Call me Cherie

Well, happy birthday Cherie Blair, 60 today. I wonder how you’re celebrating, and whether you’re likely to have an ‘odd do’, as you did on your 40th, at least according to your husband’s press and policy adviser. I have no idea whether you keep a diary or not, but if you do, and it gets published one day, I’m sure it will be a good read. Meanwhile, I have mined Alastair Campbell’s diaries for a few tidbits about your life during the years when Tony was leader of the Labour Party and then Prime Minister.

Theresa Cara Booth, known as Cherie, was born on 23 September 1954 in Bury, Lancashire, and was brought up in Waterloo, just north of Liverpool on the Lancashire coast. Her parents were both actors, but her father, Tony, left when she was eight, so she and her sister were then brought up by her mother, and Tony’s mother, Vera. The sisters were educated at Catholic schools. Cherie went on to read law at the London School of Economics. While training she taught law at the Polytechnic of Central London, now the University of Westminster, and became a barrister in 1976. Until 1988, her head of chambers was George Carman, a barrister well-known for taking on high-profile cases.

Cherie met Tony in 1976, and they married in 1980. They had three children between 1984 and 1988, and then a fourth (Leo) 12 years later when Cherie was in her mid-40s. Leo was the first child born to a sitting Prime Minister in 150 years. Being the Prime Minister’s wife, she came under much press scrutiny, not least in relation to her friend, Carole Caplin, a kind of New Age style adviser, and Caplin’s boyfriend, Peter Foster, a convicted Australian conman.

Cherie Blair was made Queen's Counsel in 1995. In 1999, she was appointed a Recorder (a permanent part-time judge) in the County Court and Crown Court. She is a founding member of Matrix Chambers in London, and has specialised in employment, discrimination, and public law. She was the third Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, is a Governor of the London School of Economics and of the Open University, and is a patron of Breast Cancer Care. In 2008 she launched the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, to help support women entrepreneurs in developing countries, and she published Speaking for Myself: The Autobiography. In 2011, she was appointed Chancellor of the Asian University for Women. In 2013, she was awarded a CBE. More about Cherie, the posts she holds, the books she’s written, can be found on her own website.

Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s Director of Communications and Strategy between 1997 and 2003, refers often to Cherie Blair in his diaries, first published by Hutchinson in 2007 under the title The Blair Years. (See The Diary Review article A good press secretary for more about Campbell and his diaries.) Campbell says in his introduction to this book that the focus ‘is very much on Blair himself’, but inevitably the Prime Minister’s wife is often part of his daily life, whether because of her presence at formal occasions, or because of issues, such as those revolving around her friendship with Caplin. He notes, in the introduction, how Cherie herself ‘pointed out that I certainly spent more waking hours with him than she did.’ Here are a few snapshots involving Cherie Blair taken from The Blair Years.

23 September 1994
‘Cherie’s 40th birthday party at Frederick’s. Odd kind of do. Didn’t feel right being photographed going in, by Alan Davidson [celebrity photographer] of all people, and I couldn’t quite work out the guest mix. Family, a bit of politics, law, and friends that didn’t always seem like Tony’s kind of people. Maybe he is a lot more eclectic than we are. Cherie had certainly been given a makeover. She looked great, but it was an odd do.’

23 April 1995
‘I had a perfectly nice chat with Cherie, in which we both lamented how much of our time we spent having to talk to TB in his underwear.’

8 September 1995
‘Eventually Fiona said we should discuss Cherie, what role and image she was supposed to be developing, what was good for her and for TB, and how we managed conference. Cherie said we had reached the position where she felt unsupported, and she had a poor relationship with the office because she felt we saw her purely as a problem. She said she had a contribution to make beyond being a ‘rich lawyer/wife’. I said I accepted there was fault on both sides. Things had got off to a terrible start because of Carole [Caplin] at conference last year. I felt Carole was a problem anyway and they had to understand if she became a story again, I would have nothing to do with it.’

27 October 1997
‘CHOGM [Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, in Edinburgh] finished on time, TB telling us how brilliantly he had chaired it. TB was regaling us with a few stories from the receptions. One of the African leaders pinching Cherie’s bum and asking her who she was, then him jumping a mile when she said she was Tony’s wife. Mandela being difficult on a couple of issues and TB saying to him ‘You are so revered you can come out with any old nonsense and nobody is allowed to say it’s nonsense,’ Mandela laughing.’

16 September 1998
‘TB was heading off to Coventry and I was due to come back with CB. We met up at the shop, where I had a brief glimpse of [Prince] Charles, who was showing them some of his organic produce. She said organic farming had taken up most of their conversation at lunch. The rest had been a meandering around foreign affairs. TB was always pretty discreet about his royal dealings, CB less so. She said when she first Princess Anne, Anne had called her ‘Mrs Blair’, to which CB said ‘Call me Cherie.’ I’d rather not, Mrs Blair,’ said Anne. She said she didn’t bother to protest when Charles called her Mrs Blair today.’

25 September 1999
‘I went into the office first thing, then up to see TB. He was now sure. Cherie was pregnant. They worked out it happened at Balmoral. A royal baby!. He said he felt a mix of pleasure and horror. Thank God I’m a Christian, he said. It allows me to assume there must be a reason. We discussed it on the train. At the moment, TB, CB, Fiona and I were the only people who knew, and I was winding them up as to how much money we could make by tipping off the press.’

18 November 1999 

‘At one o'clock. Piers Morgan called and said he had a story and if he told me what it was could he guarantee it would stay exclusive? I said I know what it is. He said ‘How are your christening robes?’ I said I would have to talk to TB. Then I had a meeting with Fiona and we agreed we would just let the Mirror run it and then confirm. But the Sun had heard something and Rebekah Wade [deputy editor] was paging and calling both of us relentlessly. Eventually, after speaking to CB, Fiona gave the story to Rebekah around 8, which was clearly going to be disasterville with Piers. There was no way he would think the Sun got on to it themselves. I got TB to call him to try to mollify him a bit but later Piers was absolutely fuming. ‘Why do those two women (Cherie and Fiona) have such a problem with me? I don't get it.’ CB was clear she didn’t want her pregnancy to seem as somehow being owned as a Mirror story. Once the Sun were on to it, she wanted them to have the story. It was a one-fact story. Dealing with the Sun and the Mirror the whole time was like having two mistresses. It was a fucking nightmare. Both thought they were entitled to some kind of special treatment. It would probably have been better just to have announced it earlier, but Cherie had wanted to keep it quiet for as long as possible, which was fair enough. We had a statement out at 9.10, and it led Sky straight away. There was something amusing about seeing all these hard-nosed characters standing outside Number 10 going on about babies.’

19 May 2000
‘Fiona and Cherie were pretty sure the baby was going to be born fairly soon. TB stayed at the office till about 8 and Anji [Hunter] said later he had been really nervous, nervous about the politics of where we were, nervous about the baby and what it would do for him, Cherie and the way we work. TB called as he was going to the hospital. I called Anji to get Cockerell down there to film the media outside. Fiona kept me in touch through the night. It finally came at 12.25 and we decided not to put anything out until they got home. I was in bed when Fiona texted that it was a boy. I called through, spoke to TB, who sounded very happy about it. I heard the baby and TB said ‘Here you are, Leo, talk to your spin doctor.’

The fifth Beatle

Brian Epstein, legendary manager of the Beatles who died in his early 30s from a drug overdose, would have been 80 today. He lived a hectic business schedule and a complicated private life, being an active gay when homosexuality was still illegal. He left some early diaries/notebooks with his then-bodyguard and chauffeur Bryan Barrett, who sold them at auction in 2000. A good description of these notebooks and their content can be found online thanks to the auctioneers, Christie’s, and to a Beatles fan blog, A moral to this song.

Epstein was born in Liverpool into a small Jewish family on 19 September 1934. His father, Harry, was the son of an East European immigrant who had started a furniture store in the city. Brian’s mother, who everyone called Queenie, came from the successful Hyman furniture family. Brian was moved around from one boarding school to another, being expelled from some. He spent two years at Wrekin College, but then was apprenticed at 16 before joining the family firm.

After a brief spell of national service, three terms at the RADA theatre school, and some department store experience in London, Epstein returned to the family business. Harry put him in charge of the ground floor, in the family’s newly opened store (NEMS) on Great Charlotte Street, where he sold musical instruments, among other things, and gramophone records. This must have suited him because the shop soon become one of the largest music outlets in the North of England. Epstein then opened a second store in Whitechapel, not far, in fact, from the Cavern Club.

Epstein first came into contact with the Beatles (John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Pete Best) in late 1961, at the Cavern Club. By early December, he had proposed to manage them; and a first contract was signed a few weeks later in January 1962 (which sold at auction in 2008 for £240,000), and another in October. He formed a management company NEMS Enterprises before signing Lennon and McCartney to a three year NEMS publishing contract, and, within days of that, the Beatles had released their first single Love Me Do.

