The Charge of the Light Brigade Trailer - Directed by Tony Richardson and starring Trevor Howard, John Gielgud, Harry Andrews, David Hemmings, Ben Aris. A chronicle of events that led to the British involvement in the Crimean War against Russia which led to the siege of Sevastopol and the fierce Battle of Balaclava which climaxed with the heroic, but near-disastrous calvary charge made by the British Light Brigade against a Russian artillery battery in a small valley. An error of judgement and rash planning by the inept British commanders resulted in the near-destruction of the brigade.
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The Charge of the Light Brigade Official Trailer #1 - Trevor Howard Movi...
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Barker Black Shoes / 1880 / England . Derrick Miller / 2005 / USA
Barker Black Ltd from Shoemocracy on Vimeo.
Barker Black is a British luxury footwear brand specializing in bench-made shoes for men. The Barker Black line is a subset of the English Shoe company Barker, which was founded in 1880 by Arthur Black. Launched in 2005 by creative director, Derrick Miller, the Barker Black brand quickly gained the attention of the fashion media, appearing in the premiere issue of Men's Vogue in September 2005. Subsequent coverage in mens fashion magazines such as Details, Esquire, and GQ followed.
In 2007, Barker Black was chosen by GQ magazine as one of the best new designers in America.
The shoes are made in the classic English "Good Year Welted" construction and have a modern design feel while still classic. Many design elements of the shoes are updated takes on classic techniques, toe punching in the shape of the skull and crossbones logo and hand applied tacks to the waist of the shoe give them their unique character. The collection also includes men's accessories with a similar modern attitude.
Barker Black shoes are sold in its own boutiques in New York City and Los Angeles, as well in luxury department stores such as Bergdorf Goodman and Nieman Marcus. Its Elizabeth Street boutique in New York is listed on GQ's 100, the magazine's list of the best stores for men in America.
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A collection inspired by the 17th Lancer Regiment
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Nicknamed "Bingham's Dandies" because of their dress prowess; one imagines how the Lancers would dress themselves in today's world. The Barker Black collection's young, sleek, sophisticated design with a touch of arrogance conjures up images of the regiment's black and silver dress regalia. These principals are the cornerstones of Barker Black's introduction to the American luxury market, all in an attempt to dress the modern day lancer.![]()
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A Modern Sensibility
Shoes
Ties, Pocketsquares & Braces
A collection inspired by the 17th Lancer Regiment
Barker Black's premiere collection is inspired by an ancient regiment of British guardsmen, the 17th Lancers. The Regiment's original logo, a skull and crossbones with a banner posting their motto "...or glory" implying 'Death or Glory'. Discovered in an ancient silk weaver's archive in Sudbury, England, adopted by Barker Black Ltd. the decommissioned regiment's motto captures the spirit energy and, sophistication of Barker Black, there is an unmistakable presence of the Lancers in every piece of the Collection
Nicknamed "Bingham's Dandies" because of their dress prowess; one imagines how the Lancers would dress themselves in today's world. The Barker Black collection's young, sleek, sophisticated design with a touch of arrogance conjures up images of the regiment's black and silver dress regalia. These principals are the cornerstones of Barker Black's introduction to the American luxury market, all in an attempt to dress the modern day lancer.
During the Siege of Sevastopol (which began in September) the 17th Lancers took part in the Battle of Balaklava on 25 October. During the battle, the regiment took part in a cavalry charge that became known as the Charge of the Light Brigade, which spawned much controversy and indeed a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The Russians captured redoubts on the Causeway Heights, which held some British artillery. The army commander, Lord Raglan, issued an order for the Light Brigade to attack there before the guns could be taken away by the Russians. The order was sent via Captain Louis Nolan to Lord Lucan, commander of the Cavalry Division. It is believed, however, that Nolan misinterpreted the order as an order to attack Russian artillery in the valley between the Fediukhine Heights and the Causeway Heights. It has been speculated[18] that Captain Nolan, an authority on cavalry tactics, actually directed Lucan toward the wrong guns in order to test his tactical theories, although this view has not found wide currency.
Lord Cardigan then ordered his Light Brigade to began the advance at a trot, with the 17th and 13th Light Dragoons leading the Brigade, heading into a concentration of Russian artillery, infantry and cavalry. The Light Brigade advanced to their objective and came under heavy artillery fire from all sides, which inflicted many casualties. The Brigade, upon nearing the enemy, then went into a full charge. The 17th Lancers, commanded by Captain William Morris, drove through the Russian artillery before smashing straight into the Russian cavalry and pushing them back. The Light Brigade were unable to consolidate their position, however, having insufficient forces (the Heavy Brigade had not advanced further into the valley) and had to withdraw to their starting positions, coming under artillery and musket fire and cavalry attack as they did so.
Despite the mistakes that culminated in unnecessary loss, the charge reasserted the renown of the British cavalry, to such an extent that Russian cavalry refused outright to confront them in battle for the duration of the war. The 17th Lancers suffered quite heavily. Of the 147 men of the 17th, just 38 were at the roll call the following morning. The Light Brigade as a whole suffered 118 men killed and 127 wounded out of a total of 673 men and 362 horses lost, effectively destroying the unit as a fighting force.
The remarkable history of Barker Black
Barker Black is the epitome of English refinement. Established in the village of Earls Barton in 1880 by Arthur Barker, the factory quickly became renowned for their craftsmen and fine workmanship. Specializing in the "Good Year Welted" construction, the shoes became a staple in the wardrobe of every self-respecting Englishman. After 125 years of producing quality bench made shoes in a factory christened by the Queen mum herself, Barker Black has been developed to embrace the storied past while forging ahead in design, details, and elegant sophistication.
Until now, these distinguished shoes, so revered in England, have primarily been available in the UK, with the launch of Barker Black, Barker is ready to prove itself in the worldwide luxury market.
A foundation of quality construction, craftsmanship and modern design is the launch pad for Barker Black. Barker Black shoes are created by a team of specialized craftsmen, many of whom have been working with the company over twenty years. Harnessing this expertise, quality and attention to detail, along with its contemporary design, is what makes Barker Black so special. These sleek and luxurious shoes, made from the finest Italian and French Calf, are left on the last for fifteen to thirty days, during this time the shoes are placed in a wire frame (affectionately referred to as the 'cage') and suspended from the rafters above the factory. This extensive time on the last allows the shoe to retain its beautiful shape. All Barker Black shoes are finished by hand, on select shoes the skull and crossbone logo is painstakingly tacked into the sole by hand. Raising the standards of excellence in design, materials and construction the Barker Black range will be on par with Northampton neighbors, however through its updated sensibility and modern aesthetic, Barker Black will stand on its own.
Barker Black was founded as the modern alternative to Men's shoes and accessories. With their sleek design and time-tested construction, Barker Black shoes and accessories have a playful spirit but are appropriate in even the strictest workplace. The subtle details that make the wearer feel unique are so well incorporated into the design of the collection; they would be difficult for others to notice. Little touches like a crown cutout on a traditional penny loafer or the delicate broguing on the toe in the shape of a crowned skull and crossbones, the Barker Black logo, offer the finest in subversive sophistication.
Barker Black upholds the standards established by generations of renowned craftsmen but with modern styling that brings excitement back to dressing and provides a sophisticated alternative to trainers.
The shoe range is designed with a nod to the man who is required to dress for work and fit into the modern conventions of dress attire, but has a desire to assert his individuality without drawing unwanted attention. These details are where Barker Black sets itself apart, from toe broguing, slender waists, and bespoke sole tacking, the result is sleek and modern. These details give the Barker Black customer the confidence and individuality he is longing for with classic style, to be envied by the staunchest conservative. Every shoe is slightly unexpected, from a traditional loafer with a twist to designs best described at "Rock & Roll Chic". As young men take back formal dress, Barker Black couples old world artisanship with modern day elegance and attitude to cater to discerning men with a craving for something new.
At Barker Black everything is designed with luxury, aesthetics and attitude in mind. The tie designs take inspiration from Royal crests to jailhouse tattoos, gentleman's ties to avante guarde designs with attitude. All three collections invoke the same sense of rebellion but are balanced with soft unexpected color, in a modern yet familiar and easy to wear palette of dusty pastels, a staple in the modern gentleman's wardrobe.
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SUNDAY IMAGES / Photographs ...
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Has the real Sherlock Holmes been deduced? A new biography of a leading Victorian detective suggests he helped inspire Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's creation.
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Jerome Caminada, who, new research suggests, helped inspire Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s celebrated hero |
Has the real Sherlock Holmes been deduced?
A new biography of a leading Victorian detective suggests he helped inspire Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's creation
By Jasper Copping / 15 Mar 2014 / http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10700558/Has-the-real-Sherlock-Holmes-been-deduced.html
He enthralled Victorian England with his unrivalled skill at cracking cases, based on astute logical reasoning and grasp of forensic science, not to mention a mastery of disguises and encyclopedic knowledge of the criminal underclass.
But this detective was not Sherlock Holmes but a real life investigator, Jerome Caminada, who, new research suggests, helped inspire Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s celebrated hero.
A biography of Caminada out this month reveals a series of striking similarities between him and the fictional character, in terms of their unorthodox methods and character. It also establishes strong echoes between the real detective’s cases and plot lines used by Doyle.
The author, Angela Buckley, has even established that Caminada’s casework involved tackling an alluring and talented criminal, similar to Irene Adler, and that the detective even had a Moriarty-like nemesis who plagued him over the course of several cases until a final, dramatic confrontation.
Mrs Buckley said: “Caminada became a national figure at just the time that Sherlock Holmes was being created. There are so many parallels that it is clear Doyle was using parts of this real character for his.”
The son of an Italian father and Irish mother, Caminada was based in Manchester
Most of his career was spent with Manchester City Police Force although he later operated, like Holmes, as a “consulting detective”.
He emerged to prominence in the mid 1880s, shortly before Sherlock Holmes made his debut in A Study in Scarlet and parallels soon emerged between the two.
As the fictional character relied on an network of underworld contacts – the Baker Street Irregulars – so Caminada was known for his extensive web of informers, whom he would often meet in the back pew of a church.
These characters helped him build up an encyclopedic knowledge of the criminal fraternity, among whom he would often move in disguise – another tactic in common with Holmes, who is played, in his most recent reincarnation, by Benedict Cumberbatch,
Like his fictional counterpart, Caminada was particularly noted for his tendency to prowl the streets of the roughest neighbourhoods alone at night, fearlessly intervening in any crimes he encountered.
His skill with disguises was so renowned that on one occasion, while tracking a group of thieves at the Grand National dressed as a labourer, his own chief constable was unable to recognise him.
Other disguises included as drunken down and outs, as well as working class roles. However, he also posed as white collar professionals, once while bringing a bogus doctor to justice.
Dubbed the 'terror to evil doers’ and, later 'the Garibaldi of Detectives’, he was reputed to be able to spot a thief by the way he walked – apparently as a result of visits he undertook to prisons, to watch inmates walking around the yard to familiarise himself with their appearance and gait.
Over the course of his career, he was reportedly responsible for the imprisonment of 1,225 criminals. His most famous case – and perhaps the one which most closely resembles a Holmes story – was the apparently baffling “Mystery of the Four-Wheeled Cab”.
Two men had taken a horse drawn cab. On the journey, one leapt out and the other was found dying inside.
There was no obvious cause of death and few obvious clues to go on, but through a series of deductions of which Holmes himself would be proud, Caminada eventually identified the culprit as Charles Parton, who had drugged the other man before getting into the cab, in an attempt to rob him.
Another notable case involved him playing a prominent role in the nationwide hunt for Fenian terrorists, who were responsible for a series of explosions around the country.
Mrs Buckley, a family historian and trustee of the Society of Genealogists, identifies Caminada’s “Moriaty” figure as Bob Horridge, a violent, intelligent career criminal, with whom he had a 20-year feud, which began when Caminada arrested him for stealing a watch, landing him with a sentence of seven years’ penal servitude because of his previous convictions.
This harsh sentence for a relatively small crime angered Horridge so much that, as he was sent down, he swore revenge on the detective.
