sheer quality of its writing, this book (My Story of St Dunstan’s, 1961) and its predecessor (Whereas I was Blind, 1942) became an essential source for my story of a war veteran struggling to adjust to life in a sighted world.

Other books in Bill’s collection - which also includes some fine memoirs by veterans of the Second World War - are several about the history of St Dunstan’s. These describe the setting up of the organisation by Arthur Pearson, newspaper proprietor and publishing magnate, who was himself blind from glaucoma. In 1915, after visiting a blinded Belgian soldier in a London military hospital, Pearson resolved to establish a hostel for the rehabilitation of ex-servicemen who had lost their sight in battle. The first premises were a house in Bayswater Hill, which became the Hostel for Blinded Soldiers and Sailors; later, as numbers grew, the hostel moved to a larger property, in Regent’s Park, lent for the purpose by the American financier, Otto Kahn. In this elegant Regency mansion, surrounded by fifteen acres of grounds, men blinded and traumatised by shell fire were given the chance to recover, and to learn the skills which would enable them to face life in the outside world again.

Since most of them were young and fit, their rehabilitation included a lot of sport - rowing, cycling, walking, running (with a sighted guide), football (as played in the 2012 Paralympics - using a ball with a bell inside it), and tug-of-war. My grandfather was a keen rower, winning several medals and cups - which I still have - for this most energetic of sports. Here he is (centre of back row), with the St Dunstan’s team in 1918, proudly displaying their ‘haul’ of silver trophies. Unfortunately, neither of the smiling V.A.D.s in the photograph is my grandmother, Sheila, but the couple did meet at St Dunstan’s - my grandmother acting as ‘cox’, as Charles rowed her around the lake in Regent’s Park.

Here is Fraser again, on the joys of rowing:

‘It demanded physical effort, and there was an exhilaration in feeling the boat glide forward, responsive to the power behind the stroke. There were the distinctive and evocative sounds - the soft splash of the oar dipping into the water, the creaking of the rowlocks, the gentle flurry of feathering - and these, with the smell of the lake and the surrounding park, created a vivid mental picture of the scene…’

Yes, I’ve been lucky to have such a range of wonderful source material - and such inspiring role models as these for my ‘Blind Detective’.  

   

                 

  

     

    

Hunter's Moon - Celia Rees

On Saturday, 14th November, people gathered in front of Coventry's new cathedral. They were there to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Luftwaffe's raid on the city but the old cathedral, destroyed in that raid, was lit by the tricolour and they found themselves standing, not just in solemn remembrance, but in shocked solidarity with the people of another city where the bloodshed was fresh on the streets, the grief still raw.

14th November, 2015

My grandparents and aunt lived in Coventry. They were there on the night of November 14th, 1940. I grew up with stories of that night. It was clear, cold with a full moon, a Hunter's Moon. Perfect for bombing. The raid started early, just past seven in the evening. Some years ago, I ran a Creative Writing Class for Warwick University Open Studies and I set a task: to write about an incident from your childhood.  One man, he must have been in his seventies then, wrote about that night. He'd been out playing with his friends, he said. They made for home when they heard the siren but didn't hurry, it seemed too early for anything to happen, they carried on kicking a football down the street. Then they heard the bombers. Not just one or two but many, a continuous low roar. By the time he was at his gate, incendiaries were falling. He turned to look back and the city seemed to be a sea of fire. All he could think was: 'My dad's down there.' Later that night, as the bombs fell closer and closer,  he was moved to a safer shelter. He emerged to find one half of his street gone and with it some of the friends with whom he had been playing. Younger members of the class listened spell bound, transfixed by his vivid, eye witness account. Ironically, he had been reluctant to do the task when I set it. 'I don't have anything to write about,' he'd said.

