Take a Bath with a ghost or two - Sepia Saturday.

Well! What were my first thoughts when I saw the picture theme for this week?

I considered Mother Skipton and the spring that was discovered at Knaresborough, Yorkshire. The spring has exceptionally high mineral content such that any object placed into the waters' flow will turn to stone within days.

However it's the historic city of Bath with its Roman ruins and Regency Architecture that will be the subject of this post. Bath Spa is world famous for its Roman Baths.

The Roman Baths at Bath Spa

(Photo by David ILiff. License CC-BY-SA 3.0)

A city as old as Bath has some phantom visitors including the 'Man in the Black Hat' said to be the ghost of the first Governor of New South Wales.

Arthur Phillip - Founder & First Governor of NSW

(Projec Gutenberg eText - The Naval Pioneers of Australia)

Admiral Sir Arthur Phillip was on board the Sirius which led the First Fleet to transport convicts from England to Australia. After an eight month voyage the fleet land at Botany Bay in January 1788 to establish the penal colonies.

But why should he haunt Bath's Saville Row dressed in 18th century finery including a black tricorne hat? He died there in 1814.

When it comes to architectural masterpieces Bath has the famous Royal Crescent.

The Royal Crescent, Bath

(A panorama of six segments - July 2006 - Photo by David ILiff. License CC-BY-SA 3.0)

I can see plenty of cars, but there is no sign of the ghostly carriage said to appear in the Crescent to commemorate the elopement of the playwright and politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan and his lover from number 11.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

(Engraving from a portrait by Joshua Reynolds)

Sheridan fought two duels with Captain Thomas Mathews over Miss Elizabeth Linley who later became his wife. However there is no evidence of either Sheridan's 'The Rivals' or 'School for Scandal' being performed in the early years of  Bath's Theatre Royal.

The Theatre Royal Bath

(Photo by Michael Maggs - 2007: License CC-BY-SA 2.5)

Here the ghosts of an 18th-century married woman and her lover, murdered by her husband, are said to wander between the theatre and the Garrick's Head, the next-door public house

I may have wandered a bit from the theme but now you may wander over to check out other posts for Sepia-saturday-149 for a taste of healing waters.

There's Many A Slip - Sepia Saturday

This week’s photo from The State Library of New South Wales  features a couple embracing whilst a cat escapes from between their legs. The man is in uniform and they are either saying ‘goodbye’ or ‘hello’. The cat is bored by all the spooning going on.

This reminded me of the man who said to a lady he did not know, "Excuse me, Madame. Your slip is showing.


Annoyed, she retorted, "Don't look now but so is your father's."


All sorts of slip exist. It's a fielding position in cricket,  a tie, a place where ships are launched and even:

A slip of the tongue

Which leads me to William Archibald Spooner

Caricature of William Archibald Spooner - 1898
By Leslie Ward - published in Vanity Fair

Spooner became famous for so-called spoonerisms or play on words where constonants, vowels and parts of words are mixed.

And example appropriate to our prompt picture might be, "It is kisstomary to cuss the bride."

This Diamond Jubilee Year of our Queen

Queen Elizabeth II - 2007
(NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Spooner could have said, "Let's glaze our arses to the queer old Dean" but actually he is reputed to have said this alluding to our other "Diamond" Lady.

Queen Victoria - c1900
(One of her last photos from 'Victoria Images of her World)

It's a common occurrence for a language to be misused either by accident or deliberately. The term malapropism comes from Richard Brinsley Sheridan's play The Rivals and in particular the character Mrs Malaprop who frequently misspoke words to comic effect. (Malapropos is and adlective/adverb meaning  inappropriate/inappropriately) derived from the French mal à propos (literally "ill-suited").

Comedians and stars in films and on television have made use of malopropism's and not to leave the cat in our picture out in the cold there's this from Stan Laurel in the Laurel and Hardy film "Any Old Port".

"What a terrible cat's after me."

To avoid further linguistic disasters I suggest you take a look at other interpretations of our lovers at Sepia Saturday-130