Despite having no previous experience of managing performers, Epstein did much to mould the Beatles dress and stage presence, and to win them a record contract. After being rejected by many record companies, he persuaded EMI to give the Beatles a deal with its Parlophone label, paying (initially) just 1p per record sold. A first recording session at EMI’s Abbey Road studios took place in June 1962. Pete Best was dismissed by Epstein soon after, and replaced by Ringo Starr, who was already well known to the others. Epstein also organised a hectic shedule of performance tours, as well as appearances for television and film. Epstein’s role in ‘making’ the Beatles has been widely acknowledged in recent years, with McCartney, for example, stating in 1998, ‘If anyone was the Fifth Beatle, it was Brian’. But, in the 1960s, when MBEs were awarded to the four Beatles he was not so honoured.

Epstein seemed to flourish in the new world of pop stars, and as busy as he was with the Beatles, he also successfully managed other groups, like Gerry and the Pacemakers, and singers such as Cilla Black. He did not settle in London until 1965, after when he bought the lease to the Saville Theatre and promoted new plays by young writers, including Arnold Wesker. His personal life, however, was one of unfettered and growing attachments to drugs, gambling, and a promiscuous homosexual life. Although it was not public knowledge until after his death in 1967, Epstein’s homosexuality was an open secret among his friends. Lennon is said to have quipped that Epstein’s autobiography (2004, and ghostwritten by his assistant), A Cellarful of Noise, should have been titled A Cellarful of Boys. Epstein died from a drugs overdose in August 1967, he was only 32 years old. Further information is readily available online at the official Brian Epstein website, Wikipedia, or The Beatles Bible.

Epstein left behind 13 notebooks written between 1949 and 1963, according to amoralto (a Beatles fan blog). Three of these (along with other memorabilia) were put up for auction, at Christie’s London, in 2000 by Bryan Barrett. Barrett (who had also made the notebooks available for a 1998 TV documentary on Epstein) was quoted as saying: ‘It is now well over 30 years since his death and I no longer feel that anyone who was close to him could be hurt by the revelations.’ The diaries fetched £3,290. The auction notes (still freely available online) included information about, and extracts from, all three diaries. Amoralto has republished these notes, and found a few extra quotes (from other notebooks) in archived newspaper articles. Here, though, is the substance of the notes provided by Christie’s in 2000.

Lot notes: ‘The insight these highly personal and tortured notes give us into Epstein’s formative years cannot be overestimated. The mental anguish his sexual orientation caused him, combined with his interest in style as evidenced by his dress and furniture designs, executed in his late teens, give fuel to the thought that Epstein was a talented man who had the misfortune to be born at the wrong time.’

First notebook (59 pages)
‘The earliest of the three notebooks begins with an entry dated October 18th, 1950 Thoughts on Things, the following six pages written in the same month give a poignant insight into sixteen-year-old Epstein’s unhappy school life at Wrekin College in Shropshire, entries include:
 - “To be a success at school one must above all be either distinctly original or good at games (all of them). Intellects of a quiet nature are at school invariably a failure. . .”
- “ ‘Playing Soldiers’ . . . in what is presumed to be an intellectual establishment is . . . futile and childish . . . and a waste of anybody’s time. . .”
- “Depression is the route of all great and important thought”
- “The majority of school boys are lyers . . . Public schools as such encourage lying however they fail to realise it.”

Epstein’s schoolboy thoughts also reflect his interest in modern art, architecture and jazz; the second half of this notebook is filled with Epstein’s pencil and ink designs for furniture, dresses, evening and day outfits and a wedding dress, on several pages Epstein also practises his flamboyant signature in blue ink.’

Second notebook (19 pages)
‘In the second notebook, written in ink in 1957 at the age of twenty-three, Epstein gives a brutally honest account of his life to date, tracing the development of his homosexuality culminating in his arrest for soliciting in 1957, in the first half entitled “Background and History” Epstein outlines the misery of his unsettled school life, moving between nine different schools, the combination of frequent poor reports and entrance exam failures generating his low self-esteem

“The matter of always attaining low marks, being bottom of the class and receiving poor reports and other factors contributed in my thinking of myself even then as a failure, dullard and inferior person . . .”

He was briefly happy in his penultimate school [Claysmore School in Somerset]: “The first half of that third term was I think perhaps the only entirely happy and contented period in my life . . .”

He discusses arguments he had with his parents regarding his artistic leanings and his desire to go to acting school rather than the family business, the personal agony he experienced whilst serving in the army during his National Service in 1952: “I venomously hated nearly everything about the army and suffered at the merciless hands of the R.S.M.”

The development of his awareness of his own latent homosexuality and the misery and mental anguish the suppression of his feelings brought him, writing that in 1954 whilst working in the family business: “My life became a succession of mental illnesses and sordid unhappy events bringing great sorrow to my family . . .”

In the final eleven pages of the notebook Epstein gives a harrowing account of how he was set-up by the police and arrested for Persistently Importuning. After the horror of this experience Epstein wrote philosophically: “I do not think I am an abnormally weak-willed person - the effort and determination with which I have rebuilt my life these last few months have, I assure you, been no mean effort. I believed that my own will-power was the best thing with which to overcome my homosexuality. And I believe my life may have become contented and I may even have attained a public success . . .”

His bitterness at the injustice of his treatment is expressed in his closing comments: “I am not sorry for myself. My worst times and punishments are over. Now, through the wreckage of my life by society, my being will stain and bring the deepest distress to all my devoted family and few friends. the damage, the lying criminal methods of the police in importuning me and consequently capturing me leaves me cold, stunned and finished . . .”

This autobiographical account, clearly written before Epstein had received a verdict, ends with instructions he would like to be followed should he be remanded or given a prison sentence, the feelings of sympathy this frank account provokes are enhanced by the dignity of his closing comment: “I must apologise for my writing which I realise is difficult to read. I was unable to procure a typewriter and my hand is nervous.” ’

Third notebook (five pages)
‘The third notebook comprises four handwritten accounts of Epstein’s visits to various cities and restaurants in 1960; in the first entry apparently written after consuming five whiskies, Epstein expresses a desire: to rid himself “of hum drum, dreary god-forsaken surburbia”; [and] for the joys of Rome and his aspirations to join “that very attractive utterly ridiculous little group that call themselves . . . the International set”. In his final entry, Epstein confesses to being robbed in Barcelona adding rather poignantly: “But, I ask, is this my fault? Yes I think because I behaved foolishly and irresponsibly.” ’

See also Lennon and Linda McCartney

York Factory lady

Letitia Hargrave, firstborn daughter of a Scottish lawyer, married a Hudson Bay Company trader and left behind her privileged life to travel to Canada and live as a pioneer in York Factory, a settlement and fur trade post on the southwestern shore of Hudson Bay. Although Letitia died young - 160 years ago today - she left behind letters, published a century later, which have become historically important as a primary source of information about that period of Canadian history. The published book of her letters also includes a brief diary, written during her journey across the Atlantic.

Letitia was born in Edinburgh, in 1813, the eldest of nine children in a wealthy family. Her father, Dugald Mactavish, was a lawyer, and a sherriff of Argyllshire; and the Mactavish family was well-established in the North American fur trade. One of Letitia’s brothers, William, was posted to York Factory, on Hudson Bay, Manitoba, where he became friends with the chief trader, James Hargrave. When Hargrave travelled to Scotland in 1837, he was warmly received by the Mactavish family, and formed a relationship with Letitia. The two were married in 1840, and Letitia travelled to York Factory with her new husband in June/July that year.

Letitia and James had several children, although a second son died soon after being born. In 1851-1852, the family moved to Sault Ste, but, on 18 September 1854, Letitia died of cholera. Further information is available from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and Wikipedia.

Most of what is known about Letitia, however, comes from a collection of her letters - The Letters of Letitia Hargrave - edited by Margaret Arnett Macleod, and published in 1947 by The Champlain Society (whose mission is ‘to increase public awareness of, and accessibility to, Canada’s rich store of historical records’). Letitia’s letters, written to her family in Britain, are considered historically important as a primary source of information about the life of pioneer women in Canada in the mid-19th century.

The Letters of Letitia Hargrave is freely available to read online at The Champlain Society digital collection hosted by the University of Toronto. Although almost all the book consists of Letitia’s letters, a few pages are devoted to a diary she kept on board the Prince Rupert when travelling from Britain to North American in June and July 1840. Here are a few extracts.

25 June 1840
‘In bed all day yesterday and great part of today. Ship pitching so that we could not dress. The most provoking part is that we have been beating about waiting till the Prince of Wales came out of Stornaway. Mr Hargrave and the Captain went on board of her lest any letters might have been forwarded there from Stromness, but only got a parcel of shortbread from Captain Royal for the ladies here. Nice food for 4 sea sick women. Never knew what sailing was before.’

