Famous People - Sunday Stamps II

It wasn't until 1964 that someone other than the monarch appeared on stamps of Great Britain. That first person was commemorated on a set issued on his birthday - 23rd April.

Great Britain - Shakespeare Festival, Eve of Agincourt
(Henry V)

But the first person to appear who had been alive in my lifetime was - 

Sir Winston Churchill (8 July 1965)

Also in 1965 the pioneer of antiseptic surgery was honoured on the centenary of his discovery.

Great Britain - Joseph Lister.

It was 1967 before a living person appeared on a GB stamp and then you have to look hard to see him.

Sir Francis Chichester's Round the World Voyage.

Two years later it was the centenary year of one of the first foreign men that I was aware of as a boy, other than Hitler of course.

Gandhi Centenary Year.

Rather than show a Hitler stamp I'll show a German stamp.

West Germany

Our host has chosen a German stamp as well, to see this and follow the other participants please cross over to Violet at Sunday-stamps-ii-4.

Photo Archives - Sepia Saturday.

The prompt this week is just the thing to lead me astray; do I concentrate on books or photos or both?

I have found several books which you might classify as old in one way or another, but they did not contain any loose photos - sepia or otherwise. However I do have a box file (not a cardboard box like Alan's) in which are stored sepia photos, postcards and my newest book.

'Sepia Saturday' Box File

The photo on the left has been annotated on the back, "Is it you, or is it me? Mick" My wife is convinced that this is her elder sister Mick when she was young.

The one on the right is the old ferry at Hartlepool.

I left with a bit of a quandary. How do you judge the age of a book - by when it was written or when it was printed? Here's four to illustrate the point.

Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales &
John Bunyan -The Pilgrim's Progress

Chaucer was born about 1340 and died in 1400. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Bunyan, born in 1628, died 1688 lies in the Bunhill Fields Cemetery, London along with Daniel Defoe and William Blake.

The Penguin Classic, The Canterbury Tales was first published in 1951 - note the price of 5/-

The New American Library's edition of The Pilgrim's Progress appeared in 1964 at $1.75.

I noticed that the book in our prompt had the text in two columns. I can match that with our copy, a wedding present from 1958, of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare ( baptised in April 1564, died 23 April 1616).

Shakespeare' s The Winter's Tale

The last of my books is The Pickwick Papers, the first novel of Charles Dickens published in 1836.

The Fat Boy Awakes - The Pickwick Papers

What's special about this book for me? Just look at the inscription.

Form Prize at Stamford School 1949

Having been carried away by books I turned back to archives and this file of:

Prospekt Kort (Postcards)

This is the file put together by my daughter while I was working in Norway between 1979 and 1988. The cards are those I sent to her during that time - some have appeared on Sepia Saturday before.

In my archive search I came across some 'old' albums.

I wonder what happened to them

But when I turned the page, this is what I found.

Honeymoon(?) on the left in 1958; our two sons in 1960s

The second album contained more photo's, all in colour.

Cutting Our Wedding Cake

Finally I opened the top drawer of the desk in our lounge and found the largest collection of all.

Photos, photos, photos!

Now I need advice. Do I throw them all away when they are all stored here,

and on the Internet?

For other Sepians' views check out the links on Sepia-Saturday-210.

A-Z Challenge 2013 - 'N' - Narcissus

My A-Z posts this year are based on my garden – flowers, animals, the birds and the bees, butterflies - with a bit of poetry thrown in. For some letters I am expecting to cheat somewhat – wishing they were here.

N – Narcissus, Nicotiana, Nuthatch, Newt

Although we have daffodils (D) in the garden they are outnumbered by a long way by this more delicate flower. Normally they flower in April but this cold winter and spring has delayed their appearance.

Narcissus

Given that Narcissus the youth was the vainest of the vain, are we right to assume that the Narcissus flower represents vanity?

Nicotianas on the other hand are ideal for decorative pots and are available in a variety of colours.

Nicotianas

Some birds are difficult to see and even more difficult to photograph; the tree creeper is one such and here is another we rarely see.

Nuthatch

The nuthatch he so agile be

As head first he descends the tree

 Although it’s quite common for us to see young frogs, newts are far from common; there are some in next door’s pond. Shakespeare’s witches might have problems here to fulfill their recipe.

In the caldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt, and toe of frog,

Common Newt

 Newts and blind worms do no wrong.

If gardeners need reminding of that, then they should also follow this advice:-

When the newt on my boot

Asked me not to pollute

I told him I’d give it a try.

Poems/Quotations:

• The Nuthatch – James Charteris
• Eye of Newt – Macbeth, Second Witch – William Shakespeare
• Newts – Midsummer’s Night Dream – William Shakespeare
• When the newt… - Joe Mohr

Photos:

• Nuthatch – Tony Hisgett, Birmingham – CC BY-SA 2.0 – Upload Magnus Manske
• Newt – Silverstrpher, Scotland – CC BY-SA 2,0 – Upload Sandy Rae

Poetry in Stamps

"All the world's a stage

And all the men and women merely players;"

This makes an introduction to Shakespeare. My first two stamps of a set of four issued in 1964 commemorate the Shakespeare Festival.