On his release, Horridge’s criminal enterprises grew in size and scope, but he was usually able to stay one step ahead of the authorities, often effecting dramatic escapes.
His spree finally ended after he shot two police officers. Caminada tracked him to Liverpool where the detective, disguised once more, eventually apprehended him, after pulling out his revolver a fraction faster than the criminal. Horridge was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Caminada’s “Irene Adler” was Alicia Ormonde, an apparently well-educated woman with an aristocratic background and expensive tastes, who was actually a consummate forger and experienced crook who was wanted across the country for a string of frauds and thefts.
Caminada tracked her down and arrested her, but – in an echo of Holmes’ fascination with Adler – the detective apparently became captivated by her.
The case took place in 1890, a year before Adler appeared in A Scandal in Bohemia
Caminada – who published his memoirs on retiring – died in 1914, the year the last Holmes book was set.
Other individuals have previously been put forward as the basis for Holmes, who first appeared in publication in 1887 and featured in four novels and 56 short stories.
Doyle himself said he had taken inspiration from Dr Joseph Bell, a surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh for whom Doyle had worked as a clerk. Like Holmes, Bell
However, Mrs Buckley, whose book is called The Real Sherlock Holmes, believes that Caminada was used to give Holmes a better grounding in actual casework among the criminal fraternity, inspiring his detecting styles and some of the baffling cases he encountered.
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Author Angela Buckley |
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"INTERMEZZO" ... Remains of the Day.
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PBS. Secrets of Selfridges
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Who was the true Harry Selfridge ?
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At the height of his fortune, from 1916 Selfridge leased as his family home |
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Selfridge in around 1880 |
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Harry Gordon Selfridge circa 1910 |
IN SEPTEMBER 2012:
The man who knew what women wanted: As BBC and ITV go to war over shopping dramas, the extraordinary story behind the real Mr Selfridge - a philanderer, visionary and wedding list inventor - is revealed
By LINDY WOODHEAD
PUBLISHED: 29 September 2012 / http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2210421/Mr-Selfridge-Extraordinary-story-retailing-visionary-revealed.html
BBC1’s The Paradise will soon face a rival period drama in the schedules set around a great department store: Mr Selfridge on ITV1.
Telling the colourful, turbulent life of the American retailing genius who founded his store in 1909, it’s based on the book Shopping, Seduction & Mr Selfridge by Lindy Woodhead.
Here she tells the story of the extraordinary man who created the retail experience we know today.
Harry Selfridge was unique. With his waxed moustache and fastidious dress sense he was the epitome of tradition yet empowered women by offering them a whole new shopping experience. A loving husband who adored his wife, he cheated on her with a succession of stars, including dancers Isadora Duncan and Anna Pavlova.
A true visionary, he enjoyed fabulous wealth but died virtually destitute. He was once mistaken for a tramp as he stood on Oxford Street
It was a long journey from humble beginnings in Ripon , Wisconsin
She drilled into him the importance of beautiful manners and taking care of his appearance. Mother and son lived together until she died, in 1924. Thanks to her, he understood women’s needs in a way few men could.
Harry left school at 14 to work for a bank and aged 18 got a job as a sock boy at a Chicago
Field’s was Chicago Chicago
Thanks to Harry, Field’s offered flower-arranging classes, gave home-décor advice and introduced the idea of the wedding gift list, and set up a parcel and coat depositary for customers to leave their belongings before shopping.
He also created what was possibly the first US
In 1904 he set up a rival store in Chicago London America
He chose a site on Oxford Street Chicago
It was a marvel: nine Otis lifts; a state-of-the-art sprinkler system; thick concrete floors spanning an acre per level. Not eight storeys as Harry had wanted (planning restrictions didn’t allow it to be taller than St Paul
Selfridge & Co opened in 1909, on a wet March day: but inside all was warm and bright. More than 100 departments sold everything from swimsuits to sable coats, all exquisitely arranged in spacious surroundings.
In no small way, Harry helped to liberate women. He gave them the freedom to shop un-chaperoned, the pleasure of lunch with a girlfriend in the safe haven of a store, and rare sensual delights and comforts, with music playing and the scent of perfume in the air. Aside from elegant restaurants, Selfridge & Co had a library, reading and writing rooms, a first-aid room, a silence room with soft furnishings, a hairdressers and a manicure service.
Harry liked to say: ‘I helped emancipate women. I came along when they wanted to step out on their own. They came to the store and realised some of their dreams.’
Men or women, customer comfort was a priority. Believing shopping should be both a visual and tactile experience – not one needing a sales clerk to open a cabinet – he put merchandise on low counter tops so people could feel and touch it.
The spirit of the age was on Harry’s side. He sold telephones, refrigerators, ice-making machines – even aeroplanes. He pioneered the celebrity appearance: world champion Freda Whittaker skated on the roof-top rink, while Wimbledon champion Suzanne Lenglen demonstrated her service on the roof-top court.
Television was demonstrated to the public for the first time at Selfridges in 1925 when Logie Baird brought in his odd-looking equipment that would so change our lives in years to come.
Harry’s instinctive skills in enticing tourists meant that before long he could boast: ‘We are the third biggest tourist attraction in London after Buckingham Palace
But Harry’s life outside the store was very different. A friend said: ‘He was a genius from 9am until 5pm but a fool at the weekends.’ Although his wife eventually followed him to London
From 1912, his grand amour – seemingly tolerated by the patient Rose – was the glittering chanteuse Gaby Deslys. He arranged a house for her in London
Thanks to the commercial success of his store, he was able to make palatial residences his home: he leased Highcliffe Castle in Christchurch
Despite his philandering, Harry was devastated when Rose died in the post-war influenza pandemic. Several years later his mother died too. Without these two women in his life Harry’s womanising and love of gambling spiralled out of control. In 1921, when £500 was a very good annual salary, he lost £5,000 at casinos.
Now he turned to a new generation of willing showgirls including the Dolly Sisters, Jenny and Rose, a toxic pair who were also gambling addicts. The three would make frequent visits to the casinos in Nice. It’s thought the girls spent £5 million of his fortune.
As the world entered the Great Depression, he was woefully unprepared for the slump, over-extended and isolated by his own vanity. In 1939, at the age of 81, 30 years after building Selfridges, revolutionising London
The man they used to call ‘the Earl of Oxford Street’, who had adored living in lavish houses that befitted a true merchant prince, was reduced to penury, living in a small rented flat in Putney with one of his daughters.
In his final years, he would stand at his local bus stop on Putney High Street
On the bus, he would carefully count out the pennies for his fare, buying a ticket to Hyde Park Corner, where he got off to wait for a 137, quietly telling the conductor: ‘Selfridges please.’
Seemingly lost in memories of past glories, unrecognised by anybody, the old man would shuffle the length of the building, looking up to the roof as though searching for something. It was on one such occasion the police arrested him, suspecting he was a vagrant.
Harry died peacefully in his sleep on May 8, 1947. He was 89 years old. He was buried in a humble grave near his late wife and mother in a churchyard in Highcliffe. His family couldn’t afford a headstone.
But his legacy remains. Harry said: ‘When I die, I want it said of me that I dignified and ennobled commerce.’ ITV’s new drama will remind us how he did just that.
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Advertisement for the opening of the |
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Rosalie Selfridge, circa 1900
During the years of the Great Depression, Selfridge watched his fortune rapidly decline and then disappear—a situation not helped by his continuous free-spending ways. In 1941, he left Selfridges and moved from his lavish home and travelled around |
The forgotten grave of Mr Selfridge: Tombstone to mark burial place of famous shop owner left in a dilapidated and sorry state
Retail pioneer Harry Selfridge is laid to rest in a simple grave in rural Dorset
In 1909 he opened Selfridges, changing shopping forever
A church committee member called the state of his grave 'a disgrace'
By SAM WEBB
PUBLISHED: 20:34 GMT, 10 February 2013 | http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2276623/The-forgotten-grave-Mr-Selfridge-Tombstone-mark-burial-place-famous-shop-owner-left-dilapidated-sorry-state.html
The sleepy Dorset village of Highcliffe is a million miles away from the hustle and bustle of London's Oxford Street, but here lies one of its most famous traders.
The simple grave of Harry Gordon Selfridge at St Mark's Churchyard contains no clues about the lavish lifestyle the man who revolutionised shopping once led.
Selfridge was the American entrepreneur behind Selfridge's, London’s famous department store, a self-made millionaire who turned retail on its head because he understood what women wanted and gave it to them in style.
The grave is covered in leaves and lies at the base of an ivy hedgerow, inscribed with only the few simple words 'IN LOVING MEMORY HARRY GORDON SELFRIDGE 1857 - 1947'.
Selfridge is laid to rest, separated by two unmarked graves, next to his wife Rosalie 'Rose' Buckingham.
During the years of the Great Depression, Selfridge watched his fortune rapidly decline and then disappear - a situation not helped by his continuing free-spending ways.
In 1941, he left Selfridges and moved from his lavish home. In 1947 he died, aged 91, in straitened circumstances at Putney, in south-west London.
At the height of his fortune, Selfridge leased as his family home Highcliffe Castle in Hampshire (now Dorset)
A member of the church committee who would not be named, said: 'It's a total shame and a disgrace that the grave of an enormously great man, be left without the due care and attention it so rightly deserves.'
Harry Selfridge’s incredible story — from the backwoods of Wisconsin to becoming the ‘Earl of Oxford Street’ — is now being told in an ITV1 drama, Mr Selfridge.
Based on Lindy Woodhead’s biography Shopping, Seduction & Mr Selfridge, it stars Jeremy Piven as Selfridge, and Zoe Tapper as a cocaine-snorting showgirl who becomes his mistress.
Harry Selfridge had a tough start in life. Born in 1856, his father deserted the family when he was just five, and his two older brothers later died, leaving Harry and his mother alone.
After getting a job as a lowly sock boy in a Chicago department store, Harry swiftly rose to the top and eventually opened his own store.
At first leaving his wife, Rose, and their four children in the U.S., he bought the now famous site on Oxford Street and set about creating a palatial, five-storey store. It opened in 1909 and was a sensation.
Selfridge was an inspired retailer. He invented the phrase ‘the customer is always right’, understood that shopping was about sex appeal and made Selfridge’s a London landmark.
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The English Country House by James Peill , Photographs by James Fennell, Foreword by Julian Fellowes .
"I am sure that this book will give great pleasure to any who open its covers." —Julian Fellowes, from the Foreword
Stately, grand, and a testament to the generations who have cared for them, the 10 English country houses featured in this volume are architecturally distinctive and filled with evocative family memorabilia, from commissioned portraits to monogrammed heirloom dinner services to the bells that once summoned the downstairs staff. Like the fictional Downton Abbey, these real homes are still in the hands of descendants of the original owners.
From Kentchurch Court, which has been the seat of the Scudamore family for nearly 1,000 years, to a delightful Gothic house in rural Cornwall to a charming ducal palace to Goodwood House, England’s greatest sporting estate, this beautifully illustrated book showcases a wealth of gardens, interiors, and fine art collections. James Peill, coauthor of Vendome’s The Irish Country House, recounts the ups and downs of the deep-rooted clans who constructed these homes and illuminates the history and legends behind these marvelous estates, many of which have never before been published. Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey, contributes a foreword.