2 July 1840
‘Shoals of bottle nosed whales playing about the ship. Wind has been westerly ever since we left Orkney.’

7 July 1840
‘On Thursday the wind began and we have had a constant gale since. No sail almost and at night close reefed. The captain says he never saw such a sea, but the waves are whole like large broad hills, lost our jib - sea getting better.’

11 July 1840
‘Second pig killed today. Fresh pork and fowls tho’ the latter old and tough. We have only had salt beef once on board.’

12 July 1840
‘All the ducks and geese are allowed to walk about deck on Sunday. Miserable objects, their bills white and whole appearance wasted. When they got out they picked their feathers and ducked down on the deck thinking themselves in the water. Mr Bolton likened the procession to Bells Sunday School - I shall note down a week’s bill of fare as we have a diet for every day. Breakfast ham and egg potatoes, tea and coffee biscuit and treacle which we always have morning and evening. Dinner. Fowl soup boiled hens, roast ducks, salt pork, plum pudding, always mashed potatoes, cheese wine almonds raisins and figs. Crossing the American line.’

22 July 1840
‘Went on deck before 8am to see a large ice berg. Miss Allan describes it as being like a hay stack. It was about 160 feet above water and an oblong square plenty of ice all round.’

26 July 1840
‘Resolution Island seen from top the entrance to the straits.’

The Diary Junction

Squire vs reverend

John Peter Boileau, a squire of Ketteringham and a well-connected man in Norfolk and London society, was born 220 years ago today. Both he and the local reverend in Ketteringham left behind detailed diaries which were exploited, a century later, by Cambridge professor, Owen Chadwick, to reveal - in the book Victorian Miniature - a fascinating slice of local history, in particular an acrimonious relationship between squire and reverend.

Boileau was born on 2 September 1794, in London, the eldest son in a family that claimed to be descended from Charles Boileau, baron of Castelnau and St Croix, a Languedoc Huguenot immigrant to England in 1691, and from Étienne Boileau, the first known provost of Paris in the 13th century. He was educated at Eton, Oxford and Edinburgh, and then commissioned into the rifle brigade.

In 1825, Boileau married Lady Catherine Sarah Elliot, daughter of the first earl of Minto, and they had nine children. He acquired Thursford Hall, near Fakenham, and the Ketteringham estate, where he built a Gothic hall, and where he came into a conflict with the local vicar, William Andrew.

In 1838, Boileau was created a baronet. He served as a county magistrate and a deputy lieutenant; and he was appointed high sheriff of Norfolk in 1844. Apart from holding various offices in London and being a Fellow of the Royal Society, he was also a founding member of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society, and its president from 1849. His wife died in 1862, and he died in 1869. Further biographical information is available at Wikipedia and The Peerage. (Thanks to the National Portrait Gallery for the image.)

In 1960, a history professor at Cambridge University, Owen Chadwick, published Victorian Miniature (Hodder and Stoughton) which relied heavily on diaries kept by Boileau and by Reverend William Andrew, and told the story of an astonishing feud between the two Ketteringham characters. Here’s the publisher’s blurb: ‘Owen Chadwick’s Victorian Miniature paints a detailed cameo of nineteenth-century English rural life, in the extraordinary battle of wills between squire and parson in a Norfolk village. Both the evangelical clergyman and the squire, proudly conscious of his Huguenot ancestry, were passionate diarists, and their two journals open up a fascinating double perspective on the events which exposed their clash of personalities. The result is a narrative that is at once deeply informative about Victorian class distinctions, rural customs and festivities, and richly entertaining in a manner worthy of Trollope.’

The book was reprinted in 1991 by Cambridge University Press. Some pages can be browsed at Amazon; and there is further information on the Literary Norfolk website.

Boileau’s diary is deposited with the Norfolk Record Society in the Norwich public library. It begins in 1839, when he left England for a continental tour, and ends in February 1869, a month before his death. Some sections - notably 1846-1850 - remain in private hands, and a couple of short sections were probably destroyed for personal reasons, says Owen Chadwick. William Andrew’s diary is in private hands (or was at the time of the book’s publication). It is in two big volumes, the first from his ordination to 1855, and the second from 1855 to his last illness. Unlike Boileau, he didn’t write in his journal very often or regularly. Here are a couple of extracts from Chadwick’s book (which uses the diaries of both men extensively, but does not, in fact, provide many dated verbatim quotes from them).

Boileau’s diary
January 1841
‘Dined early, and in the evening servants had a ball in the hall, lighted up. There were our ten maids - four indoor and three outdoor, and Cowper - Easton and three gardeners there, besides John Cannell and wife, [ . . .] It went off well as they had supper also, and all over by two o’clock, which was somewhat too late. I took Mrs. Beale to dance in the New Year but she was puffy and obliged to sit down.’

Chadwick comments: ‘Andrew disapproved of these proceedings, and hoped that some of the participants also disapproved. He found villagers like Jonas Horstead, the fiddler, who professed uneasy conscience but nevertheless had attended the ball. He was grieved when he found that Sarah Cooper was among them. When he expressed his grief, Sarah said, “I was miserable all the while and always wished from the first not to have anything to do with the school under Sir John. But he came to me saying, “I know Mr. Andrew does not agree with me that balls are not wrong. I see no wrong and I myself join in the dance. Besides, remember you are now my schoolmistress, not his.” ” This at least was Sarah’s account of her fall, and Andrew found it impossible to be cross with one so penitent and unhappy. He bore his testimony against the pomps and vanities of the world, and took his leave.’

Andrew’s diary
5 January 1842 [while Boileau was away]
‘Drew tooth for old Mrs. Roberts. It was singular that I went round to Ketteringham for the purpose of extracting it and I found her in great pain, upon which I drew from my pocket a pair of pincers which caused the poor old woman to shake and she begged I would use a piece of thread, I at last broke it off which perhaps was better than extracting the fangs.’

16 July 1843
‘Preached from Joshua ii and Jeremiah ii 37 latter part. Good congregation. Boileaus returned, very courteous. But before Mrs. Andrew reached the church they had ordered the first and second classes of girls into their pew, when my dear Ellen properly countermanded the order saying she was manager of the Sabbath School. How much they strive for mastery, but not lawfully. They aim at supremacy.’


The Diary Junction

He was my diary

‘My diary again. It’s sad to be going back to old habits I gave up since I got married. I used to write when I felt depressed - now I suppose it’s for the same reason. Relations with my husband have been so simple these past two weeks and I felt so happy with him; he was my diary and I had nothing to hide from him.’ This is Sophia Tolstoy, born 170 years ago today, writing in her diary during the first weeks of her marriage to the famous Russian writer. She would go on to keep a diary for the rest of her life, often using it to vent her frustrations towards L. or Lev. Nik.

Sophia Behrs was born on 22 August 1844, one of a large family. Her father was a physician at the Russian court; her mother was nearly 20 years his junior. Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, already a well-known author in his 30s, became a regular visitor to the Behrs’ household, and, in September 1862 when Sofia was just 18, the couple married. They lived prosperously, on a large estate, at Yasnaya Polyana (200km from Moscow) with many serfs, and had 13 children, eight of whom survived childhood.

Sophia (Sofia, Sophie) was largely a devoted wife, managing her busy household and helping her husband with his manuscripts. The marriage lasted nearly 50 years, but a few days before his death, Tolstoy left the family home after an argument over a desire to give away his property. Sophia continued living on the estate, survived the Russian revolution in relative peace, and died in 1919. Further biographical information can be found at Internet Archive in The Autobiography of Sophie Tolstoi as published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press, Paradise Road, Richmond in 1922. Otherwise, see Wikipedia, or Alexandra Popoff’s Sophia Tolstoy: a biography (Free Press in 2010) on Googlebooks, or reviews of the same book (see The New York Times, for example, or The Huffington Post).

Sophia kept a diary all her life - writing half a million words. For long periods, however, she only made intermittent entries: the most complete, but edited, version in English contains no entry, or just one entry, for 16 of the 48 calendar years. The fact that Tolstoy gave his teenage fiancée his diaries to read so as to conceal nothing from her - even his liaisons with servant girls, and his child by a woman who lived on his estate - is one of the most well known of literary diary stories. He bid her to keep a diary, and, thereafter, they wrote their diaries in order that the other should read them. Sophia, indeed, would try and communicate her anger and anxieties about their relationship to him through her diary; when happy, though, she would often fail to record anything.

Extracts from Sophia’s diary were first published in English in 1928 by Gollancz as The Diary of Tolstoy’s wife, 1860-1891 (translated by A. Werth), with a sequel - The Countess Tolstoy’s Later Diary 1891-1897 - the following year. In 1936, Allen & Unwin, published The Final Struggle, being Countess Tolstoy’s diary for 1910: With extracts from Leo Tolstoy’s diary of the same period (translated by A. Maude). More recently, in 1985, Cape published The Diaries of Sofia Tolstaya, as translated by Cathy Porter and edited by O. A. Golinenko. It was re-published in 1989 by Alma Books with a foreword by Doris Lessing (an informative review can be read on The Guardian website, and a few extracts can be found on the National Public Radio website).