Luftwaffe Aerial Photograph

The raid went on for 13 hours. Air defence round Coventry was poor, the bombers had perfect sight because of the moonlit night and they came, wave after wave, with nothing to stop them. A firestorm swept the city centre, firefighters stood by helpless as the water ran out, pipes were broken, their hoses cut or melted. Fire crews came from as far away as Solihull but there was nothing they could do. On the roof of the cathedral, clergy and fire watchers fought a valiant but losing battle. Fire had taken hold in the great wooden beams of the roof and they had to leave the cathedral to its fate. The fires across the city were so intense that the glow in the sky could be seen a hundred miles away. A friend of my brother's lived Sheldon, a suburb of Birmingham, he described watching from his bedroom window as the great red glare that was Coventry filled the sky, light enough to read by.
  

Coventry burning

When the all clear finally sounded, the medieval city centre was destroyed; the cathedral of St Michael's a smoking ruin.  My aunt was the Head of a school in the city centre. She walked in the next day, picking her way through the devastation with the buildings still smouldering and a fine drizzle beginning to lay the brick and plaster dust. She went to see if the school was still standing, clutching the registers, which would become a record of which of the children had survived.

People going to work the next day

Broadgate

St Michael's

Coventry was a small, medieval city, rather like York, but it was ringed by factories. The city had become a centre for the engineering industry and most of the factories had been turned over to war production. Dunlop manufactured wheel discs, brakes, gun mechanisms, even barrage balloons. Hawker Siddeley, Vickers Armstrong, Armstrong Whitworth and Rolls Royce produced planes, engines and associated parts - including the complete Whitley twin engined heavy Bomber. Humber and Daimler made armoured troop transporters and scout cars. Cash's and Courtaulds produced materials for parachutes, G.E.C. radio equipment, British Thompson-Houston electro-magnetic components, such as magnetos and dynamos. Alfred Herbert providing essential machine tools, as did Coventry Climax, Coventry Gauge and Tool, and countless other smaller firms around the city. As did Automotive Products in nearby Leamington Spa. The small town was hit by a stick of six bombs, seven people killed. For a long time this was thought to be a mistake, a German pilot overshooting the target area,  but recent research has found a Luftwaffe map with the A.P clearly marked on it.

Luftwaffe map showing Automotive Products factory, Leamington Spa

A legitimate target, perhaps, but Coventry was a small city with a historic and beautiful centre and it was destroyed in a systematic pattern of bombing designed to raze the whole place to the ground. No city of its size had been subject to this kind of bombing before.  It gave rise to a new verb: to coventrate. Not that many people died, 568 by the official count, with 863 seriously injured and 393 more lightly so. There were probably more deaths. The concentrated use of high explosives and incendiaries meant that sometimes there remained little to identify. Later in the war, the Allies would repay in kind, over and over again. The death toll would pale in comparison with the 42,000 killed in the bombing of Hamburg, 25,000 in the bombing of Dresden, let alone Hiroshima, but Coventry's destruction marked a significant point in this hideous escalation and it came to stand for something more.

Charred cross on the altar of the old cathedral

After the war, Coventry adopted the phoenix as a symbol of recovery and renewal. The city rose again. New buildings replaced the old. A new cathedral was built next to the the shell of the old one. The city itself came to represent sacrifice and hope, peace and reconciliation expressed in the powerful symbols of the charred cross, formed by stone mason Jock Forbes, and the Cross of Nails made from three nails taken from the roof truss of the old cathedral by Provost Richard Howard. The original cross of nails was transferred to the new cathedral, where it sits in the centre of the altar cross.

Coventry Cathedral Altar Cross

 Crosses made up of three of the medieval nails that held together the fabric of the old cathedral have been sent all over the world to churches and communities who have suffered destruction through war and conflict.  With them goes the message: Father Forgive.  

Celia Rees

www.celiarees.com

NEIL OLIVER at the HARROGATE HISTORY FESTIVAL by Penny Dolan

Not long ago, I spent a most enjoyable and interesting time at the Harrogate History Festival, a long weekend that is run by the Historical Writers Association., hearing a host of speakers, both “history girls” and slightly more “history boys”.

Among the speakers was Neil Oliver, talking about his first novel, The Master of Shadows, set in the fifteenth century at the siege of Constantinople. What follows is my account of the question and answer session.