Praise for The English Country House:
"For hundreds of years generation after generation of the families that built these rarely seen houses, has added to the delights seen within and without." -Min Hogg
"Whatever virtues one assigns to the English country house (. . . .a daunting coffee table book just out from the Vendome Press), coziness is not one of them. . . .And yet the drafty beauty of the estates is such that it would clearly be worth enduring centuries upon centuries of emotional remoteness just to hang on to all that pomp and silver and canopied beds and coffered ceilings and graceful balustrades nestled in the sheepy hills."— TownandCountryMag.com
"There's something mysterious about a stately home in the English countryside. . . . Peill takes a closer look at 10 such homes. . . . As if the beautiful photographs of the interiors and vistas weren't enough, Peill's text also looks at the histories and legacies of the families who occupied these estates."— MarthaStewart.com
This review is from: The English Country House (Hardcover)
By L. M. Keefer / November 8, 2013 / http://www.amazon.com/English-Country-House-James-Peill/product-reviews/0865653062/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?showViewpoints=1
Over 1000 English Country houses were demolished between the years 1945 and 1955 in England. Imagining that much history and beauty lost forever, it makes our reverence for, and appreciation of, these charming English country homes even more important. In this beautiful volume ten elegant English country homes are featured. Ranging from medieval times to the early 20th century, a cornucopia of styles are revealed: Medieval, Jacobean, Elizabethan, Tudor, Palladian, Baroque, Jacobethan, Picturesque, Gothic to Arts and Crafts styles. And sometimes you'll see a mix of these styles in one home as succeeding generations have added additions and updated the homes.
Up until 1914 the gentry owned one-half of England, this book tells us. Now they own less than 1%. The homes detailed in this gorgeous book have remained in their families, some for over 1000 years. Here's an overview of the homes included:
* KENTCHURCH COURT ~ in Heresford on border of England and Wales. About 1000 years old. A 1460 portrait has Kentchurch in background - an "earliest known depiction of an English country house." Originally a fortified manor.
* PRIDEAUX PLACE ~ in Cornwall. Completed 1592. E-shaped Elizabethan manor house. Occupied by American Army during WWII. Only six of its 45 bedrooms are habitable. Used in Rosemary Pilcher films.
* MILTON ~ in Cambridgeshre. Built 1391. William Fitzwilliam bought manor in 1502. William was treasurer to Cardinal Wolsey who was entertained here. Daphne De Maurier visited and based interiors in REBECCA on this home.
* BADMINTON ~ in Gloustershire. Recorded in Domesday book in 1275. English version of badminton sport invented here. Badminton court is size of Great Hall of this home. Queen Mary came here during WWII with 55 servants.
* EUSTON ~ in Norfolk. Queen Elizabeth I stayed on estate. New home built on site in late 1600's. Many fine paintings of royalty from 1700's hang on walls.
* GOODWOOD HOUSE ~ in Sussex. Originally hunting lodge of Duke of Richmond in 1697. Has a Tapestry Room with French tapestries on walls. Celebrated as England's greatest sporting estate - cricket first played here.
* HACKTHORN HALL ~ in Lincolnshire. Original Elizabethan home. Owners have Jane Austen and Tennyson in family tree. Originally H-shaped with Dutch style gables. Pulled down and new 2-story, square neoclassical villa built.
* MADRESFIELD COURT ~ in Worcestershire. Probably wattle-and-daub manor house around 1086. Has a moat. Evelyn Waugh wrote BLACK MISCHIEF here, used owners as inspiration for BRIDESHEAD REVISITED. Rebuilt in 1860's for 25 years.
* INWOOD ~ in Somerset. Rebuilt in 1879. No clear style. Owners loved collecting. Collection of hunting horns.
* RODMARTON MANOR ~ in Gloustershire. Began construction in 1909 - one of best examples of Arts & Crafts style. Built in three stages - finished in 1929.
You feel you are on an English Country House tour here of some of the lesser-known and smaller English Country houses. The photography is stunning and the quality of paper is thick. There is background on the history, owners, architectural work and art in the homes. Some photos take up double pages, or full pages. Some photos are three to four on a page. If you can't get enough of English Country homes and style, this lovely book should be a five-star read for you.
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SUNDAY IMAGES ... Paintings ...
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Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim / August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979
Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim (August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, bohemian and socialite. Born to a wealthy New York City America Venice
Both of Peggy's parents were of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Her mother, Florette Seligman (1870–1937), was a member of the Seligman family. When she turned 21 in 1919, Peggy Guggenheim inherited US$2.5 million, about US$34 million in today's currency. Guggenheim's father, Benjamin Guggenheim, died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic and he had not amassed the fortune of his siblings; therefore her inheritance was far less than the vast wealth of her cousins.
She first worked as a clerk in an avant-garde bookstore, the Sunwise Turn, where she became enamored with the members of the bohemian artistic community. In 1920 she went to live in Paris , France Montparnasse quarter of the city. Man Ray photographed her, and was, along with Constantin Brâncuși and Marcel Duchamp, a friend whose art she was eventually to promote.
She became close friends with writer Natalie Barney and artist Romaine Brooks, and was a regular at Barney's stylish salon. She met Djuna Barnes during this time, and in time became her friend and patron. Barnes wrote her best-known novel, Nightwood, while staying at the Devonshire country manor, 'Hayford Hall', that Guggenheim had rented for two summers.
In January 1938, Guggenheim opened a gallery for modern art in London
Her first gallery was called Guggenheim Jeune, the name being ingeniously chosen to associate the epitome of a gallery, the French Bernheim Jeune, with the name of her own well known family. The gallery on 30 Cork Street, next to Roland Penrose's and E. L. T. Mesens' show-case for the Surrealist movement, the London Gallery, proved to be successful, thanks to many friends who gave advice and who helped run the gallery. Marcel Duchamp, whom she had known since the early 1920s, when she lived in Paris with her first husband Laurence Vail, had introduced Guggenheim to the art world; it was through him that she met many artists during her frequent visits to Paris
The Cocteau exhibition was followed by exhibitions on Wassily Kandinsky (his first one-man-show in England
When Peggy Guggenheim realized that her gallery, although well received, had made a loss of £600 in the first year, she decided to spend her money in a more practical way. A museum for contemporary arts was exactly the institution she could see herself supporting. Most certainly on her mind also were the adventures in New York City Museum of Modern Art in London
In August 1939, Peggy Guggenheim left for Paris
A few days before the Germans reached Paris , Peggy Guggenheim had to abandon her plans for a Paris museum, and fled to the south of France , from where, after months of safeguarding her collection and artist friends, she left Europe for New York
Her interest in new art was instrumental in advancing the careers of several important modern artists including the American painters Jackson Pollock and William Congdon, the Austrian surrealist Wolfgang Paalen, the sound poet Ada Verdun Howell and the German painter Max Ernst, whom she married in December 1941. She had assembled her collection in only seven years.
Following World War II — and her 1946 divorce from Max Ernst — she closed The Art of This Century Gallery in 1947, and returned to Europe; deciding to live in Venice, Italy. In 1948, she was invited to exhibit her collection in the disused Greek Pavilion of the Venice Biennale and in 1949 established herself in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal .
Her collection became one of the few European collections of modern art to promote a significant amount of works by Americans. In the 1950s she promoted the art of two local painters, Edmondo Bacci and Tancredi Parmeggiani. By the early 1960s, Guggenheim had almost stopped collecting art and began to concentrate on presenting what she already owned. She loaned out her collection to museums in Europe and in 1969 to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is one of the most important museums in Italy
Peggy Guggenheim lived in Venice until her death in Camposampiero near Padua , Italy Nasher Sculpture Garden
According to both Guggenheim and her biographer Anton Gill, she had a voracious sexual appetite and it was believed that, while living in Europe , she had "slept with 1,000 men".She claimed to have had affairs with numerous artists and writers, and in return many artists and others have claimed affairs with her. She is even mentioned as having had affairs with fictional characters, for example William Boyd's Nat Tate.
Her first marriage was to Laurence Vail, a Dada sculptor and writer with whom she had two children, Michael Cedric Sindbad and Pegeen Vail. They divorced about 1928 following his affair with writer Kay Boyle, whom he later married. Soon after her first marriage dissolved, she briefly married John Holms, a writer with writer's block who had been a war hero.[2] Starting in late December 1939, she and Samuel Beckett had a brief but intense affair, and he encouraged her to turn exclusively to modern art. She married her third husband, Max Ernst, in 1941 and divorced him in 1946. She has eight grandchildren: Clovis
Peggy Guggenheim is portrayed by Amy Madigan in the movie Pollock (2000), directed by and starring Ed Harris, based on the life of Jackson Pollock. A play by Lanie Robertson based on Peggy Guggenheim's life, Woman Before a Glass, opened at the Promenade Theatre on Broadway, New York New York
In Bethan Roberts' first play for radio, "My Own Private Gondolier", Peggy Guggenheim's troubled daughter, Pegeen, leaves her three children behind when she travels to 
The priceless Peggy Guggenheim
In just eight years, Peggy Guggenheim changed the face of 20th-century art – and her life, both public and intimate, was as radical as her collection. John Walsh salutes a true original
Wednesday 21 October 2009 / http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/the-priceless-peggy-guggenheim-1806124.html
It was said that she had a thousand lovers in her life, and that she received her most thorough grounding in modern art when she spent a night and a day in bed with Samuel Beckett, interrupted only by her demands that he go out and find some champagne. People murmured that Peggy Guggenheim went to bed with so many men (and occasionally women) because it boosted her self-esteem and made her less conscious of her huge, potato-shaped nose. She loved art and sex in about equal measure, but she was also turned on by fame. Asked why she loved Max Ernst, the great Surrealist painter whom she married in 1941, she replied: “Because he’s so beautiful and because he’s so famous.”
In the high-rolling, modern-Medici world of 20th-century art patronage and art collecting, Peggy Guggenheim was unique. She collected art like nobody else, picking up items that didn’t sell, and works for which there was, as yet, no market, just because she loved them. She bought art, not as an investment, but because she saw something that her own eyes told her was great. She discovered Jackson Pollock when he was a humble carpenter in Solomon Guggenheim’s museum, and gave him his first exhibition in 1950 at the Museo Correr in Venice 1940 in England and France ; and 1941-46 in America
“Eight years collecting in a lifetime of 80 years,” wrote her biographer, Anton Gill, “is not much, especially when one looks at the career of Edward James, or Walter Arensberg or the Cone sisters or Katherine Dreier … Had her private life been less colourful, would what she did for art seem less interesting?” Seldom has a figure in the art world appeared so schizoid about her commitment to the actual work. When her autobiography Memoirs of an Art Lover was published, critics noted with disapproval that, in its 200 pages, art doesn’t get a mention until page 110.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of Solomon R Guggenheim’s fabled New York New York ’s Park Avenue and called it the Museum of Non-Objective Painting Bilbao , Berlin and Las Vegas Venice
Peggy Guggenheim was the original poor little rich girl, born in 1898 to fabulous wealth in New York City
Peggy’s education in modern art began in New York 44th Street Paris
His gallery on Fifth Avenue Greenwich Village .
In the 1920s, Peggy went travelling in Europe, discovered Paris
In Paris Bloomsbury was often riven with furious rows, drunken harangues and accusation of infidelity, during which, Peggy writes in her autobiography, “he made me stand for ages naked in front of the open window (in December) and threw whiskey into my eyes”. (She was remarkably unlucky with her lovers. Laurence Vail was similarly theatrical. “When our fights worked up to a grand finale,” she reported, “he would rub jam into my hair.”)
Peggy Guggenheim’s annus mirabilis was 1938. Inspired by the groundbreaking, indeed earthshaking, surrealism exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries in 1936 – derided by the British press but unexpectedly popular with the general public – and the encouragement of her friend Peggy Waldheim (“I wish you would do some serious work – the art gallery, book agency – anything that would be engrossing yet impersonal – if you were doing something for good painters or writers … I think you’d be so much better off … ”) she hit upon the idea of starting a gallery dealing in modern artists. She’d met many artists through her first husband. Her uncle Solomon had put together a priceless collection of Old Masters, but she could collect new work for a much more modest outlay. And she genuinely loved the company of artists and writers. She began to look for a suitable space, helped by Humphrey Jennings, the documentary-maker who filmed Auden’s “Night Mail” for the GPO Film Unit, and Marcel Duchamp. As they fixed on No 30 Cork Street, Duchamp gave her some basic lessons in modern art. “Peggy had to be shown the difference between what was Abstract and what was Surrealist,” writes her biographer Anton Gill, “and between the ‘dream’ Surrealism of, for example, Dali or Di Chirico and the ‘abstract’ Surrealism of, say, André Masson. She was an eager and quick learner, showing a natural affinity and sympathy for what she saw.”