The publisher’s advertising blurb for this latter edition states: ‘Sofia’s life was not an easy one: she idealized her husband, but was tormented by him; even her many children were not an unmitigated blessing. In the background of her life was one of the most turbulent periods of Russian history: the transition from old feudal Russia to the three revolutions and three major international wars. Yet it is as Sofia Tolstoy’s own life story, the study of one woman’s private experience, that the diaries are most valuable and moving. They are a testament to a woman of tremendous vital energy and poetic sensibility who, in the face of provocation and suffering, continued to strive for the higher things in life and to remain indomitable. From the state of the great writer’s stomach and the progress of his work, to the fierce and painful arguments that would eventually divide the couple for ever, Sofia’s Diaries are both compelling and extraordinarily revealing.’

The following extracts are taken from the Alma Books edition. (NB: the dates correspond to the old (Julian) calendar, i.e. 12 days behind the Western (Gregorian) calendar in the 19th century, and 13 days behind it in the 20th century.)

8 October 1862
‘My diary again. It’s sad to be going back to old habits I gave up since I got married. I used to write when I felt depressed - now I suppose it’s for the same reason.

Relations with my husband have been so simple these past two weeks and I felt so happy with him; he was my diary and I had nothing to hide from him.

But ever since yesterday, when he told me he didn’t trust my love, I have been feeling terrible. I know why he doesn’t trust me, but I don’t think I shall ever be able to say or write what I really think. I always dreamt of the man I would love as a completely whole, new, pure person. In these childish dreams, which I find hard to give up, I imagined that this man would always be with me, that I would know his slightest thought and feeling, that he would love nobody but me as long as he lived, and that he, like me and unlike others, would not have to sow his wild oats before becoming a respectable person.

Since I married I have had to recognize how foolish these dreams were, yet I cannot renounce them. The whole of my husband’s past is so ghastly that I don’t think I shall ever be able to accept it.’ [Before their marriage, Tolstoy had given Sophia all his old diaries to read because he did not want to conceal anything of his past. The diaries, apparently, made a terrible impression on the 18 year old.]

31 July 1868 [this is the only entry for 1868 in the published diaries]
‘It makes me laugh to read my diary. What a lot of contradictions - as though I were the unhappiest of women!. But who could be happier? Could any marriage be more happy and harmonious than ours? When I am alone in my room I sometimes laugh for joy and cross myself and pray to God for many, many more years of happiness. I always write my diary when we quarrel. There are still days when we quarrel, but this is because of various subtle emotional reasons, and we wouldn’t quarrel if we didn’t love each other. I have been married six years now, but I love him more and more. He often says it isn’t really love, but we have grown so used to each other we cannot be separated. But I still love him with the same poetic, fevered, jealous love, and his composure occasionally irritates me.’

4 June 1910
‘Too many visitors. Lev Nikolaevich is distraught because the Circassian guard has brought Prokofy in for stealing a beam, and he is an old man who once worked for him. Oh, I’ve had enough of the estate!’

28 October 1910
‘Lev Nik. has left! My God! He left a letter telling me not to look for him as he had gone for good, to live out his old age in peace. The moment I read those words I rushed outside in a frenzy of despair and jumped into the pond, where I swallowed a lot of water, Sasha and Bulgakov dragged me out with the help of Vanya Shuraev. Utter despair. Why did they save me?’

29 October 1910
‘All the children have come, apart from Lyova, who is abroad. They are so kind and attentive, but they can’t help or comfort me. Mitasha Obolensky has come. Seryozha, Ilya and Misha have left. Vanya discovered that L. Nik. had gone to Belev - maybe to see his sister Maria Nikolaevna.’

30 October 1910
‘I cry day and night and suffer dreadfully. It’s more painful and terrible than anything I could have imagined. Lev Nik. did visit his sister in Shamordino, then travelled beyond Gorbachevo - who knows where. What unspeakable cruelty.’

31 October 1910
‘I haven’t eaten or drunk anything for four days, I ache all over, my heart is bad. Why? What is happening? Nothing to write about - nothing but groans and tears. Berkenheim came with some stupid doctor called Rastorguev, and a young lady fresh from medical school. These outsiders make it much more difficult, but the children don’t want to take responsibility. What for? My life? I want to leave the dreadful agony of this life . . . I can see no hope, even if L. N. does at some point return. Things will never be as they were, after all he has made me suffer. We can never be straightforward with each other again, we can never love each other, we shall always fear each other. And I fear for his health and strength too.’

4 November 1910
‘Lev Nik. is worse. I wait in agony outside the little house where he is lying. We are sleeping in the train.’

5 November 1910
‘There is evidently little hope. I am tormented by remorse, the painful anticipation of his end, and the impossibility of seeing my beloved husband.’

7 November 1910
‘At 6 o’clock in the morning Lev Nikol. died. I was allowed in only as he drew his last breath. They wouldn’t let me take leave of my husband. Cruel people.’

22 August 1914
‘My sister Tanya arrived this morning, and her husband came for dinner. Today is my birthday; I am 70.’

7 September 1914
‘I wandered about aimlessly; I can’t do anything with this frightful war on, and my grief and worry for Tanya, my sons and Dora, who is due to give birth any day. I raked up piles of leaves for cattle bedding, gave the day-labourers their receipts and spent the evening doing accounts with Nina.’

27 September 1914
‘My sister is distraught because he son Mitya has also volunteered for the war, as an orderly. Incomprehensible hypnotism! We read aloud Matovitsky’s memoirs.’

30 September 1914
‘I did some typing for my sister. This evening Bulgakov read us his article protesting against the war. It is very good.’

2 October 1914
‘My sister Tanya has left. A beautiful still bright day. I went out and wandered around the estate. People have planted apple trees, gathered up brushwood, raked the dead leaves and swept them into four piles. We read papers. There were six visitors today - some officers and army doctors and two women. They looked round the drawing room and Lev Nik.’s rooms.’

18 October 1914
‘The American consulate has informed me that my grandson Misha has been taken prisoner in Milevic, in Bohemia.’

See also I have been indolent

Upper Slaughter’s squire

Francis Edward Witts, rector and squire of Upper Slaughter, in the Cotswolds, died 160 years ago today. Though not an especially remarkable character, he kept a diary for much of his life in which he recorded many details about the natural world, the people he met, the fast-changing society around him, and his own life. When it was first published in the 1970s, the publisher claimed it shed ‘new light on a fascinating period of social history’.

Witts was born in 1783, in Cheltenham, the eldest son of the high sheriff of Oxfordshire. His parents moved to Edinburgh in 1795; and between 1798 and 1800, the family spent their winters at the court of the grand duke of Saxe-Weimar, where Witts attended a school for foreign students. After returning to England, he studied at Wadham College, Oxford, and was ordained deacon in 1806 and priest in 1807. The following year, he married Margaret Backhouse, and they had one child.

Witts was rector of Upper Slaughter, Gloucestershire, from 1808 until his death, and was vicar of Stanway, about 10 miles away, from 1814 to 1854. He was also squire of Upper Slaughter, and became a long-serving justice of the peace. In 1852, he was appointed deputy lieutenant of Gloucestershire. He died on 18 August 1854. There is further biographical information available through the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (although this requires a library card log-in or a fee). The manor house he occupied is now a hotel called Lords of the Manor.

Most biographical information about Witts comes from his diaries, and it is unlikely he would be remembered but for those. He left some 90 notebooks which were first edited by David Verey and published in 1978 by Alan Sutton as The Diary of a Cotswold Parson. Verey acquired access to the notebooks through Francis Witts, a great-great-grandson of the diarist. In 2008, Amberley began publishing a fuller edition - The Complete Diary of a Cotswold Parson - as edited by Sutton, owner, at the time, of Amberley. Subsequently, two more volumes were published - a good summary of the full set of volumes can be found at the website of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society.

Verey writes in his introduction to the original edition: ‘. . . Maybe [Witts] confided his daily activities to his diary rather than to his wife. It must have occupied quite a considerable time in his busy life, as he wrote at unnecessary length to our way of thinking. To make every point twice may be good practice in a sermon, but not in a diary. In making my extracts therefore I have had to reduce his verbosity - though not I hope his wit - for the sake of our readers. I have also endeavoured to use only those passages which illuminate the history of the city and county of Gloucester, paying special attention to the people Witts met, for they were the breath of life and Witts was a social being. Particulars of his day-to-day work, which take up the greater par of what he wrote, have, therefore, to some extent been excluded from these pages, owing to a certain dryness and greater suitability for the serious social historian, as have also the descriptions of his travels in other parts of England which do not have any direct application to Gloucestershire.’