Why did you chose Constantinople as the setting for your book?

Oliver had always been fascinated by the city. The Emperor built the city because he was concerned about the power of Rome in the region, Constantinople was both a dream and a physical entity and it seemed throughout much of that time as permanent as a mountain range, lasting more than a thousand years.  A great white edifice, the Wall of Theodosius, defended the city and port across most of its area. Although the city had been besieged on twenty occasions, at the time it was unthinkable that Constantinople could fall.

However, the fall had been predicted by the Prophet, who had said of the downfall that “it will be so when God wants it to be so.” We are still dealing with the ripples dropped into that pond at the time: look where the seat of modern trouble is today, there where the tectonic plates meet. History teaches us that no empire lasts for ever. Does America know this? The wise King David, commented on his reign: “This too shall pass.”  Oliver had been reading about the subject of Constantinople ever since he was 15, so that when he came to writing his novel, it only took him about four months to complete.

What was a siege like?

It was as bad as you would expect. There were rules to a siege: if the city gave up, there would be three days of sacking. However, because Islam had been denied this apple for so long the entire population of Constantinople was killed or taken into slavery to lead anonymous, desperate lives. The conqueror, the Sultan Mehmet, was an educated man, interested in science and engineering and more, and he made sure that the city itself was preserved, especially the great church of Saint Sophia.

This particular siege redrew the map of the world as it was known. In the months leading up to the siege, the Emperor had pleaded with all the leaders of Christendom to come to Constantinople’s aid. His please fell on deaf ears. Not only was the conquest unthinkable, but the churchmen of Western Europe considered the Eastern Christians to be almost heathen. The Pope, no friend of the Emperor, refused the request and no help arrived. When the city fell, it shifted the centre of Christianity and redrew the map between Europe and Asia.

How scary was life like in Britain and Europe at this time?

This was when great areas of Britain were known as the Debatable Lands, and it was the time of the Border Reivers. The ordinary people got no comfort or help from the existence of kings, who were almost mythical beings. Security for most people lay in being protected by powerful local war-lords, and most life was nasty, brutish and short. When asked if, assuming a Time Machine was available, he would go back there, Neil Oliver said no.

He pointed out that, throughout history, the people of Scotland have travelled to other lands in search new destinies. His novel, The Master of Shadows, is about a young man, John Grant, whose unique abilities carry him from his home in Scotland to Constantinople, the heart of the Byzantine Empire, just as the siege gathers force. John Grant is searching for Lena, a girl whose life was saved by Prince Constantine, although that story is far from simple.

Oliver’s thinking about his character, John Grant, was influenced by Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell’s book about what makes some peoples successful, particularly the Scots communities who travelled to America in Jacobite times. The Wild West, he suggested, was created by largely Celtic peoples: immigrants of Scottish descent who were used to the owning and stealing of livestock and cattle and were as tough as wild animals themselves. Even the name for these people - red-necks – is an apt description of how the Celtic complexion and colouring reacts as the sun. 

What made you so interested in history?

History was my best subject at school, said Oliver, because it was always taught through stories. He always had a sense of being connected to history because his family were people who had survived. Both his grandfathers had come through the First World War, one as the single survivor in his own community. As a child, he had sat on his grandfather’s lap and felt a metal edge behind his ear, under the skin. His father explained that the ridge was the edge of a part of a shell still lodged in his grandfather’s skull. He was amazed. How could this old man ever have been a soldier? There was also a scar, a clock-shaped mark on the old man’s arm, and ligament damage had curled the little finger and ring finger inwards. Oliver the child noted that his grandfather’s hand looked exactly the same shape as the hand on his Action-Man toy, and was duly impressed.

How do we encourage children to relate to history? For example, do we read history aloud enough?

Fiction plays a large part in encouraging children. He has three, and they learned about history through stories. His middle son has enjoyed books such as The Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Prydain, and already wants to know about the Dark Ages.