Also helpful was Samuel Beckett, who was then living in Paris
So the marriage of money and art came together. Duchamp’s friendship supplied a heady throng of top-class artists for Peggy to meet: he introduced her to Jean Cocteau, who wrote the introduction to his exhibition. Beckett translated it and introduced her to Geer Van Velde, the Dutch artist. Meanwhile, Beckett revealed an unexpected |love for driving fast in her whizzy sports cars. And the society heiress was gradually |transformed into the boho queen of the European art world.
The gallery, christened Guggenheim Jeune, opened on 24 January 1938, with 30 drawings by Jean Cocteau. Two large linen sheets, sent over from Paris, displayed a group of figures with their genitals and pubic hair on display: they were confiscated and detained, of all unlikely places, in Croydon airport until Peggy and Duchamp could hurry to south London to have them released.
As the year rolled by, Peggy’s gallery grew in stature. She gave Wassily Kandinsky his first-ever London show, then an exhibition of contemporary sculpture featuring works of Henry Moore, Hans Arp, Brancusi, Alexander Calder and Anton Pevsner.
Despite the speed of her gallery’s success, Peggy grew tired of temporarily showcasing the work of certain artists. Inside a year, she became excited by “the idea of opening a modern museum in London Europe trembled on the brink of war, Peggy Guggenheim set out on her tremendous cultural crusade. She boldly resolved to “buy a picture a day”. She bought Surrealist works by Dali, Cubist works by Braque and Picasso, geometric designs by Mondrian and Fernand Léger (whose Men in the City she bought on the day Hitler invaded Norway Paris Paris
The invasion effectively closed down her operations. With the über-Surrealist Max Ernst (whom she later married and divorced in two years), she finally fled occupied France in July 1941 and headed for her beloved New York
In October 1942, her museum-gallery, Art of This Century, opened in Manhattan University of Iowa
Then, after the war, she discovered Venice Europe . The fact that she’d brought them together with all the European masterpieces bought in the early years of the war made her complete collection a paradigm of Western modern art.
A year later, she bought the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal , and held an exhibition of her sculptures in the gardens. The |reputation of her collection grew as it was toured across Europe, and shown in Florence , Milan , Amsterdam , Brussels and Zurich
She died on 23 December 1979. Her ashes are buried in a corner of the Palazzo garden, near where her 14 beloved Lhasa Apso dogs are buried. The dogs were a vestigial emblem of the flamboyant, rich-bitch socialite she could so easily have remained, with her family inheritance and ritzy Manhattan
Art world: The Guggenheim empire
Best known for its building, Bilbao Bilbao
Opened in 1997, the Deutsche Guggenheim is a joint venture based in the ground floor of the Deutsche Bank building in Unter der Linden, a grand boulevard in the historical centre of Berlin
Opened on 21 October 1959, the New York Guggenheim building is an artwork in its own right: a white spiral structure designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Inside, the museum brings together several private collections, including the "non-objective paintings" belonging to Solomon R Guggenheim, who established the Guggenheim Foundation that still owns the museums that carry its name. Up to 1,150,000 visitors flock each year to the Fifth Avenue
Currently under construction, the latest Guggenheim will also be the biggest. Another innovative design from the California-based architect Frank Gehry, with clusters of block and cone-shaped connected galleries seemingly piled on top of each other, the 450,000sq ft museum is situated on a peninsula at the north-western tip of Saadiyat Island , adjacent to Abu Dhabi
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
Solomon R Guggenheim's niece, Peggy, bequeathed her collection, and the 18th-century palazzo house in which she had lived since the late 1940s, to the Foundation in 1976. Much smaller in scale than its New York
Biopic to tell the outrageous story of Peggy Guggenheim
BY CHRIS GREEN Wednesday 01 September 2010 / http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/biopic-to-tell-the-outrageous-story-of-peggy-guggenheim-2066934.html
A film featuring racy sex scenes, the sinking of the Titanic and portrayals of Marcel Duchamp, Jackson Pollock and James Joyce might be dismissed as too far-fetched by Hollywood standards.
The extraordinary life of Peggy Guggenheim, the bohemian doyenne of the 20th-century art world, often defied rational explanation, however.
A big screen biopic is in the works, and Guggenheim family aficionados and wary film censors can be certain that it will contain a lot of sex and art. The art collector denied the oft-repeated rumour that she had gone to bed with almost 1,000 people – men and women alike – but admitted that her lovers could be counted in the hundreds.
She became a close friend of Marcel Duchamp and is credited with advancing the careers of Jackson Pollock and Max Ernst. In the process she helped to develop abstract expressionism, the first American art movement to achieve worldwide importance.
Eleanor Cayre, a New York-based art advisor, is to lead the film's development in partnership with Nikki Silver, the Emmy Award-winning producer.
"I have always been fascinated with Peggy's collection and life story," Ms Cayre said. "She was an eccentric figure, who not only championed, but also had intimate relationships with some of the most creative minds in modern art history."
The film, which is still untitled and has yet to reach the casting stage, is expected to begin production in 2012. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the project is that it has taken so long for somebody to commit Peggy Guggenheim's life to celluloid.
Born in New York
In 1912, when Peggy was a teenager, her father boarded the RMS Titanic for its maiden voyage, accompanied by his mistress, his valet and his chauffeur. According to witnesses, after hearing of a collision with an iceberg he ushered his mistress to a lifeboat before returning to his cabin and changing into his evening dress, remarking: "We've dressed up in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen."
Benjamin Guggenheim did indeed go down with the ship, and by the time his daughter was 22 she found herself with an income of $22,500 a year in the form of a trust fund. One of her first acts after gaining financial independence was to hire a surgeon to carry out work on her nose, a feature she hated and referred to as her "Guggenheim potato".
Bored and frustrated by her small clique of New York friends, she decided to leave the US to go travelling in Europe in search of sexual and artistic adventures.
In her autobiography Out of This Century, Peggy said: "All my boyfriends were disposed to marry me, but they were so respectable they would not rape me.
"I had a collection of photographs of frescos I had seen at Pompeii
In 1922 she married a French artist called Laurence Vail, whom she later referred to as the "King of Bohemia". They had two children but divorced in 1928 after six tempestuous years during which their fights ranged from the unpleasant – he would rub jam in her hair – to the downright violent: "Once he held me down under water in the bathtub until I felt I was going to drown," she wrote.
She mingled with numerous writers and artists, including James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp and Isadora Duncan. She played tennis with Ezra Pound, describing him later as "a good player, but he crowed like a rooster whenever he made a good stroke".
Her next relationship was with John Holms, a frustrated writer who drank too much. She invited him and his partner to visit her home in Pramousquier, writing later: "They came overnight and we went in bathing at midnight, quite naked. John and I found ourselves alone on the beach and we made love."
In 1938, with the help of Marcel Duchamp, she launched Guggenheim Jeune, a modern art gallery in London Paris
At a dinner thrown by James Joyce in 1939 she met Samuel Beckett, who escorted her back to her apartment. They had a brief affair, much of which was spent in the bedroom, during which the young writer persuaded her to concentrate solely on modern art.
Driven out of Europe by the Second World War, she set up a gallery in New York
Perhaps her greatest triumph, the gallery also proved to be the undoing of her marriage to the surrealist artist Max Ernst, who left her for one of 31 female artists she had featured in a show. "I realised that I should have had only 30 women in the show," she remarked drily after their divorce.
The goodtime Guggenheim
Mary V Dearborn's biography of Peggy Guggenheim, the 20th century's great collector, gives her the treatment she deserves, says Lucasta Miller
Lucasta Miller
The Guardian, Saturday 12 November 2005 / http://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/nov/12/highereducation.biography
Peggy Guggenheim: Mistress of Modernism
by Mary V Dearborn
320pp, Virago, £20
Both sides of the art collector Peggy Guggenheim's family were preposterously, fabulously, stinkingly rich, so much so that their stories read as near-parodies of the American dream. Her maternal grandfather, James Seligman, and his brothers, had started life as penniless Jewish immigrants from Bavaria
The Guggenheims, with a similar immigrant background, were equally blessed with commercial nous, though they made their fortune primarily in metals, controlling 75% to 80% of the world's copper, silver and lead by the time of the first world war.
Peggy was born in 1898 in one of New York 's grandest hotels, where her parents were living before moving to their own enormous mansion on the Upper East Side , all marble staircases, tigerskin rugs and Louis XVI. From an early age, she was precociously sexualised, something that had a profound influence on her adult personality. At seven, she was banished from the dining table for saying, "Papa, you must have a mistress as you stay out so many nights!"
As second-generation immigrants, neither Peggy's eccentric mother Florette nor her father Benjamin shared the willpower of their antecedents. When her father died on the Titanic, his estate was found to be in disarray, and his widow and three daughters became reliant on his brothers. With pathological insensitivity, Florette blamed her youngest, Hazel, for Benjamin's demise - he had booked his passage to be home for the child's birthday. In later life, Hazel would fling her two young children to their deaths from a New York
In 1919, Peggy came of age and inherited, yet because of her father's comparative fecklessness, her fortune - $450,000 - was nothing like as big as her name suggested, gossips supposing that she had $70m. Such misconceptions proved a problem in later life as Peggy attracted more and more hangers-on who were dependent on her largesse; it also explains how she developed a reputation for meanness despite the fact that she was, according to this biography, capable of great generosity. As a young woman, she hated her appearance. An attempted rhinoplasty - the art was still in its infancy - failed to provide the nose "tip-tilted like a flower" which she requested and instead left her even more potatoish than before. Low self-esteem, often transmuted into exhibitionism, continued to dog her throughout her life.
Nevertheless, it must have taken some guts for her to break out of the stifling, conservative world of New York
Through the course of her life she would go on, notoriously, to sleep with creative men of far more talent, ranging, among others, from Samuel Beckett (she wrote embarrassing doggerel to leave beside his bed) to Yves Tanguy, from Constantin Brancusi to Marcel Duchamp to Max Ernst (who became her short-lived third husband). But from the late 30s she combined such sexual adventurism with the ambition to become a serious patron of modern art, following in the footsteps of her Guggenheim uncle, Solomon, who had already amassed a collection of Old Masters. She founded three of the most important avant-garde galleries of the 20th century: Guggenheim Jeune, in London's Cork Street, which brought surrealism to London before the second world war; Art of This Century, which opened in New York in 1942 after Peggy's return to the US; and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice - which still houses her personal collection in the palazzo where she ended her life.
Partly as a result of her own incontinent memoirs, which detail her bedroom antics in an odd, flat, scarcely literate tone, Guggenheim has received a poor press and been seen as a figure of fun. Mary V Dearborn, who is related by marriage to her subject, has made a serious attempt to rehabilitate her. Arguing forcefully that the great artists who benefited from Peggy's patronage must have been attracted by something more than her reputed wealth, she presents her as a powerful, independent woman in control of her own destiny and sexuality. Much of this convinces, but at times one feels the biographer is struggling heroically to put Peggy in a positive light.
We are told, for example, that she "cared for her daughter passionately and wanted only the best for her, but she had difficulty expressing her love". Yet reading of Peggy's appalling neglect of her - somewhat sadistically named - children, Sindbad and Jezebel (known as Pegeen), it is impossible not to suppose that her "difficulties" went beyond mere reticence. Her dehumanising determination to christen her dog "Pegeen" and refer to it as her daughter, suggests the pathological.
Despite Dearborn
· Lucasta Miller's The Brontë Myth is published by Vintage. To order Peggy Guggenheim for £18 with free UK
Peggy Guggenheim: Mistress Of Modernism
HELEN GENT
June 19, 2009 / http://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/marie-claire/news-and-views/celebrity/a/5869429/peggy-guggenheim-mistress-of-modernism/
Known for her riotous parties and outrageous behaviour, this wealthy libertine became one of the most celebrated champions of modern art. By Helen Gent.