The ONDB says this of the diary’s contents: ‘[It] exhibits his full participation in local social and cultural life. Witts enjoyed dining out, and travelled in all weathers and by every means of conveyance - horse, phaeton, carriage, stagecoach, and steam train. He recorded new roads, buildings, and the spread of towns. Witts and his son both became keen botanists and conservationists, and he also helped organise the musical life of Cheltenham and Gloucester, attending many concerts. Quietly religious, Witts disapproved of hunting parsons and was generous to his parishioners. He records that he relied upon ‘three checks to the frailty of our nature; self-examination, prayer and professional study’.’

3 January 1820
‘Left Upper Slaughter for Bath in the hope that another course of the waters may essentially strengthen my dear wife’s constitution. Having sent forward my manservant and horse we travelled post with Edward and a maid. The weather very cold, frost and snow; more of the latter between home and Cirencester and between Petty France and Bath, than between Cirencester and Petty France. The road very slippery and though a horse fell in the chaise in the streets of Tetbury, we providentially escaped any accident.’

27 April 1821
‘The overseer of Halling brought up two gipsies, casual poor in their parish in order to their being examined to their settlement. Merach Lock the husband swore that he was born under an oak on Halling down as he had heard from his mother, being an illegitimate child and knowing nothing of his father; also that he was recently married to his wife Mary which whom he had cohabited twenty years, having by her six children. It seems that the Parish of Halling has little or no chance of proving him settled elsewhere. On examining the woman, she swore all the children to be Merach Lock’s - Lucas and Adam being born like their father in the Paris of Halling - Eve at Cold Ashton - Sarah at Brimpsfield - Temperance at Hawkesbury - Joanna at Cranham. The law was strictly interpreted and removal orders were made in respect of the last four children, sending them to their respective birth places.’

5 September 1826
‘The Stratford and Moreton railway was opened this day for the conveyance of goods from the former to the latter place, and a vast concourse of persons assembled at Moreton-in-Marsh. The market of this town, disused for a very long period, has on this occasion been revived with great spirit and will in some respects be injurious to the market at Stow-on-the-Wold. At an early hour in the evening all the provisions of the town were exhausted, the roasted ox demolished and neither bread nor beer to be had for love or money. The committee preceded the coal waggons with a band of music, and all was joyous. Behind the scenes, however, the proprietors have reason to mourn over mismanagement, exhausted means, and scant hopes even of distant remuneration; but the public will doubt be considerable gainers.’

29 September 1826
‘They say the march of intellect is wonderful these days. Men navigate by steam, tram carts travel by steam; but this is nothing to the present fashion of travelling by paper kites. To-day we witnessed the experiment made at Gloucester. For some days I had noticed two large paper kites hovering over the town. They were hoisted by a school master who amused himself with mechanical pursuits, letting off balloons etc. The wind being westerly, was favourable for an excursion to Cheltenham so he orders out his gig, or rather I think it was a four wheeled chair, attaches it to two paper kites, mounts with two or three companies and away they go, not very rapidly, not at a very regular pace, but progressing.’

2 April 1826
‘We walked to Over Bridge to view the site of the new bridge over the Severn, building under the direction of Mr. Telford, by the County. The work is in progress; many labourers, excavators, etc. were employed. On one side the masonry of an abutment is in a forward state, on the other they are driving the piles. There were collected great heaps of fine stone ready squared in large blocks, of different sorts, for the foundation and superstructure. A steam engine was erecting, and several cranes were in operation, lifting masses of stone from the barges in which they were conveyed.’

Sunset of rosy juices

Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Jesuit priest remembered largely for his innovative approach to writing poetry, was born 170 years ago today. He sometimes kept note-books, which, later in his life, became more like diaries. His diary entries are often dull (a few of them simply contain the one word, ‘Dull’!), though his daily obsession with describing the sky and the weather does lead him to wax rather lyrical. One sunset he describes, for example, as ‘of rosy juices and creams and combs.’

Hopkins, the oldest of nine children, was born on 28 July 1844, at Stratford near London into a high Anglican family. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, during the time of the Oxford Movement, and chose to enter the Roman Catholic church in 1866. Two years later, he became a Jesuit priest, and, famously, destroyed all the poems he had written up to that point. He spent the next years training at various Jesuit houses. It was not until 1875 that he began writing poetry again, inspired by a German ship - with nuns aboard - that sank in a storm. The Wreck of the Deutschland would become one of his most famous poems.

After being ordained in 1877, Hopkins worked with the poor in Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow, then studied some more in London, before teaching classics at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire. In 1884, he was elected fellow of the Royal University of Ireland, and lectured in Greek and Latin at University College, Dublin. He died, aged only 44, from typhoid fever in 1889, by which time he had not published any of his poems. It was only in 1918, that a first volume of Hopkins’s poems appeared, thanks to a friend, another poet, Robert Bridges. ‘His experimental explorations,’ Wikipedia summarises, ‘in prosody (especially sprung rhythm) and his use of imagery established him as a daring innovator in a period of largely traditional verse.’ Further information is also available from The Poetry Foundation, The Victorian Web, a New York Times book review, or The London Review of Books.

Hopkins’s papers were first edited by Humphrey House in 1937, and published by Oxford University Press in one volume - The Notebooks and Papers of Gerard Manley Hopkins. It contained a journal and selections from diaries and other writings. In 1947, three more journal note-books came to light; and, in 1952, after the death of Hopkins’s last surviving brother, further papers were found, all of which led Oxford University Press to consider a new and more comprehensive edition. Humphrey House was called on to put the new edition together, but then he died, and so the task of completing the book  - The Journals and Papers of Gerard Manley Hopkins - was given to Graham Storey. It was published in 1959, and contains one chapter of about 70 pages called ‘Early Diaries (1862-6)’, and another of about 130 pages called ‘Journal (1866-75)’. Other chapters contain Hopkins’s essays and lecture notes, as well as his drawings and music.

In the early note-books, Hopkins sketches out poems, shows a playful interest in words, and often describes the clouds and sky. Most of the entries are just notes, and few of them are dated. In the later years, his journal does become more diary-like, but his interest in the sky continues unabated with many a poetical turn of phrase about the weather.

2 August 1867
‘Dull and cold; before sunset the west opened in yellow from the earth-line upwards, with a sharp edge to the blanket of clouds; then bright sunlight scattered on the trees.’

17 August 1867
‘West wind, which I heard someone describe as ‘lumpy and rolling heavy’, with a little rain on it; otherwise fine; near sunset drifts of small graceful white-rose and scaly clouds.’

17 August 1868
‘Dark, soft, and wet.’

7 January 1868
‘Fine and freezing; snow at night.’

23 January 1868
‘Dull.’

23 December 1869
‘Yesterday morning I was dreaming I was with George Simcox and was considering how to get away in time to ring the bells here which as porter I had to ring (I was made porter on the 12th of the month, I think, and had the office for a little more than two months). I knew that I was dreaming and made this odd dilemma in my dream; either I am not really with Simcox and then it does not matter what I do, or if I am, waking will carry me off without my needing to do anything - and with this I was satisfied.’

24 September 1874
‘Very bright and clear. I was with Mr. Rickaby on the hill above the house. All the landscape had a beautiful liquid cast of blue. Many-coloured smokes in the valley, grey from the Denbigh lime-kiln, yellow and lurid from two kilns perhaps on the shoulders of a hill, blue from a bonfire, and so on.

Afterwards a lovely sunset of rosy juices and creams and combs; the combs I mean scattered floating bats or rafts or racks above, the creams, the strew and bed of the sunset, passing north and south or rather north only into grey marestail and brush along the horizon to the hills. Afterwards the rosy field of the sundown turned gold and the slips and creamings in it stood out like brands, with jots of purple. A sodden twilight over the valley and foreground all below, holding the corner-hung maroon-grey diamonds of ploughfields to one keeping but allowing a certain glare in the green of the near tufts of grass.’

The Diary Junction

The Archduke’s travels

The Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated a century ago today by Serbian extremists. It was one of the most infamous acts in history since it led directly to the start of the First World War. What is much less well known, however, is that some years earlier the Archduke had undertaken a 10 month-long journey round the world, and kept a fascinating - if sometimes verbose - diary of his travels, expressing delight, for example, at seeing flying fish at sea, or moaning about uncomfortable London cabs in Sydney.

Franz Ferdinand was born in Graz, Austria, in 1863, the oldest son of Archduke Karl Ludwig, the younger brother of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph. He was given the title Archduke of Austria-Este from birth. He began his military career at 12 years of age, rising quickly through the ranks, to be appointed a major general aged 31. Later, as heir-presumptive to the elderly emperor, he was inspector general of all Austria-Hungary’s armed forces.