Don’t forget, he said, that History includes two words: Historicus, meaning enquiry and Historia, or story. History provides the context through which we can understand ourselves as otherwise it is as if we are on a random page of an unknown novel. He had been inspired by his parent choice of books for him, tales of derring-do, with heroes like Shackleton and Scott, and the story of the Aeneid. He suggested that such courage is burnished by the passage of time and buffed by the modesty of the people who were involved. It is others who notice the courageous acts, and great fame comes posthumously. 

Briefly, Oliver wondered what such stories would be like now, in these days of constant Twitter and Instagram: Not again! Pemmican. Sad face, sad face - along with a photograph of that very last meal, perhaps?

Modern media is changing how we do history, so what advice is there for the future?

The biggest change is how much we’re recording because in the past, very little was recorded and now we can record everything. The biggest challenge for the future will be to winnow the wheat from the chaff and to find what is important among all the stuff. He recalled the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the treasured Ark of the Covenant is hidden away in a gigantic room among many, many other apparently identical boxes. How will such a secret be found? How will we, in a thousand years, be known about? The role of the editor of all this information will be of utmost importance.

The internet is changing everything, both in a good and a bad way. In one way, it brings people together so we can find people who share our interests and opinions. Once we were defined by just or local and national boundaries but now we can select our identity from among people around the world. However, because of the way the internet works, feeding our preferences, we are in danger of creating an echo culture, where we only hear our own thoughts returned to us.

Neil Oliver spoke briefly about the joy of making television, and how it had allowed him access to places and people he couldn’t get to in any other way, which was perfect for someone who had been a journalist and was therefore nosy about people. 

He was glad that people were happy to see him or speak to him and had discovered that if you are on the television, you can ask people anything and they’ll tell you. He had stumbled into television as a last minute replacement on the Two Men in a Trench archaeology series, and really enjoys the opportunity to tell stories and pass on rare pieces of historical knowledge he hears to lots more people

Asked about the controversy over the Bannockburn site, Oliver said that he’d looked at the area twice as an archaeologist. The main problem is that 99% of the battlefield evidence would have been made of iron. Unfortunately, as the site is on the flood plain of the River Forth which floods in winter and dries up in summer, all the evidence and artefacts would be turned into dust. 

Remember, he said, the evidence of absence is not the absence of evidence. 

Besides, after a battle, the field would be full of scavengers. Within two or three days, most of the objects, artefacts and evidence would have been removed from the site anyway. He spoke about his work on Vikings, and his delight in the discovery of a burial that honoured a young disabled girl, surrounded by evidence of her high status in the community.

Had any history writers inspired him?

He admitted he did not read much historical fiction himself, but gave two examples. He knows and loves the books of Nigel Tranter, and also William McIlvaney’s Laidlaw series, He said that the Laidlaw books are testament to a time he knew but now recognises as the past. They are about a world that doesn’t exist now, not if fifty years ago has become the time before which history begins.

Neil Oliver’s talk was a pleasure (and he seemed even nicer in real life) so I hope you don’t mind me sneaking him into the History Girls blog  today. He does have swishy hair after all, doesn't he?

Thank you too, Harrogate History Festival!

Penny Dolan

Remembrance

Mine is not the kind of family that has a lot of documentation about its history. I know virtually nothing from any further back than my grandparents' generation; on my mother's side, I don't even know if her parents had any siblings. One day, I tell myself, I'll look into it. My maiden name was Course, which according to dictionaries of surnames probably derives from 'de Courcey'. So who knows, maybe if I went back far enough, I'd find a Norman baron. (Though from my recent reading, they seem to have been a bunch of violent thugs with a penchant for cutting off hands, ears, and any other bits of protuberant anatomy that took their fancy - so I'm not sure I actually want to lay claim to any of their number!)

But what I do have is a very old, very precious Black Magic chocolate box containing letters and photos. Mostly, the letters are in envelopes like the one above. They were returned to their senders, because the addressee, my father, was a prisoner of war - and that's how they came to be preserved. They were from Dad's sisters (he had five) and his mother. Here a few extracts.