As the gleaming black gondola glided through the waters of Venice 's Grand Canal , people turned to stare at the elderly woman sitting regally on board. With her huge sunglasses, smeared red lipstick and bright printed dress, she was an incongruous sight against the backdrop of T-shirted tourists. As people pointed and cameras clicked, the woman chatted to the little dog lying sleepily by her side, seemingly oblivious to the excitement she was creating. Suddenly, she flicked her hand, and her trusted gondolier nodded and turned the boat. As they moved gently through the rippling waters, the city shimmering in the summer haze behind them, the woman hoped that when she arrived home, everyone would, at last, be gone.
Putting up with prying tourists was a price Peggy Guggenheim was prepared to pay in order to share her love of art. During the '50s, '60s and '70s, the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni (now the Peggy Guggenheim Collection) was not only Peggy's home, but also a mecca for hundreds of thousands of visitors who flocked through its doors to see the private art collection she had amassed over an enthralling lifetime.
Displayed throughout the crumbling 18th-century palazzo, tourists could view Peggy's fabulous artworks while she avoided the crowds by riding her gondola - or sunbathing naked on the roof. "Fifty per cent of the people who come here genuinely want to see my collection; the others to meet what they consider a celebrity," she said of the daily intrusion.
An heiress of the famous Guggenheim family (industrialists who later founded the eponymous museum in New York Venice
With her "potato" nose, Peggy wasn't known for her beauty, but she was an exhibitionist - once standing naked in front of her butler while giving him orders - and was renowned for her insatiable carnal appetite. Dubbed "the female Don Juan" by some, Peggy was said to have bedded hundreds of men - and occasionally women. When asked how many husbands she'd had, she reportedly replied, "Mine or other people's?" Many of her sexual conquests were the artists she invited to the raging parties she was famous for.
Her love of modern art meant she mingled with some of the 20th century's most famous artists, including Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, French surrealist Jean Cocteau and German painter Max Ernst, whom she married after rescuing him from Nazi-occupied France Italy
Born on August 26, 1898, Marguerite Guggenheim grew up in Manhattan , New York Guggenheim Museum in New York
In 1919, Marguerite turned 21 and came into an inheritance of $450,000 from her late grandfather. She started calling herself Peggy - her favourite nickname - and had a nose job in 1920. But the operation was so painful that, midway through, Peggy begged the surgeon to stop, and left with the same bulbous nose she'd walked in with (only now, bizarrely, it swelled up when it rained).
At 23, Peggy - a tall, willowy brunette - took a holiday in Europe with her mother, and in Paris Paris
But there was a dark side to married life. Soon after their wedding, Laurence, a heavy drinker, began to physically assault Peggy, sometimes even throwing her down steps or punching her in the stomach. By the end of 1928, she'd had enough, and left him and their two children, Sindbad, five, and Pegeen, two, and moved in with a new lover, English writer John Holms, who she'd met at a cafe in Saint-Tropez.
Four years later, when her divorce came through, Peggy and John moved to England London
Now nearing 40, Peggy's privileged life took on a new direction. In 1937, her mother died, leaving Peggy another $450,000. Bored with country life, she decided to get a job. "Someone suggested either an art gallery or a publishing house, and I thought a gallery would be less expensive," explained Peggy, who had been introduced to the bohemian art world by Vail. "Of course, I never dreamed how much I would eventually spend."
By her own admission, Peggy knew nothing about modern art - "My knowledge of art ended at impressionism" - but she soon learnt from Duchamp, who taught her the difference between abstract and surrealism. Armed with her new knowledge - "I took advice from none but the best ... I listened, how I listened! That's how I finally became my own expert." - Peggy travelled to Paris
In 1938, Peggy's gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, opened in Cork Street , London UK Paris
Peggy was still in Paris New York
On June 12, 1940, two days before the Germans invaded Paris , Peggy finally fled to Grenoble in the south of France France France Marseilles , where she enjoyed a lusty liaison with Max, Peggy and the rescued artists escaped to the US
Back in New York , Peggy and Max moved into a mansion on the East River , and married the following December. In October 1942, Peggy opened her longed-for modern-art museum, called Art Of This Century, in Manhattan
With her treasured Lhasa apso dogs trailing behind her, Peggy arrived daily at the gallery in a thrown-together outfit with smudged lipstick and her hair dyed a severe black. At night, she hosted wild parties attended by avant-garde guests, like the actress and writer Gypsy Rose Lee. Peggy claimed she went to bed drunk every night for five years, but Pollock was rarely invited to her outrageous bashes "as he drank so much", she noted, "and did unpleasant things on such occasions". (He once urinated into a fireplace.)
In 1943, Max moved out. "Peace was the one thing that Max needed in order to paint, and love was the one thing I needed in order to live," observed Peggy. "As neither of us gave the other what he most desired, our union was doomed to failure." Then, in May 1947, Peggy closed Art Of This Century after five years. "I was exhausted by all my work in the gallery, where I had become a sort of slave," said Peggy, who was now approaching 50.
She decided to return to Europe, settling in Venice
She continued to host regular parties and entertained famous guests like Japanese artist and future wife of John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and American writer Truman Capote. Despite her wealth, Peggy's catering was lacking ("a can of sardines goes a long way", son Sindbad wryly observed). The men in her life now were mostly homosexual companions, save for a three-year relationship with Raoul Gregorich, a "madly beautiful" garage mechanic 23 years her junior, who died in a car crash in 1954. It wasn't the last tragedy for Peggy. On March 1, 1967, her daughter, Pegeen, died in mysterious circumstances at her home in Paris Mexico
In 1962, Peggy was made an honorary citizen of Venice and, almost until her death from a stroke on December 23, 1979, she could be seen cruising the canals in her gondola - on one occasion writing to a friend: "I adore floating to such an extent I can't think of anything as nice since I gave up sex, or, rather, it gave me up."
Just before she died, Peggy reflected; "I look back on my life with great joy. I think it was a very successful life. I always did what I wanted and never cared what anyone thought. Women's lib? I was a liberated woman long before there was a name for it."
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BARBOUR for Motor Cyclists. 75 Years of the International.
75 Years of the International
2011 marked the 75th anniversary of our famous motorcycle jacket, the iconic International. This original and authentic wax cotton number is inspired from a wealth of motorcycling archive history and lead to the re-introduction of a collection of garments to celebrate this important milestone.
It all started in the 1930’s with a dark green, wax cotton jacket designed specifically for the International Six Day trials (ISDT). The International soon became the original motorcycle jacket, a true ‘classic’ in its own right, and it still is today having remained in production ever since. Proof that when something is right, its right – and it’s never been bettered.
Throughout the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s the Barbour International was the preferred choice of motorcycle teams across the globe. In 1964, the International was worn exclusively by the American ISDT Team which counted within its ranks both the legendary stunt rider, Bud Ekins, credits include ‘The Great Escape’ fence leap, and his actor friend Steve McQueen.
In the 60’s it was all about original Brit rock cool as the International became de rigeur for 60s rockers and rough weather adventures. The ‘King of Cool’ Steve McQueen purchased an International suit in London en route to compete in the 1964 East Germany ISDT, and from then on the International was worn by virtually every British motorcycle trials team from 1936 to 1977. In the 1954 International Six Day Trial, 72% of all competitors wore them, rising to 97% in 1957. This jacket soon became the world standard of tough, waterproof protection from the mid 1900s on.
Throughout WW2, with a few minor tweaks, it became standard issue for Britain
This daddy of motorcycle jackets has continued its celebration this season with a 75th Anniversary limited edition specially lined International jacket. Its all about great history and the International will remain forever cool in our hearts.
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Belstaff Trial Master
The History Of Belstaff
Belstaff, one of the oldest and most recognised motorcycle brands in history was founded way back in 1924 by a man named Harry Grosberg who had a vision of creating waterproof garments for men and women alike – Belstaff was formed using the now altered ‘Phoenix logo’ symbolic of rising through the bad times again and again each time with new fresh ideas (similar to how the Phoenix dies and is reborn from the ashes). The logo although changed several times over the years is the vision for branding the Belstaff name. Ever since the early days Belstaff has used this goal even when the company was located not too far away from our midlands showroom in Victoria Place, Longton, Stoke-On-Trent in Staffordshire.
The major known origins of Belstaff came from around about the same time as their inception; Belstaff became the very first company in the world to use a material that was totally waterproof but also breathable, that then unknown fabric would become a worldwide phenomenon known as Wax Cotton that is used by several companies even today. Wax Cotton was a very fine Egyptian cotton treated with natural oils, this made it 100% waterproof yet left the garments porous enough to allow excellent breathability… Its characteristics (although now considerably old technology) at the time was unmatched. With this new invention Belstaff began development of the original motorcycle jackets and trousers.
The 1930’s saw the brand take another leap in to success when Belstaff started to produce technical garments that were not only rain-proof but wind-proof and resistant to heavy friction. The company began to supply previously unexplored markets for Aviators, Army, Equestrian and other outdoor activities as well as maintaining its close relationship with the motorcycle market. With the jackets and trousers came a whole host of new products that consisted also of goggles, gloves, boots, helmets and bags: all were designed and evolved over the years to maintain Belstaff’s futuristic approach and offer complete protection and safety.
Belstaff’s most famous motorcycle jacket is without question the ‘Trialmaster’ Jacket, through the years it has undergone many ‘facelifts’ must with all intense and purposes remains very much the same. Many hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists and fashion enthusiasts have had the pleasure of wearing the Belstaff Trialmaster throughout the decades including famous motorcycle champions such as Sammy Miller with his record of 1250 victories and the immortal Phil Read who was rarely seen without his jacket when competing in Grand Prix races in the wet conditions. Legendary names such as Ernesto Che Guevara have used the Trialmaster jacket, Che Guevara himself using it during his journey across Latin America.
In 1943 the Belstaff Trialmaster was swiftly followed by another legendary name; the ‘Belstaff Black Prince Motorcycle Jacket’. This was, and still is the best-selling waterproof jacket of all time, the jacket remained in production for almost forty years with over 1.6 million units being produced in that time in the purpose built Silverdale factory. Belstaff continually maintained the traditional manufacturing process of the garment out of both love and respect for the English tradition; this is exactly why older Belstaff jackets – especially from the 50s and 60s maintain a high value and are sought after almost as trophies by collectors and motorcycle enthusiasts alike.
Even now Belstaff continues to manufacture motorcycle jackets and trousers from 100% natural fabrics, in fact, Belstaff are the only garment manufacturer still bold and brave enough to do this, however the synthetic materials sector is certainly not disregarded. Since the 70s Belstaff have produced synthetic jackets too. The famous Belstaff XL500 which became one of the very first jackets available in other colours besides black was created using a specially developed nylon textile known as ‘Belflex’. Belflex offers the wearer improved wearability, resilience and durability to the rider and is still to this day unsurpassed, because of this Belstaff still use the same technology available back then on modern jackets. The XL500 in its modern inception is referred to as the XL500 replica jacket which is still one of Belstaff’s best-selling jackets is still as hard-wearing, totally waterproof, and infinitely durable as the original. Put to the test by thousands of motorcyclists throughout the world.
The 90s were a tough time in Britain, Belstaff made huge strides in terms of the technology they could offer but unfortunately recession hit the UK and the textile industry fell in to crisis effectively killing off Belstaff’s new ‘Evolution’ range before it had chance to really make head way. Belstaff’s Stoke-On-Trent factory closed in 1991 and all seemed lost… Luckily Belstaff had such a well know rapor within the industry that some of Belstaff’s clients and technicians had no intention of letting the legacy of the brand die – production moved to Wellimborough and creative design and responsibilities were given to a man of drive and wisdom: Mr Franco Malenotti. Belstaff would continue to produce clothing but in much smaller quantities than previously made.
1994 saw the brand move forward once again, ‘Belfresh’ material was created. This material was extreamly absorbent but allowed perspiration and sweat to be eliminated, it is extreamly ideal for hotter climates and warmer weather. Only a year later in 1995 Beltech was also created, this veritable "protection System" offerd top performance in terms of waterproofing, breathability and protection from the elements. It went on to make history
In 1996 ‘Clothing Company s.p.A.’ was formed by Franco Malenotti and worked with the Belstaff name the ‘new’ company quickly began to speed up production with the goal of taking the fallen brand back to the top. The response was almost immediate and the sales of Belstaff increased dramatically but it was not until just before the turn of the millennium that Belstaff took their biggest steps to the company it has become today. In 1999 ‘Ironguard’ was introduced by Belstaff; it became the first material to have external metal protectors for extreme abrasive resistance. Not long after Belstaff marketed its ‘Stratos Series’ which were manufactured from a mix of textiles with different characteristics to protect the rider in hotter conditions.