In 1889, Crown Prince Rudolf (Emperor Franz Joseph’s son, and cousin to Franz Ferdinand) committed suicide, leaving Ludwig in line to inherit the throne. Ludwig immediately renounced the throne in favour of his son, Franz Ferdinand, and died soon after. Franz Ferdinand, however, had fallen in love with a woman, Countess Sophie Chotek, who was not considered eligible to marry a member of the Imperial House of Habsburg. After much negotiation and petitioning, the marriage, which took place in 1900, was allowed, but only under certain conditions: their descendants (they had three children) would have no succession rights to the throne; nor would Sophie share her husband’s rank, title, or privileges.

In this period of European history, Austria-Hungary was an empire full of tensions not only between the regions and their Hapsburg rulers, but between various ethnic groups at odds over religion and politics. Franz Ferdinand is known to have worried about these tensions, and the prospect of the empire disintegrating, and to have considered ideas for allowing the regions more say in government, and more autonomy. But he was not much liked by the people - his public persona is said to have been cold, sharped-tongued and short-tempered - and his political plans were no more popular among the ruling elites.

According to Wikipedia’s biography, Franz Ferdinand advocated a careful approach towards Serbia - repeatedly opposing hardliners in Vienna - warning that harsh treatment of the Serbs would bring Austria-Hungary into open conflict with Russia, to the ruin of both Empires. On Sunday, 28 June 1914, on a visit to Sarajevo, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were shot dead by Gavrilo Princip, one of a group of Serbian assassins. Another of the group had tried, earlier in the day, to bomb the Archduke’s motorcade, but that assassination attempt had failed. The group had been coordinated by Danilo Ilić, a Bosnian Serb, whose political objective was to break off Austria-Hungary’s south-Slav provinces so they could be combined into a Yugoslavia.

The assassination gave the Vienna hardliners an opportunity to move against Serbia and its fight for independence: Austria-Hungary demanded impossible reparations, and, failing to receive them, declared war on Serbia. The complex web of alliances in Europe, then, was activated as Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary, Germany declared war on Russia, and France and Britain declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. Thus did begin - on 28 July 1914 - World War I.

More information on the Archduke can be found at Wikipedia, and Bio. Wikipedia has a long entry about the assassination itself, and First World War has video footage of the Archduke arriving at the town hall in Sarajevo. See also media articles today: The Guardian, Washington Post, The Telegraph, BBC.

In late 1892 and 1893, Franz Ferdinand traveled around the world, partly, it is recorded, for medical reasons: the journey served both as a cover and as a means to recover. Science was the journey’s official purpose and Franz Ferdinand traveled under the alias of Count of Hohenberg on the torpedo ram cruiser Kaiserin Elisabeth. He was accompanied by over 400 people, ranging from a navy chaplain to a royal treasurer. Throughout the ten months of the journey, he kept a daily diary - often in considerable detail - and wrote more than 2,000 pages. The diary was published in two volumes in 1896 as Tagebuch Meiner Reise Um Die Erde, 1892-1893. It was reprinted in 2012 (copies available through Amazon, for example). The original 19th century volumes, though, can also be bought on Abebooks, at a price.

Franz Ferdinand’s diary was never translated into English. However, in 2013, Der Spiegel ran an informative article on the newly reprinted two volumes, and an English version of the article is available online. Much information about the Antipodean part of the Archduke’s journey and diary is also available thanks to Weekend Australian Magazine. In Vienna, the Welt Museum is celebrating the centenary of Franz Ferdinand’s death with a major exhibition on the Archduke’s journey based on his diaries.

Most significantly, the full text of Franz Ferdinand’s diary is being made freely available online and in English thanks to an unknown translator and editor (although he/she does provide an email address for contact). The editor states: ‘I invite you, Dear Reader, to follow Franz Ferdinand’s world tour of 1893, day by day, in a new translation into English. This is a work in progress and help is welcome.’

The Franz Ferdinand’s World Tour website is simple and easy to use, with information on the people who accompanied the Archduke, the ship he travelled in, and a chronological list of days with the date, the place, and a link to the diary’s entry for that day.

In the Archduke’s own preface to the 1896 publication, he wrote: ‘To collect all the thousands of impressions that assailed me and to remember in old age what I cherished as a young man, I wrote daily notes from its beginning of the voyage on. In this, I was also thinking about those who had remained at home. They who could not experience directly the incomparable allures were - if only in weak form - to find a means to participate indirectly in this journey across the world by my offer of my recollections. Thus, I offer my beloved ones and my friends my diary. It contains sights, experiences, thoughts, lessons and hopes to find a level of interest among those for whom it is intended to the extent that it induces affection and friendship.’

Here are a few extracts, the first a shorter entry characteristic of those made at sea, and the second, a longer entry from Franz Ferdinand’s first day in Sydney, which is more typical of the lengthy notes he made when visiting places on land.

3 April 1893
‘The sky was very cloudy and a rainsquall was pouring down in heavy drops, drumming against the deck but quickly evaporate in the heat. Church service was therefore held in the battery.

Still during the morning appeared the Sayer islands, Salang island off the Panga peninsula, in the afternoon the Brothers islands became visible. All these small islands seem to be of volcanic origin, viewed through a spyglass, and thickly covered with tropical vegetation.

During the day we observed tide rips or stream currents that are very common in the Strait of Malacca; these are wave movements that are caused by counter-currents that move in stripes across the otherwise quiet sea and make the steering much more difficult as they cause the ship to drift from its course. I might compare these currents to a quickly flowing watercourse in a sea that flings out foaming, dancing waves at the surface.

An outstanding number of flying fishes, large schools of dolphins as well as fish similar to tuna were mingling. The latter ones pursued, jumping out of the water, smaller fish while these in turn were followed by large birds similar to common dabs that I could not determine more precisely.

The evening was tepid and mild, so that I whiled away an hour on the bridge before I went to sleep, fanned by the the cool evening air, lost in the view of the southern starry sky which I consider by the way inferior in diversity, beauty and splendor of the zodiacs to the northern sky.’

16 May 1893
‘The youngest continent would not receive the sons of the old world in bad weather. As I arrived on deck at half past 6 o’clock, I found the sky clear and serene. The sun was just rising. The sea had calmed down to some degree. Various seagulls and sea swallows as well as large guillemots or penguins were swarming around our ship which was approaching the entrance to Sydney, Port Jackson. The day was gorgeous but the temperature was so low that we were well advised to wear warm coats. From afar we could see the two white shining capes or peninsulas - Outer North and South Head - through which the approach to the harbor leads. These peninsulas descend steeply into the sea with sharp rocky faces and cliffs. Splashing, the waves break against the shore. Hundreds of crag martins and common swifts were tweeting and circling above their nesting places. On Outer South Head is a light house. The entrance is rich in flashy direction obelisks. On a small steamboat the pilot was approaching toward us to take the position of our our old captain from Port Kennedy.

All the harbors that I have yet seen are surpassed in the beauty of its scenery by Sydney - a view shared also by the other gentlemen who saw it for the first time.

Despite many enthusiastic descriptions of Port Jackson we have received, the scenery that opened up before our eyes still surprised us and our astonishment and admiration grew minute by minute.

Having passed through the outlying mountains the ship enters into a narrow channel turns hard towards Southwest - and now there lies a delightful sound in front of us. In the distance the sea of houses of Sydney are glittering, to the right and left small bays are open, surrounded by green hills covered with trees and countless villas and country homes whose gardens were filled with splendid flowers in the calendar autumnal colors. Overall it creates an extremely lively and serene view. The bays are populated with steam boats, yachts and boats of all kinds whose passengers wave greetings to the entering “Elisabeth”. Truly, Australia could not have offered us a more welcoming reception! We saw this as a good sign for our stay which we were looking forward to in a very good mood.

The fine clear cool air that refreshed us contributed in no small part to the great first impression - doubly welcome after the sweltering humid heat of Java that flags both mind and body.

Our joyful mood was even more increased by the German consul general Pelldram, who also represented Austria-Hungary here at the moment and had come to greet us and handed us three messages at the same time.

The whole force of the sanitary police regulations which is applied especially against ships coming from Batavia we had to endure too. First we had to anchor in Watson Bay for the health assessment - a stay we did not have to regret due to the delightful surrounding landscape.

After we had been given permission to proceed, “Elisabeth” continued the journey alongside the picturesque bay shore whose ledges were crowned by small forts and batteries - which seemed to me of subordinate fortification value. We then passed Garden Island with its arsenal and the navy yard of the Australian war fleet as well as Woolloomooloo Bay and then moored at a buoy amidst the warships of the Australian squadron at Farm Cove between Lady Macquarie’s Chair and Fort Macquarie.