I know it's Spring but John Keats 'To Autumn' always sticks in my mind: "Seasons of mists and yellow fruitfuness"

Issued in 1971, the 150th anniversary of his death.

For William Wordsworth you may have expected daffodils but I prefer: "My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky:"

Grasmere - issued in 1970, the 200th anniversary of his birth.

I know it's only May but it's hard to better Burns:

"My love is like a red, red rose,

That's newly sprung in June"

Issued in 1996

Issued 1966

I even found Burns on a Russian stamp which I've copied from the internet:

And stamps for Alexander Pushkin and Alexander Blok

"Black night.
White snow.
The wind, the wind!
It will not let you go. The wind, the wind!
Through God's whole world it blows

The wind is weaving
The white snow.
Brother ice peeps from below
Stumbling and tumbling
Folk slip and fall.
God pity all!"

From Blok's 'The Twelve' (1918)

And finally a stamp of a poet and a diplomat from my Mexico page:

Amando Nervo (1870 -1919) is reputed to be the most noted Mexican poet of the 19th Century.

More poetry on stamps at Viridian's postcard blog

Don't Laugh At Me...

In 1708 a correspondent in a British magazine asked, “Whence proceeds the making of April Fools?”

At that time the custom of April Fool’s Day was well established in northern Europe. However there had been few comments in written records about its origin. References as early as the 1500s were infrequent and often vague. Shakespeare in the 16 and 17th centuries made no mention of April Fool’s Day despite being, as Dickens described, a writer “who delights in fools.”

The popularity of Elizabethan jesters is shown in the plays of the time. Shakespeare characters included a Fool in Timon of Athens, the Clown in Othello, Costard in Love’s Labours Lost, Touchstone in As You Like It and Puck in Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Despite many suggestions the making of April Fools remains a mystery. A popular theory about the origin of April Fool’s day involves the reform of the French calendar in 1564 when the start of the year was moved from the end of March to January 1st. Those who clung to the old calendar system and continued to celebrate New Year in the week between March 25th and April 1st had jokes played on them. Paper fish would be stuck surreptitiously to their back. The victims of the prank were called Poisson d’Avril, or April Fish. This is still the French term for April Fools.

It has been suggested that the first reference to April Fool’s Day can be found in Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Chanticleer, a vain cock, falls for the tricks of a sly fox and as a result is almost eaten. It has been argued that the wording meant that the event took place thirty-two days since March began, i.e., on April 1st. But other translations have placed the day as May 3rd.

It appears that the April Fool’s Day dates back to at least the 16th century and that it originated in continental Europe before spreading to Britain.

D’Amerval’s 1508 French poem uses the phrase “poisson d’avril” the French term for April Fool. However he may have just intended to use the term for a foolish person.

In 1539 a comical poem by a Flemish writer tells of a nobleman who plans to send his servant back and forth on absurd errands on April 1st. The medieval Dutch title roughly translates to, “Refrain on Errand Day/ which is first of April.” The last line of each stanza has the servant saying, “I am afraid… that you are trying to make me run a fool’s errand.”

In 1686 John Aubrey, an English antiquarian, researched popular customs and superstitions and wrote, “Fooles holy day. We observe it on ye first of April.” By 1698 it was a popular prank to send gullible people to see the lions being washed at the Tower of London. It became traditional for this prank to be played on the first of April; it was referenced as late as the mid-nineteenth century.

In British folklore April Fool’s Day is linked to the town of Gotham in Nottinghamshire. It was traditional in the 13th century for any road that the King placed his foot on to become public property. Hearing that King John planned to travel through the town, the people of Gotham refused him entry. When soldiers send by King John arrived they found the town full of apparent lunatics drowning fish or attempting to cage birds in roofless fence. Although their foolery was an act, the King declared the town too foolish to be punished. Since then, according to legend, April Fool’s Day has commemorated their trickery.

A 1630 woodcut shows a citizen of Gotham trying to trap a cuckoo inside a roofless fence. In Scotland a “gowk” is a cuckoo or a foolish person and April’s Fool’s Day was once called Hunt-the-Gowk Day. A traditional prank was to ask someone to deliver a sealed message requesting help. The message read, “Dinna laugh, dinna smile. Hunt the gowk another mile.” The recipient would then explain he could only help by contacting someone else. The unsuspecting victim was then sent onwards with an identical message.

If you decide to play a joke on someone on April Fool’s Day, just remember that April 1st is the day on which we are reminded of what we are on the other three-hundred and sixty-four.

Politicians seem to think we are fools. They should remember the words of Lincoln when he said, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Be careful where you put your X at the forthcoming election and remember that the trouble with practical jokers is that they often get elected.