Mother: 25/5/40

Dear Bernard

Do just let me know how you are as soon as possible, I know I am impatient it is not any news, I am wanting only to know if you are well, and are quite all right... I know things are bad out there... It is a special day of prayer today for the whole of the nation. I hope things will make a drastic move after Sunday, so if you are too tired I am sending you some ready addressed envelopes if you can only just say I'm alright mam, that will suffice me.

Your loving Mother/too anxious

The letter is written in pencil, on a page torn out of an exercise book. I think what moves me is that you can sense how worried she is, yet how hard she's trying not to make a fuss, not to be 'too anxious'.

Edna: 11/6/40

My dear Bern,

I do hope this finds you well, although we think you must be very busy having not heard from you for a month. We're getting heaps of folks asking about you, fat folks (Mrs Wooliscroft and co); thin, young and old uns, and we'll be right glad when we can tell them you're O.K.

Connie: no date, but must have been written about the same time as Edna's letter. 

Dear Bernard

We still keep looking for a line from you - every post. It is one month since we heard from you but know that there must be some reason. Anyhow we think that you must be alright. A big part of the B.E.F. (British Expeditionary Force) have been arriving in this country - we wondered if you might be one - I shouldn't have been surprised to see you walking down the garden path any day. Anyway, I'm keeping your bed aired for you. Oh yes, I have your room you know. Carrie says she wonders why I should have half the house - 1 room for working* and 1 for sleeping - and they have got the big room with two beds in it - they sleep all in a row. Anyway if you come in the middle of the night I will willingly turn out for you - you see how my affections have improved!!!

We'll have a meal and a seat and a welcome when you return.

Lots of love from Mother & all,

Connie

* Connie was a dressmaker, and probably the dominant one among the siblings, though Edna was the oldest. You can see it in their handwriting: Edna's is beautiful and delicate, whereas Connie's is firm and dark. Minnie Louisa's (Mam's) becomes difficult to read in places, as if she's stumbling over herself trying to get her thoughts onto paper.

Bernard Course, a few months before he was taken prisoner.

In fact, they had five years to wait before Bernard came walking back up the garden path, because he'd been taken prisoner on the way to Dunkirk. Connie was hanging the washing out when the boy brought a telegram saying he was missing in action. Connie, a strong character, decided instantly that she wasn't going to tell her mother until she had more definite news. It must have been several weeks before they were officially notified that Bern was a prisoner of war - but at least that meant he was alive.

Of course he was having a much harder time of it than they were at home. But I think that through their words, you get a sense of their carefully controlled fears. And somehow because it's so controlled, to me it's all the more moving.

Literary-historical dogs I have known, by Y S Lee

As the child of Southeast Asian immigrants, I grew up feeling somewhat appalled by the idea of sharing a house with a dog. Yes, our family had dogs when we lived in Singapore, but the dogs' place was in the garden, where they had plenty of shade and water and space to run around. They didn’t come inside the house, much less curl up on sofas or beds. As far as my parents were concerned, dogs were outdoor pets.

I’ve been thinking about this recently because several months ago my children, aged 7 and 4, mounted a vigorous and sustained campaign for a dog. And I’m about to concede defeat. I’ve accepted that our dog that will live in our house and shed on our furniture and need lots of training and exercise and brushing and bathing and veterinary visits and dear god, possibly also tooth-brushing and ear-cleaning and nail-clipping? (Maybe I’ll tackle the history of pet care in a different post.) My point is simply that all this domestic dog chat has me thinking about dogs in literary history.

The first literary–historical dogs I remember noticing was the litter of puppies in Wuthering Heights. They’re never named or numbered, of course; they’re mere props for the vivid illustration of Hareton Earnshaw’s character. As Hareton hangs the puppies (one by one? In a batch? It’s never clearly described) "from a chair-back in the doorway", we readers realize the extent to which Hareton’s own moral growth and intellectual development were strangled from birth.

Branwell Brontë's circa 1834 sibling portrait, with his own image painted out.