The coastal defense is undertaken by the ships of the British navy stationed in Australian waters, the Australian Auxiliary Squadron and of warships in the service of the colony. According to the Australasian Naval Force Act of 1887 the Australian colonies pay an annual contribution of 1,092,000 fl. in Austrian currency to the British government for it to provide the Australian Auxiliary Squadron. Furthermore the construction costs borne by the British government for the ships of this squadron carries an interest of 5 percent paid by the colonies but the overall annual interest is not allowed to surpass 420.000 fl. in Austrian currency. This Auxiliary Squadron consists of 5 fast cruisers and 2 torpedo cannon boats and is commanded by a British Rear Admiral who also is in command of the squadron of the ships of the British navy stationed in Australian waters. This squadron consists of 1 armored ship, 3 cruisers, 3 cannon boats and 1 steam yacht; its main station is Sydney. The war fleet owned by the Australian colonies consists in total of 1 armored ship, 2 cruisers, 4 cannon boats, 13 torpedo boats, 2 torpedo barges and 7 steam boats; the majority of theses ships belongs to Victoria and Queensland, while New Zealand does not own any warship.

Next to us was moored the proud British ship of the admiral, the armored cruiser “Orlando“, with 5600 t; next to it followed the cruiser “Royalist” and the cruiser “Mildura” of the Australian Auxiliary Squadron besides the cannon boat “Boomerang” and the cannon boat “Paluma” owned by the colony of Queensland which is used at shared cost by the colony and the British government to map the coast. On these ships our anthem rang out accompanied by the sound of the guns.

In a short time appeared Lieutenant Governor Sir F. M. Darley, accompanied by his adjutant and cabinet secretary, and soon afterward the commander of the royal squadron, Rear Admiral Bowden-Smith, as well as the mayor of Sydney, Mr. Manning, came on board to greet me. The governor himself had been recalled to England after only two years of service. His successor is bound to arrive soon. Numerous compatriots namely Istrians and Dalmatians who are doing business in Sydney came on board of “Elisabeth” to look for and find friends and acquaintances.

Dispositions for the next few days were quickly made. Then a boat brought me on land to set foot on the soil of the colony of New South Wales and visit its capital, the oldest city of Australia.

Sydney, which lies on the South coast of Jackson Bay that cuts deeply into the land, is situated on a couple of hills - imposing by the number and size of its buildings - and then by and by blends into villa settlements and the green of the landscape. Founded in 1788 as the seat of the penal colony of New South Wales, Sydney - originally Port Jackson, then named in honor of the secretary of state Viscount Sydney - has grown tremendously namely during the last few years. The population increase of Sydney is best illustrated by the following numbers: In 1800 Sydney had barely 2600 inhabitants, in 1861 95.596, in 1881 already 237.300, on 31 December 1892 including the suburbs already 411.710 inhabitants.

As an important trading and industrial center Sydney owes its rise mostly to the safety and size of its harbor which handles more than three quarters of the total imports and more than half the exports of the colony of New South Wales. In the year 1892 2960 ships with 2,804.549 t entered here and 3067 ships with 2,842.635 t departed; the imports of the colony represented in this year a total value of 249,318.312 fl. in Austrian currency, the exports one of 263,666.964 fl. in Austrian currency.

The boat landed below Government House at Fort Macquarie where the road led along a quay to the city. On this quay there was a very busy life as the large steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company as well as those of the Messageries maritimes are moored and are next to the warehouses of many floors in which wool bales and hides were loaded in and out without interruption. Viewed from the quay the two main streets and main traffic veins of Sydney, George Street und Pitt Street, cross the center of the city running parallel from North to South. Even though many streets are arranged in a grid, this monotonous regularity of modern city design is not much noticed as Sydney is situated on hills which continuously changes the scenery of the streets.

Among the many public buildings of Sydney all built in stone I mention the most remarkable: the university, a colossal building with a grandiose hall in Gothic style which rises at the North end of the beautiful Victoria Park, the cathedral and the newly built Catholic Church of Maria, the splendid Town Hall, the palatial post office with its colonnades and a large tower, the museum next to Hyde Park and finally the parliament.

Pretty houses, many with balconies and verandas, and shops on the ground floor where European goods are sold, line the macadamized streets where a busy crowd is going here and there. The streets are highly urban and still very cozy and friendly. Not the least because the visitor thinks to be in a European city as he sees but white faces, among them especially beautiful women and girls - an agreeable view after the colored and in our opinion not very attractive physiognomy of the natives of the countries we had recently visited.

The streets are very busy which is easy to understand in the case of Sydney as an important trading place. The only thing I find fault with is that they have introduced London cabs that are very uncomfortable for its passengers.

The acquisitions we had to do were fully made in the European manner. The transactions went smoothly and quickly and we appreciated not having to search and haggle for hours as in Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore and Batavia.

Then I paid a visit to the Lieutenant Governor in Government House built in Tudor style and distinguished in its interior by its noble calm elegance of its furnishings. Sir F. M. Darley speaks German fairly well which eased the conversation very much. He showed me the garden of the palace which offers a delicious view of the harbor and Mossmans Bay opposite it with its villa quater of St. Leonard. The garden is well kept and contains a rich collection of Australian tree and bush species.

The next visit was devoted to - I suffer from museum addiction - the museum housed in an imposing building and distinguished by the richness, correct arrangement and good conservation of its objects. As I was first interested in the especially Australian species, I turned towards the mammals to study namely the strange class of marsupials. Among the well stuffed animals were represented various kangaroo and wallaby species, from the giant kangaroo to the lovely rock wallaby (Petrogale penicillata), oppossums, the flying squirrels, various species of quoll and possums, the Australian koala, wombat, dugong, the wild dog dingo or warragal and the platypus.

The bird world of Australia is completely represented. Noteworthy are: the New Dutch cassowary or emu; the rare lyrebird; the numerous species of intensely colored cockatoo and parrots, as well as the group of swamp and water fowl which included many species of which I was unaware. Australia seems to be poor in predator birds and chicken species according to the survey presented in the museum while the order of the pigeons has beautiful specimens. One well stuffed specimen of every bird species is presented in a glass cabinet. Thousands of bird bodies, however, are kept in chests to serve as exchange objects from time to time.

The museum possesses too a rich collection of corals and shells, of beetles and butterflies and finally an ethnographic one of objects from the continent and the islands of Australia which I intended to see during a second visit.

In the mean time, the clock struck five, a time where the streets of Sydney are filled with the vivid traffic as the inhabitants of this city tend to go out into the open air at that time.

Following this example we ambled in Hyde Park and in George Street until it was time for the table d’hôte at the Australian Hotel which I intended to attend.

This giant building six floors high resembles in construction, dimensions and installations the English and American hotels but with the agreeably appreciated difference that one did not have to rely only upon English cooking of roast beef and anodyne vegetables but was well supplied with food and drink. The table d’hôte reunited in a large hall a large company. The gentlemen were, according to English custom, wearing dress coats, the ladies even in mostly low-cut festive dresses. Not much laudable can be said about the dinner music performed by some artists who elicited awful sounds out of their instruments.

As the operetta theater that it was said offered good performances was closed and a circus had just left Sydney the day before, there were only two entertainment locations for us who had been deprived of “artistic” divertissement for a long time - the two music halls “Tivoli” and “Alhambra” in which popular singers, among them also Negroes, and female dancers produced themselves in front of the audience that applauded in the manner of the land by shrill whistling and was not particularly distinguished. The audience consisted mostly of workers, sailors and small business men.’

23 August 1893
‘In the morning I again tried my luck to do some shopping in Yokohama and in fact this time guided by the kind Baron Siebold who was completely familiar with Japan and all its aspects thanks to his stay of many years here and also speaking the Japanese language. Unfortunately my efforts were unsuccessful as I tried in vain to find silk and brocade like I bought in Kyoto. I everywhere received the answer that the cloth would have to be ordered first from Kyoto. In contrast I managed to enlarge the board menagerie with lovely white bantams - a full aviary - and enlarge it with one of the already rare cock with their tails of multiple meters in length. I also sent two very cute bears on board that soon became the darlings of the crew and learned in the shortest time to wait in place. Hopefully they arrive at our home healthy as they are intended to be the grace and live in the castle moat at Konopiste.

In the afternoon I wanted to be back in Tokyo and, to evade the lurking eyes of the police, sent Clam and Pronay directly to the capital where they too were festively received by a crowd of over a thousand people and a corresponding contingent of policemen, while I with Siebold exited at the next to last stop and entered Tokyo in rickshaws. The maneuver succeded too so that we could spend a few hours fully unrestricted and eat a dinner in a restaurant of the beautiful Ueno park.’

Russian cavalry and jams

Sir Robert Laird Borden, the eighth Canadian prime minister who played a key role in overseeing his country’s status from colony to nation, was born 160 years ago today. He wrote daily diary entries during the war years which, though brief and often skittish - jumping, for example, from the state of Russian Cavalry to his liking of jam - provide plenty of insight into Borden the man as well as Borden the politician.