The turn of the millennium came and the year 2000 saw Belstaff introduce ‘Reacta Concept’ a protection system which was able to stabilise temperatures in all conditions of use making Belstaff finally decide that European domination was on the cards, 2002 saw Clothing Company s.p.A. take Belstaff to a level it had never been before, Belstaff began to regain its status as a market leader in many high profile markets where it had previously fallen from grace and a fashion department was installed with the manufacturing of both Bags and Shoes was introduced which gained high success and a surprising number of international sales. During this time Belstaff relaunced an old name ‘Black Prince’ however this time, the tag belonged to a group of garments rather than just one jacket, this branding was aimed at a younger clientele and in 2003 Belstaff conducted a study together with a well-known Italian textile factory for the production of safety jackets for special forces: This led to the creation of Balistic Fabric, a high-performance fabric that was an immediate market success.
In order to improve comfort and fit, Belstaff also developed and patented a special seam system called .Elastoseam®. with elasticated and waterproof Cordura inserts, that allow garments to follow the wearer’s most dynamic movements. The match between the .Elastoseam® system and Balistic Fabric paved the way to the ‘Delta Force’ collection: exceptional-performance jackets and blousons. In the same year, Belstaff developed products that used the unique qualities of leather and of the ‘Elastoseam®’ system to provide extraordinary protection and comfort: the ‘Ergonomic Leather Collection’ In 2003 Belstaff together with actor George Clooney, a keen biker, promoted a European campaign for the diffusion of cardiologic first aid on two wheels.
In 2004, Belstaff International Ltd was officially taken over by the Clothing Company s.p.A.. This was also the year in which Belstaff celebrated its 80th anniversary with the launch of a special collection, the 80th Anniversary Collection. In the same year, Belstaff introduced an ultra-light and strong Nylon fabric with the patented ‘Diablo’ weave, used for the Extra light Collection; waterproof and perfectly breathable jackets designed for summer wear. At the same time, ‘Black Prince’ by Belstaff sponsored the Telefonica Movistar Honda Team with riders Sete Gibernau and Colin Edwards set to win the Moto GP world championships. At the end of the year Sete qualified second in the world and the following year Marco Melandri gained the second place
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Was Scott's expedition ill equipped ? Or there was "something" else ? Was Captain Scott: an "amateur", a "second-rate" hero?
Captain Scott's Lost Photos From South Pole Expedition Unveiled
The Huffington Post UK
Previously unseen photographs from Captain Scott's doomed 1911 expedition to the South Pole have been discovered, some of which were taken by the ill-fated explorer himself.
The photos, which depict scenes from the Terra Nova Expedition as it travelled the Antarctic, were acquired by the Scott Polar Research Institute in spring this year. People have known of the existence of Scott's photographs, but they've been thought to be missing for nearly 100 years.
They have gone on display this week at the University of Cambridge 's Polar Museum
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"I am just going outside and may be some time." Captain Oates  |
Snow goggles, clothing, and equipment
Snow goggles were essential equipment for polar explorers. These goggles belonged to explorer William Laird McKinlay, one of the scientific staff on the disastrous Canadian National Arctic Expedition 1913-1918.
McKinlay told the story of the expedition and his survival for over a year on Wrangel Island in 'The last voyage of the Karluk' published in 1976 when he was 87.
McKinlay's goggles were presented to the National Library of Scotland along with his papers by his family.
Types of snow goggles
Snow goggles were used to protect the eyes and to prevent snow blindness. This was a painful eye condition caused by exposure to sunlight reflected from snow and ice.
Goggles were worn almost constantly by Captain Scott's expedition team. Scott described the variety of goggles available:
'A few men preferred the ordinary wire-gauze type with smoked glass but the drawback to these was their liability to become frosted over. The alternatives were to have a piece of leather with a slit in place of the glass or to have goggles cut from a piece of wood. Personally, I much preferred the latter and in the end invariably used them; mine were very carefully shaped to fit over the nose and eyes, had a considerable cross-shaped aperture, and were blackened outside and in.'
Clothing
Weather conditions in Antarctica are the harshest in the world. Early Antarctic explorers wore clothing made of natural materials, such as wool and fur. Before the British Antarctic Expedition took place, Scott organised for some tests to be carried out on different types of material. This was to find out which were most suitable in terms of insulation, waterproofing, and durability.
The Norwegian expedition team wore more fur clothing than the British team. The Norwegians relied heavily on dog sledges, and the fur helped to protect the men from cold whilst sitting on the sledges. Scott however was more reliant on man-hauling. The men would have been too hot whilst undertaking this strenuous physical activity in fur clothing.
The reindeer fur boots made by the Lapps for the British expedition team were called 'finnesko'. They were lined with felt and insulated with hay called 'seannegrass'.
Each member of the expedition team was responsible for caring for and repairing their own items of clothing. They were able to adapt their kit to suit their own individual preferences and needs. The kit would have included:
Windproof outer layers, such as canvas trousers and hooded smocks
Reindeer fur gloves
Strong boots with canvas wrappings to keep out the wind
Woollen undergarments.
Modern day explorers and travellers have the benefit of lightweight, synthetic, breathable material. You can find out more about modern Antarctic clothing on the Cool Antarctica website.
Sleeping bags and sledges
Scott and his team used sleeping bags made of reindeer fur. This worked well when the men were at base camp and conditions were dry. However, if the sleeping bags got wet or iced up, they soon became stiff and heavy to carry.
Apsley Cherry-Garrad described the sleeping bags in his book 'The worst journey in the world', first published in 1922:
'When we got into our sleeping-bags, if we were fortunate, we became warm enough during the night to thaw the ice: part remained in our clothes, part passed into the skins of the bags … and soon both were sheets of armour-plate'.
The sledges were made of wood, leather, and rope. The conservation team at the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge
Pony snow shoes
Special snow shoes were made for Scott's team of Siberian ponies. Using a circle of wire for the base, the shoes were created from bamboo, and were fitted to the ponies with leather straps. Enough shoes were transported for all of the ponies. However, before the initial depot laying expedition in 1911, there was not enough time to train the ponies in their use. Scott was not convinced that they would be effective, and only one pair was taken on the journey.
The ponies had great difficulty walking in the snow, and the one available pair of snow shoes proved to be invaluable when tried out on one pony, Weary Willie. Scott regretted having left the other pairs at Cape Evans
Suggested discussion points
Find out the average summer and winter temperature where you live, and compare these with the average temperatures at Scott Base in Antarctica .
Think about the clothes that you wear, and the fabrics that they're made of. Check the labels and list some of the materials. Which of these fabrics help to keep you dry, cool, or warm? Are these materials natural or synthetic?
Find out more about the weather conditions and terrain in Antarctica . What are some of the challenges of living or visiting the continent? What type of clothing and equipment are essential for survival in this type of climate and environment?
Discuss the potential psychological impact of living in or visiting Antarctica . Consider the climate, and also the amount of daylight during the two seasons — summer and winter.
What animals are indigenous to the region, and how have they adapted to living in such harsh conditions?
Photograph of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's team finding Amundsen's tent at the South Pole
Captain Scott’s party suffered terribly, while the Norwegian group led by Amundsen mastered the elements
A farewell letter from polar explorer Captain Scott in which he pledged that his team would "die like gentlemen" is expected to sell for £150,000 at auction. The letter, which was found on Scott's body in November 1912, was written on March 16 of that year to financier Sir Edgar Speyer, honorary treasurer of the fund-raising committee for the ill-fated trip. Scott wrote, "We have been to the Pole and we shall die like gentlemen."
Picture: Kirsty WigglesworthFarewell letter from Captain Scott pledged Antarctic team would 'die like gentlemen'
A farewell letter from polar explorer Captain Scott in which he pledged that his team would "die like gentlemen" is expected to sell for £150,000 at auction.
10:24AM GMT 20 Dec 2011 / http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/antarctica/robert-falcon-scott/8967968/Farewell-letter-from-Captain-Scott-pledged-Antarctic-team-would-die-like-gentlemen.html
The letter, which was found on Scott's body in November 1912, was written on March 16 of that year to financier Sir Edgar Speyer, honorary treasurer of the fund-raising committee for the ill-fated trip.
In it, Scott expresses his great concerns for his family and the families of his companions and asks that the nation provide for their future.
Sensing that the position was hopeless, Scott wrote, "I fear we must go...but we have been to the Pole and we shall die like gentlemen - I regret only for the women we leave behind. If this diary is found it will show how we stuck by our dying companions and fought this thing out to the end.
"We very nearly came through and it's a pity to have missed it but lately I have felt that we have overshot our mark - no-one is to blame and I hope no attempt will be made to suggest that we lacked support."
The letter was at one time owned by the famous American polar explorer, Rear Admiral Richard E Byrd, and was presented to him at a dinner in his honour in 1935 by Sir Edgar Speyer's widow.
The recipient of the letter, Edgar Speyer, was a well known business, political and philanthropic figure before the First World War. He had played a major role in raising funds for Scott's expedition and Mount Speyer in the Arctic was named in his honour by Scott.
American born to a wealthy German family, Speyer 30 in 1892. A great patron of the arts, particularly music, he personally funded the Proms for many years and single- handedly secured their long tem future. Richard Strauss dedicated his opera Salome to him.
Scott need not have worried about the future of the team's widows and orphans. Once the contents of his final letters became known, there was a huge outpouring of public sympathy resulting in enough money not only to pay off the expedition's debts but also to settle annuities on the families of those who died and to endow the Scott Polar Research Institute.
The letter, which has an estimate of £100,000 -£150,000 is for sale at Bonhams Polar Sale in London
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“Gieves, the naval taillor, had been the main supplier of Royal Navy officers' uniforms since the late 18th Century and Scott was just one of its customers, who wore the then-standard "Reefer No. 5," a high-buttoning, close-fitting, double-breasted jacket worn by all ranks from lieutenant up. It is this garment that is largely considered the original pattern for the classic navy blazer.” (…) By Nick Sullivan on March 23, 2012 / http://www.esquire.com/blogs/mens-fashion/robert-falcon-scott-gieves-jacket-032312 |
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Scott outlined his plans for the southern journey to the entire shore party, but left open who would form the final polar team. Eleven days before Scott's teams set off towards the pole, Scott gave the dog driver Meares the following written orders at About the first week of February I should like you to start your third journey to the South, the object being to hasten the return of the third Southern unit [the polar party] and give it a chance to catch the ship. The date of your departure must depend on news received from returning units, the extent of the depot of dog food you have been able to leave at One Ton Camp, the state of the dogs, etc ... It looks at present as though you should aim at meeting the returning party about March The march south began on 1 November The deflated party began the 800-mile ( Meanwhile back at With After walking a further We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last ... Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for. Scott is presumed to have died on 29 March 1912, possibly a day later. The positions of the bodies in the tent when it was discovered eight months later suggested that Scott was the last of the three to die |
Captain Scott: a second-rate hero?
After a lifetime's research, Roland Huntford thinks he has finally nailed the myth of Scott of the Antarctic: far from being a national hero, the explorer was an amateur whose incompetence condemned his men to death
John Crace
The Guardian, Monday 27 September 2010 /
It was hard to escape Captain Scott if you were a child growing up in Britain
And then – almost overnight – the Scott myth ended in 1979 with the publication of Roland Huntford's book, Scott and Amundsen. For the first time, the British and Norwegian expeditions to the south pole were forensically examined side by side and Scott was found seriously wanting.