What’s most striking to me (as a contemporary reader) about this scene is that Hareton’s sadism towards animals does not expel him from the moral world of the novel. Emily Brontë herself disciplined her beloved dog, Keeper, with physical violence. In 1848, it was a fact of life that puppies (and kittens) were often too numerous and must sometimes be killed at birth. (This practice is relatively recent: my father-in-law had a childhood memory of his father dropping a sack of newborn puppies into a canal in 1950s Manchester.) And Hareton, with the help of Cathy Linton, eventually redeems himself. Together, the young lovers hold the promise of a happy ending for Wuthering Heights – with or without animal companions.

The next fictional dog to make a deep impression on me was Shock, Belinda's indulged pet in Alexander Pope’s mock-epic poem, “The Rape of the Lock”. For me, the poem is a full-on olfactory assault. Let me break it down for you:

1. There’s a crush of people at Belinda’s house. Their combined body heat will heighten the ripeness of early eighteenth-century bodies.

2. This bodily funk will, in turn, be overlaid by the liberal use of perfumes.

3. The room will be lit by beeswax candles, which add their own sweet, thick scent to the air. (In a poorer household, the candles would be made of tallow and thus smell strongly of animals.)

4. As part of the ceremonial serving of coffee, Belinda’s family roasts coffee beans in the drawing room before grinding and brewing the expensive imported drink. Coffee-roasting novices expect the process to smell delectable but the toasting of green coffee beans actually produces a strong burnt aroma as the husks burn off; the roasted coffee smell emerges only at the end of the process. As a result, the smells of body musk and perfume would intermingle with the strong, acrid smell of burning.

Aubrey Beardsley's 1897 illustration of "The Rape of the Lock". At left, the Baron is about to snip off Belinda's curl.

5. The pampered, yipping, little dog Shock (whose name strikes me as a joke about the English pronunciation of “Jacques”), who fails to protect her from assault. I’m not sure how often pet dogs were bathed in 1717. However, in her biography of Samuel Pepys, Claire Tomalin describes the general domestic atmosphere of the 1650s: "Every house, every family enjoyed its own smell, to which father, mother, children, apprentices, maids and pets all contributed, a rich brew of hair, bodies, sweat and other emissions, bedclothes, cooking, whatever food was lying about, whatever dirty linen had been piled up for the monthly wash, whatever chamber pots were waiting to be emptied into yard or street. Home meant the familiar reek which everyone breathed." "The Rape of the Lock" takes place only 60 years or so later.

My third literary dog was a Newfoundland breed named "Boatswain". Having once read it, who could forget Byron’s "Epitaph to a Dog"? It's engraved on this monument at Newstead Abbey, Byron's family estate.

Near this Spot
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferosity,
and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.
This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
if inscribed over human Ashes,
is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG,
who was born in Newfoundland May 1803
and died at Newstead Nov. 18th, 1808.

When some proud Son of Man returns to Earth,
Unknown to Glory but upheld by Birth,
The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And storied urns record who rests below:
When all is done, upon the Tomb is seen
Not what he was, but what he should have been.
But the poor Dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his Master’s own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonour’d falls, unnotic’d all his worth,
Deny’d in heaven the Soul he held on earth:
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.
Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debas’d by slavery, or corrupt by power,
Who knows thee well, must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy tongue hypocrisy, thy heart deceit!
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye! who behold perchance this simple urn,
Pass on, it honors none you wish to mourn.
To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one—and here he lies.

Byron’s anger and disgust with human hypocrisy here is all the more powerful because he practised it so well: “Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,/Thy tongue hypocrisy, thy heart deceit” is a cri de coeur from a restless artist who spent much of his life at the centre of a bubble of scandal.

Byron originally posed for this portrait in 1813, about 5 years after railing against the "vain insect" that is Man. Image courtesy of a Creative Commons license from the National Portrait Gallery.

There’s so much more I could say about dogs in literary history - and in social history, for that matter. But for the time being, I’ll return to my own practical dog research and continue to battle my residual squeamishness about dog odour and dog hair. Wish me luck!

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Y S Lee is the author of the award-winning Mary Quinn Mysteries/The Agency Quartet (Walker Books/Candlewick Press). She blogs every Wednesday at www.yslee.com.