The undisputed facts remained the same – that Amundsen and his team reached the south pole on 15 December 1911 using skis, dogs and sledges, before returning safely to their base camp just over a month later. And that, after Scott's polar party reached the south pole on 17 January 1912 using skis, dogs, sledges and man-hauling, the team died one by one: Edgar Evans died of exhaustion, frostbite and starvation on or around 16 February; Captain Oates, his leg frost-bitten and gangrenous, walked to his death on or around 17 March; and Scott, Wilson and Bowers, too tired to go on, died in their tent out on the Ross Ice Shelf on or around 21 March.
Everything else in the story, however, was up for grabs. Where Amundsen's attention to detail made his expedition seem no more demanding than a skiing trip in the Norwegian outdoors, Scott's appeared a disaster almost from the off. According to Huntford's account, he ignored the basic lessons of previous polar expeditions by failing to either take enough dogs or learn how to drive them properly; he took men who barely knew how to ski; he came unprepared for extreme temperatures; he was indecisive, taking an extra person with him to the pole when his supplies had been based on a team of four. Worst was the veiled accusation that because of all this, which had reduced his frost-bitten men to man-hauling in a blizzard, Scott had effectively condemned his team to death.
It was a damning indictment: one from which rehabilitation seemed impossible. And yet, within 25 years or so, serious writers and academics began to rewrite history in Scott's favour again. First came Ranulph Fiennes in 2003, dismissing Huntford for not being an explorer himself; in the same year, Susan Solomon suggested Scott had just been unusually unlucky with the weather.
Huntford, though, has never been one to duck a fight. He has devoted the last 35 years of his academic career to the study of polar exploration – and in particular to the Scott and Amundsen story. Indeed, his own reputation is now inextricably linked to both men. Two years ago he wrote Two Planks and a Passion and this week he publishes Race for the South Pole: The Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen. The first of these was a history of skiing, the second the unedited diaries, but the subtext of both was the same: to nail the Scott myth once and for all.
The Expedition Diaries breaks new ground by letting both men live and die side by side in their own words. And so, on the very day Scott is complaining about unexpectedly cold conditions, Amundsen writes that the temperatures are about what he expected and he is making good progress. And on days when Scott is tent-bound in a blizzard, Amundsen is again achieving his expected daily distance, because he has brought proper sledge compasses. This is a story of amateurs and professionals, heightened by entries from the diaries of Olav Bjaaland, Amundsen's lead skier, who makes the whole thing sound like a day in the Norwegian mountains.
Even more damning for Scott's reputation, Huntford has restored all the cuts that Scott's family and literary executors had made to his published diaries. Here we find a man given to blaming his colleagues for his own failings; a man with a strong sense – quite early in the expedition – that his preparations have been inadequate; a man who describes one of his dying colleagues as stupid; a man who, on realising he has missed out on being the first to the pole, writes that he can still salvage his reputation if he can get the news to the outside world before Amundsen. A man eager to mask his failure by playing up his mission's scientific endeavour. A man who at one point writes his expedition is a shambles.
"Before Scott left for the Antarctic, the British public had little interest in him," says Huntford. "He was considered an inferior version of Shackleton [who then held the record for the going the furthest south] and polar exploration wasn't big in the public imagination, being considered the preserve of the Royal Geographical Society and the navy and therefore a hive of mediocrity. Those with the real ability in extreme conditions went into mountaineering; the unwritten story of British polar exploration is the men who didn't go."
Amundsen's success in reaching the south pole was broadcast almost a year before news of Scott's fate reached the outside world. In that time, while some of the British newspapers were a little huffy about Amundsen having concealed from Scott his intention of heading south, the British public were fairly sanguine. Amundsen's UK
All that changed in 1913 when news came through that Scott and his men had died. "There was a public outpouring of grief almost on a par with what we later saw with the death of Princess Diana," says Huntford. "The British have frequently made a virtue of disaster, and have a perverse attraction to romantic heroes who fail rather than to Homeric ones who succeed. Most important of all was that Scott was dead; had he come home alive, he would have been soon forgotten."
Yet even this Diana moment was comparatively short-lived. When Scott's expedition diaries came out towards the end of 1913, the reviews were mixed at best – as if the critics suspected the edited diaries were covering up a truth altogether more uncomfortably prosaic than the legend they had been sold. By the time the first world war started, Scott's memory had been half eclipsed; by the end it had been almost totally so.
It was the aftermath of the first world war that was largely responsible for Scott's revival. "The war was the first fought on an epic scale and it left the country with a vacuum of heroes," says Huntford. "There were no Wellingtons
The publication in 1922 of The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the expedition member who had discovered the bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers, put Scott back on a national pedestal, and with the release of the 1947 film Scott of the Antarctic, with its Vaughan Williams soundtrack , his heroic status remained almost untouched for more than 50 years.
By the time Huntford began his research in the mid-70s, the Scott family and the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) in Cambridge
The Scott family were right to be concerned. Huntford had been ruthless in his research, and though Scott did not go undefended, Huntford's version rapidly became widely accepted. And yet the Scott legend refuses to die to this day.
"It's strange," says Huntford. "Shackleton, who didn't lose a man when the Endurance was crushed in the Antarctic ice, remains a footnote in the national psyche, while Scott still has an iconic status. Only in Britain
The Race for the South Pole represents Huntford's final attempt to get Scott and Amundsen's legacies restored to what he believes should be their proper balance. There is simply no more evidence left to find. Will it be enough? Possibly not.
Scott will always have his supporters – and maybe that is as it should be. After all, decline and fall is a paradigm of British life over much of the last hundred years. Perhaps we get the national heroes we deserve.
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SUNDAY IMAGES / RETRO VELO ...
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Does The Devil read Vogue ?
“What fashion considers to be the ideal is barely a woman.”
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'The incitement of misogyny in pursuit of profit.' Illustration by Matt Kenyon |
If fashion is your primary means of expression, I pity you
Vogue's editor says she is bored by questions about thin models. But then, she's selling clothes for a misogynistic industry
Tanya Gold
The Guardian, Thursday 20 March 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/20/fashion-express-youreslf-pity-vogue-models?CMP=fb_gu
Alexandra Shulman, the editor of British Vogue, is bored with being asked why models are so thin. She said this on Radio 2 to Lily Allen, who acted like a frightened child but nonetheless asked Shulman tough questions that fashion journalists won't ask. Fashion journalists are notoriously prostrate beneath the clothes; their shtick is to act like Vladimir Putin's acolytes trapped in Topshop, screaming about belts, and if you break out and speak the truth, you become Liz Jones, an outcast in your own genre.
Allen said images of thin models made her feel "crap". Well, they don't make me feel crap, answered Shulman (I paraphrase) – so who cares what you think? Anyway, Shulman is bored with this thin-themed twaddle; such a fashion word, "bored", so passive aggressive, so unanswerable. You may be right but you're dull; this is no-platforming in the style of Mean Girls. In fact Shulman can't even really stretch to being "bored", despite being paid what I presume is a large salary for a slender workload; she is, in fact, only "sort of" bored, because this phrasing better expresses the exact proportions of her ennui, which I can only presume is definitely overweight.
She told Allen that looking at overweight women didn't make her feel good, as if overweight is the only alternative, in her mind, to significantly malnourished. Shulman has written to designers asking for larger sample sizes. (I read that in another piece of iconography posing as an interview.) But that was it. She is, at the end of things, only an advocate for the clothes. She calls herself a journalist; but she is a saleswoman.
The answer to the original question of why models are so thin – and do prepare to be bored, because I cannot give you a new answer because the old answer is boring (as is the old question, of course): it is the incitement of misogyny in pursuit of profit.
What fashion considers to be the ideal is barely a woman. This is so obviously the case there is almost nothing else to say. In this dystopia Shulman can, in her defence, tell Lily Allen that the Vogue cover girl for April, Nigella Lawson, is a "totally real person"– as opposed to what? Lawson is a woman of extraordinary beauty, but to Shulman, obviously deadened by an unceasing parade of tiny, malleable teenagers (she says "clothes to our kind of western eye look better on a thinner frame"), Nigella is simply "real".
But fashion's fantasy woman – her default fault, if you will – is a mere scrape of a woman, a woman who has had no time to actually be a woman: too young, too small, a vulnerable thing I often imagine crawling from an egg in Karl Lagerfeld's fridge. (And he is a man so pathologically isolated, his stated muse is now a cat called Choupette with a Twitter feed. Sample tweet: "Anna Wintour sits SECOND ROW at @MaisonValentino? Tres Horror!") It is as if fashion closed its eyes and dreamed up the woman who most closely resembles dust.
Why? Some say it is because designers are all gay, and are afraid of big bottoms and so forth, but this is nonsense, and homophobic; fashion is full of straight women capable of revolution, if they weren't all hostages in Topshop and so very bored.
Shulman says that fashion sells a fantasy, a wonderland, and this may be true for the few thousand women who can afford to wear couture; but it is a wonderland where happiness is as fleeting as any narcotic (six collections a year?). And it is, above all, monetised.
If fashion is your primary means of expression, you are, for me, only to be pitied – because women have better means of expression nowadays. Is it a coincidence that the fashion houses' most avid customers are the female relatives of the tyrants of the Middle East ? Fashion is obsessed with surfaces; and it is full of victims.
I would not say that all fashion people are unhappy, but it does seem to attract the unhappy, the soon to be surgically enhanced. And so this child creature, this ideal, is no coincidence. She is a complex sales strategy; both fragile and remote. Because she cannot be impersonated, she sells self-loathing, as Lily Allen noted, and therefore clothing, perfumes and the rest. It is not the wonderland that Shulman espoused, but it is an escape from something that can never be successfully eluded for any length of time – yourself.
If fashion is truly, as apologists suggest, dedicated to female self-expression, then why have trends? Why have a homogeneous law of beauty that cannot be bent? Why have subservient media that behave, so shamefully, like a marketing subsidiary? Why call it "fashion" at all?
In fact, the fashion industry is the most perfect expression of the late capitalist business model. It pretends to sell free choice, but is conventional. It is conservative, racist, misogynist, a terrible polluter, and a fearsome hierarchy. It is covetous, exploitative of models, workers and customers, and it is often tasteless: Vogue Italia's 2006 State of Emergency, for instance, photographed models being sexually assaulted by a tableau of men dressed like Batman, to celebrate – or commemorate – 9/11.
And all this it does, as Alexandra Shulman has demonstrated, with a tiny yawn – a cat's yawn, perhaps? – and entirely without shame.
• Twitter: @TanyaGold1
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Many fashion editors get caught up in perpetuating the stereotype … and often have eating disorders themselves, says Clements. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty |
Former Vogue editor: The truth about size zero
The fashion industry is not a pretty business. Here, one of its own, the former editor of Australian Vogue Kirstie Clements describes a thin-obsessed culture in which starving models eat tissues and resort to surgery when dieting isn't enough
Kirstie Clements
The Guardian, Friday 5 July 2013 / http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2013/jul/05/vogue-truth-size-zero-kirstie-clements
One of the most controversial aspects of fashion magazines, and the fashion industry, is models. Specifically, how young they are and how thin they are. It's a topic that continues to create endless debate, in the press and in the community. As the editor of Australian Vogue, my opinion was constantly sought on these issues, and the images we produced in the magazine were closely scrutinised. It's a precarious subject, and there are many unpleasant truths beneath the surface that are not discussed or acknowledged publicly.
When I first began dealing with models in the late 1980s we were generally drawing from a pool of local girls, who were naturally willowy and slim, had glowing skin, shiny hair and loads of energy. They ate lunch, sparingly for sure, but they ate. They were not skin and bones. I don't think anyone believes that a model can eat anything she wants, not exercise and still stay a flawless size 8 (except when they are very young), so whatever regime these girls were following was keeping them healthy.
But I began to recognise the signs that other models were using different methods to stay svelte. I was dressing a model from the US
On another shoot I was chatting to one of the top Australian models during lunch. She had just moved to Paris
The longer I worked with models, the more the food deprivation became obvious. Cigarettes and Diet Coke were dietary staples. Sometimes you would see the tell-tale signs of anorexia, where a girl develops a light fuzz on her face and arms as her body struggles to stay warm. I have never, in all my career, heard a model say "I'm hot", not even if you wrapped her in fur and put her in the middle of the desert.
Society is understandably concerned about the issues surrounding body image and eating disorders, and the dangerous and unrealistic messages being sent to young women via fashion journals. When it comes to who should be blamed for the portrayal of overly thin models, magazine editors are in the direct line of fire, but it is more complex than that. The "fit" model begins the fashion process: designer outfits are created around a live, in-house skeleton. Few designers have a curvy or petite fit model. These collections are then sent to the runway, worn by tall, pin-thin models because that's the way the designer wants to see the clothes fall. There will also be casting directors and stylists involved who have a vision of the type of woman they envisage wearing these clothes. For some bizarre reason, it seems they prefer her to be young, coltish, 6ft tall and built like a prepubescent boy.
It is too simplistic to blame misogynistic men, although in some cases I believe that criticism is deserved. There are a few male fashion designers I would like to personally strangle. But there are many female fashion editors who perpetuate the stereotype, women who often have a major eating disorder of their own. They get so caught up in the hype of how brilliant clothes look on a size 4, they cannot see the inherent danger in the message. It cannot be denied that visually, clothes fall better on a slimmer frame, but there is slim, and then there is scary skinny.
Despite protestations by women who recognise the danger of portraying any one body type as "perfect", the situation is not improving. If you look back at the heady days of the supermodels in the late 80s and early 90s, beauties such as Cindy Crawford, Eva Herzigová and Claudia Schiffer look positively curvaceous compared to the sylphs of today. There was a period in the last three years when some of the girls on the runways were so young and thin, and the shoes they were modelling so high, it actually seemed barbaric. I would watch the ready-to-wear shows on the edge of my seat, apprehensive and anxious. I'm not comfortable witnessing teen waifs almost on the point of collapse
After the shows, the collection is made available for the press to use for their shoots. These are the samples we all work with and they are obviously the size of the model who wore them on the runway. Thus, a stylist must cast a model who will fit into these tiny sizes. And they have become smaller since the early 90s. We've had couture dresses arrive from Europe that are so minuscule they resemble christening robes. There are no bigger samples available, and the designer probably has no interest in seeing their clothes on larger women. Many high fashion labels are aghast at the idea of producing a size 14, and they certainly wouldn't want to see it displayed in the pages of the glossies.
As a Vogue editor I was of the opinion that we didn't necessarily need to feature size 14-plus models in every issue. It is a fashion magazine; we are showcasing the clothes. I am of the belief that an intelligent reader understands that a model is chosen because she carries clothes well. Some fashion suits a curvier girl, some doesn't. I see no problem with presenting a healthy, toned, Australian size 10 [UK
It is the ultimate vicious cycle. A model who puts on a few kilos can't get into a sample size on a casting and gets reprimanded by her agency. She begins to diet, loses the weight, and is praised by all for how good she looks. But instead of staying at that weight, and trying to maintain it through a sensible diet and exercise, she thinks losing more will make her even more desirable. And no one tells her to stop.
Girls who can't diet their breasts away will have surgical reductions. They then enter into dangerous patterns of behaviour that the industry – shockingly – begins to accept as par for the course. We had a term for this spiral in the office. When a model who was getting good work in Australia starved herself down two sizes in order to be cast in the overseas shows – the first step to an international career – we would say in the office that she'd become "Paris thin". This dubious achievement was generally accompanied by mood swings, extreme fatigue, binge eating and sometimes bouts of self-harming. All in the quest to fit into a Balenciaga sample.
Not every model has an eating disorder, but I would suggest that every model is not eating as much as she would like to. In 1995 I cast a lovely Russian model for a studio shoot in Paris
A few years later we booked another Russian girl, who was also starving herself, on a trip to Marrakech. When the team went out to dinner at night she ordered nothing, but then hunger would get the better of her and she would pick small pieces of food off other people's plates. I've seen it happen on many trips. The models somehow rationalise that if they didn't order anything, then they didn't really take in the calories. They can tell their booker at the agency before they sleep that they only had a salad. By the end of the trip, she didn't have the energy to even sit up; she could barely open her eyes. We actually had her lie down next to a fountain to get the last shot.
In 2004, a fashion season in which the girls were expected to be particularly bone-thin, I was having lunch in New York
I was horrified to hear what the industry was covering up and I felt complicit. We were all complicit. But in my experience it is practically impossible to get a photographer or a fashion editor – male or female – to acknowledge the repercussions of using very thin girls. They don't want to. For them, it's all about the drama of the photograph. They convince themselves that the girls are just genetically blessed, or have achieved it through energetic bouts of yoga and eating goji berries.
I was at the baggage carousel with a fashion editor collecting our luggage after a trip and I noticed a woman standing nearby. She was the most painfully thin person I had ever seen, and my heart went out to her. I pointed her out to the editor who scrutinised the poor woman and said: "I know it sounds terrible, but I think she looks really great." The industry is rife with this level of body dysmorphia from mature women.
In my early years at the magazine there was no minimum age limit on models, and there were occasions that girls under the age of 16 were used. Under my editorship, the fashion office found a new favourite model – Katie Braatvedt, a 15-year-old from New Zealand
I had no dealings with Wintour during those years, and on the few occasions we were introduced, her sense of froideur was palpable. The deference she commands from people is astonishing to watch. There appears to exist some kind of psychological condition that causes seemingly sane and successful adults to prostrate themselves in her presence. It's not just respect – it's something else. People actually want to be scared witless of her, so she obliges. After they had met me, people would often say: "You're so nice and normal"– often I think with a tinge of disappointment, wishing I'd been just a little bit like Wintour. I could never win. I was either expected to be terrifying or snobbish. And I don't consider myself either.
Being a Vogue editor is precarious. It's a job everybody in the industry desires, and most people are convinced they could do it better. I was harder on myself than anybody would be if I made a mistake, and when you're the editor of Vogue, your slip-ups are very public. Traditional publishing is under enormous pressure, with declining revenues and readership, and decisions are being made to radically cut costs and do anything to please the advertiser. For me, this is perilous. I still believe in the magic.
This is an edited extract from The Vogue Factor by Kirstie Clements. Buy it for £8.99 (RRP £12.99) at guardianbookshop.co.uk or call 0330 333 6846.
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F***ing Fulfords part 4
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The F***ing fulfords part 3
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F***ing fulfords part 2
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F***ing Fulfords part 1
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Competing with the incorrectness of "uncle Matthew"? (the famous Mitford father ) ... F *** ing FulFord / VIDEO BELLOW . Re-ordering the aristocracy
Francis Fulford of Great Fulford, Esq. (born 31 August 1952) is the 23rd Fulford of Great Fulford. He is a member of England 's untitled Landed gentry and an esquire in the classical sense of the word, the most senior member of an ancient armigerous landed family who once possessed vast estates in Devon and Lincolnshire.He is a TV personality, property commentator, farmer, and regular contributor to radio and television.
Francis Fulford was the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Edgar Anthony Fulford of Great Fulford by his wife Joan Shirley, younger daughter of Rear-Admiral C. Maurice Blackman, DSO. Lt.Col.Fulford had a considerable military career after leaving the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and served in The Great War, Waziristan , Egypt , Palestine England
Francis was educated firstly at Sunningdale School , Berkshire, where he immersed himself in the novels of G. A. Henty, such as With Moore at Corunna and With Clive in India Milton Abbey School in Dorset where he gained 'A'-levels in Economics, Politics, Art, and History of Art.
At the age of 18 he entered the Coldstream Guards but having failed to get a Commission escaped to Australia London 3000 acre estate in Devon .
He is a popular figure on TV and known for his casual swearing in his programmes, epitomised by the name of his Channel Four television documentary programme: The F***ing Fulfords, directed by Norman Hull, which attracted an audience of three and a half million and Why Britain's F***ed (screened on 28 November 2009 on Sky One). Another of his ITV programmes was Why America
In 2007 he was chosen by the Conservatives to fight the Teignbridge District Council seat of Teign Valley
Fulford has spoken widely, and on the April 23, 2010 he was guest-of-honour at the Traditional Britain Group's Annual Dinner at the Charing Cross Hotel in central London
He also writes a blog about life, entitled Francis Fulford's Blog.
• Fulford, Francis, Bearing Up: The Long View, Timewell Press, London
In Bearing Up: The Long View, Francis Fulford looks at the troubled history of landowning and identifies the characteristics which have enabled many estates to survive while others have foundered. Surveying the scene today, Fulford draws on his own experiences to suggest a strategy of survival in the twenty-first century.
There have been Fulfords living at Great Fulford in Devon for eight hundred years. If Francis Fulford, the present owner, has anything to do with it, his descendants will be happily ensconced in the family pile as he is today. There may even be some new wallpaper by then.
In this robustly argued book, Fulford demolishes the myth that you need to be rich to live in a big house: just keep the roof on, the central heating off and the wife away from the shops. Then sit back and enjoy it, while your children race their bikes around the Great Hall.
Though Francis Fulford’s rugged philosophy will infuriate as many people as it delights, few will be bored as he reveals how one Englishman is making sure his castle is his home. For keeps.
- See more at: http://www.greatfulford.co.uk/bearing-up#sthash.rOjV0DAi.dpuf
Passed/Failed: An education in the life of Francis Fulford, landowner and writer
'I was fat at school, and very thick'
INTERVIEW BY JONATHAN SALE
Francis Fulford, 53, has been a soldier, jackeroo (Aussie-style cowboy), trainee antique dealer, stockbroker and insurance broker. He is the author of Bearing Up and was featured in The F**king Fulfords on Channel 4. He presents Why England's F**ked on Monday 28 November on Sky One and on the same channel, Why America Sucks on 5 December.
I was born in Great Fulford, Devon, on the edge of Dartmoor , in the bed which I now sleep. We have been living here since the later part of the 12th century - since "time immemorial", which means since the reign of Richard I. You don't know much history if you don't know his dates: 1189 to 1199, very easy!
As far as my education is concerned, my parents couldn't be bothered to get up in time to take me to a conventional school. My father didn't come down before nine and my mother would have had to get up at seven to make the breakfast, which wasn't on. We had a governess until I was seven: several governesses, completely useless.
My pre-prep school, Leeson in the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, was a total shock to the system. It was draconian and the food was completely dreadful. I was extremely unhappy - but I dare say they did teach you quite well.
I was there for just over a year and then went to Sunningdale School in Berkshire . I couldn't believe the food was so good! I was fat, and thus called Fatty, and also thick. The school prided itself on its academic standards and its games, so I didn't shine.
The best thing about the school was the brilliant library, with all the marvellous stuff by [Victorian adventure novelist] GA Henty: With Moore at Corunna, With Clive in India
My plan was that I should go to Eton but I failed the exam. (I'm sometimes surprised by meeting people who passed and thinking that they're quite thick.) It was my introduction to the word "failure", which would feature quite large in my life, but perhaps it's better to learn about this early on.
Then I went to Milton Abbey in Dorset . You're not much of an education correspondent if you haven't heard of Milton Abbey! It was the headmaster's belief that, just because you didn't shine academically, you shouldn't be written off. I've always been a "late developer" and I drifted through my schooldays; I had a few laughs.
We liked the English teacher. He would recite poetry with his eyes shut and we would shoot paper pellets at him through Biro tubes. We were streamed into As and Bs and by being in a lower stream some subjects were barred to you. Still, there's always going to be some hard-luck stories in any system of education.
O-levels? I've still got my certificates. I took maths three, maybe four times, and got bored with it. I got an AS in general studies, a B, I think. I got three A-levels: economics and politics, art and history of art. I think they were Ds; but probably they'd be As if I took them today, wouldn't they?
University? I never thought of that. They were something to be despised: left-wing, sit-ins, anti-Vietnam demonstrations. The people there seemed like the dregs of society. At 18 I went into the Coldstream Guards as "another rank" and after nine months I failed my Regular Commissions Board, so I went off to Australia
When you went to work in the city, you didn't have exams; you learnt on the job. If you look at all the people who make money, none of them went to f***ing university! A lot went to Milton Abbey.
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