Borden was born on 26 June 1854, and educated in the farming community of Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia, Canada. He worked first as a teacher, but then was articled for four years to a Halifax law firm, being called to the Nova Scotia Bar in 1878. He moved to Kentville to join a law firm, and a few years later, to Halifax, to join another one, becoming senior partner in 1889. That same year, he marred Laura Bond, but they would have no children.

Increasingly successful, Borden represented many of the important Halifax businesses, and sat on the boards of various financial companies. In 1896, he helped found the Canadian Bar Association in Montreal; and, by the time he entered politics, he was a wealthy man - his legal practice was considered by some to be the largest in the so-called Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island).

Borden first entered parliament as a Conservative in 1896; and in 1901 he assumed the leadership of the Conservative Party. For a decade or so he worked to reform the party, but he failed to win power in the 1908 election. He did, however, succeed in 1911 with an appeal for loyalty to the British Empire rather than closer ties to the US. In 1914, Borden was knighted by King George V, and, in fact, was the last Canadian prime minister to receive the honour.

Borden’s leadership skills though were tested with the onset of the First World War. His wartime government was responsible for the Emergency War Measures Act, the nationalisation of the Canadian Northern Railway, and, after a general election and the forming of a unity government, the Military Service Act in 1917 for conscription. Internationally, he also had a significant impact. He could see how Canada was able to assert itself as an independent power; and thus, in the post-war negotiations, he demanded a separate seat at the Paris Peace Conference. This idea was initially opposed by Britain and the US, but Borden stuck to his position, which led to all the dominions - not just Canada - being able to sign the Treaty of Versailles, and receiving separate membership in the League of Nations.

Borden was Chancellor of McGill University from 1918 to 1920, and, after his retirement from politics in 1920, he was appointed Chancellor of Queen’s University (1924 to 1930). He continued with his business interests, and some statesmanship activities (he represented Canada, for example, at the Washington Naval Conference in 1922 and signed the resulting arms reduction treaty on Canada’s behalf). He died in 1937. Further biographical information is available online at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, The Canadian Encyclopaedia or Wikipedia

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) holds an original set of diaries written by Borden while he was prime minister, covering the years 1912 to 1918. Recently, the Memorial University of Foundland has digitised a transcribed copy of the diaries, also held by LAC, and made it freely available online.

In her introduction to the online diaries, Dr Kathryn Rose explains: ‘Borden’s diaries are not nearly as personal as historians might wish for, but they highlight themes and issues that he addressed on a regular basis, and provide insight to his approach. Borden, despite his years as a practicing lawyer, was not comfortable with debate or public speaking. He regularly documents the praise received for his addresses, and was quick to comment on the skills of others. His appreciation for the men who served was constant - he enjoyed displays of strength and patriotism of regular parade. More interesting, however, was Borden’s handling of his caucus, particularly the members from Quebec. He constantly dealt with battling members, a situation that often ended in tears, and not from Borden.’

6 August 1912
‘Motored back to London with Laura. Aitken and Bonar Law who smoked all the way. Worked at correspondence all afternoon. Called on Lloyd George by appointment. Had interesting conversation. He talked like a strong Imperialist. Thinks Great Britain will never accept protection. Believes Canada can get a preference in transportation but has no very clear ideas as to mode.’

7 August 1912
‘Parliament expected to prorogue today. Played golf on Combe Hill links with Bonar Law and Aitken. Very good links. Bonar Law good steady player. In Afternoon discussed several questions with Churchill and told him everything depended on strength of his statement. He promised to give it personal attention. Told him I was going to Scotland.’

8 August 1912
‘This morning saw Asquith by appointment. He took me all over official residence. Portrait of every Cabinet Minister. One in office only three days. Discussed visit to Germany. He thinks idle to go there with hope of doing any good. Told him that oar action on naval question depended on Churchill’s statement. He said Churchill was good at such work.’

9 August 1912
‘Delegation as to selection of an Irish port as an ocean terminus. Large number present. Arranged to go to Barrow in Furness, Newcastle and Glasgow next week. Am to receive freedom of City of Glasgow.’

10 August 1912
‘Motored to Lord Roberts. Charming place near Ascot. Met Sir Arthur Wilson and others. Delightful luncheon party. Afterwards motored to Cliveden. Discovered that Mrs. Astor had invited the King on Sunday to meet us. He could not come.’

25 June 1914
‘Returned this morning to find that yesterday afternoon there was a tremendous electrical storm and cloudburst in Ottawa. Our new paths on bank of Rideau almost completely demolished. Hindoo question again to the fore and after consultation with White and Burrell drafted a telegram of instructions. Afterwards White talked earnestly to me of his desire to retire. I told him I wished to do the same. Congratulations still pouring in. Played golf with White 5 to 6:30.’

26 June 1914
‘Further confce with White as to Canadian Northern and GTP mortgages. Discussed with Ackland the situation respecting GTP machinists and sent strong telegram to Chamberlain. Answered many telegrams of congratulations as to my birthday. Wrote to Farquar as to departure of Duke and arrival of new GG. In afternoon laid cornerstone of Perley Home for Incurables.’

1 January 1916
‘A rather melancholy New Year with both of us confined to bed under charge of Doctor and trained nurse. Pain still very severe at times. The nurse, Miss McCurdy, seems very faithful and competent. If I make the slightest movement in the night she is at the door at once. My message to the Canadian people published today seems to be very well received. Many telegrams of congratulation, one especially fervent from Dr. Chown, one also from Hon. Edw. Brown, a member of the Manitoba Gov’t. News from front unimportant but Russians seem to be fathering way. Asquith evidently having great difficulty with his conscription measure which threatens to disrupt his Gov’t.’

24 May 1916
‘Waked very early. Delightful water in lake for bathe if one could plunge in quickly. Glorious air. Read and walked around grounds during forenoon. Late in afternoon Rhodes and I started for Left Blower. I caught one grey on fly but no success either there or at Right Bower or Cedar Bay. Mail arrived during forenoon. Nothing very eventful reported. Russian Cavalry had joined British in Mesopotamia. Rhodes says Tiptrees jams &c much better than Cross and Blackwells. Apricot Brandy and Cherry Whisky liqueurs very good. Mrs Yank broils trout very excellently. Splits them, removed backbone and broils in olive oil. Weather very cool and breezy.’

26 June 1918
‘Attended at Imp. War Confce for half an hour in effort to expedite proceedings. Interview with Lord Mayor of York who desires to confer freedom of city. [. . .] Then Confce with Capt. Straight, Capt. Morrison and Lieut. Gunn, repatriated prisoners from Germany who gave thrilling accounts of their experiences. Saxons decent and even kind, Hanoverians cruel and brutal, even more so than Bavarians; Prussians worst of all. Then interview with Long and told him of our conclusions as to means of communication and status of Dominions; direct sam’n to Prime Minister, He admitted need of change but doubted P.M.s time. Then to War Com. where we discussed memo to be submitted to Grand Allied Council respecting Russia, labour men abolished political truce today. Dined at Lord Curzon’s.’

21 December 1918
‘Fine in morning. Early at office. Several callers. Jones came with draft tlgm as to purchase of 800,000 standards of lumber by British Govt and I approved of sending it to White. Dafoe came with draft tlgm. as to naval matters which I also approved. It gave particulars of my action on behalf of Dominions last summer. Hankey brought for my consideration draft of minutes of last Imp. War Cabinet and I gave him suggestions as to revision. [. . .] Worked at documents for Cabinets on Monday and Tuesday, especially Smuts interesting paper on League of Nations. Walked 4 to 5:30. In evening went to Wyndham’s Theatre to see “The Law Divine”; very interesting and remarkably well acted.’

Astronautics is my life

Archie Edmiston Roy, a Scottish astronomer, was born 90 years ago today. Although successful and widely published as an astronomer, he was better known to the public for his investigations of psychic phenomena, being dubbed the ‘Glasgow Ghostbuster’. He died less than two years ago; and at a memorial service, one of his sons chose to read extracts from a diary showing his father was already obsessed by ‘astronautics’ as a teenager.

Roy was born on 24 June 1924, the son of a draughtsman at a shipyard in Clyde, Scotland. He was educated locally, and at Glasgow University. He became a teacher before joining the university’s astronomy department in 1958, rising to a professorship in 1977. He married Frances and they had three sons.

In the 1960s and 1970s, as a consultant to Nasa, Roy was involved with the moon-landing project. He was the author of several world-renowned textbooks and over 70 scientific papers on astronomy, as well as on neural networks and models of the brain. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Astronomical Society, and the British Interplanetary Society; and he was honoured with having an asteroid - (5806) Archieroy - named after him.

However, Roy became better known for his psychical research, especially after the release of the Hollywood film Ghostbusters which led to the media labelling him ‘the Glasgow Ghostbuster’. He was often invited to investigate supposed haunted houses in Scotland and sometimes to banish ghosts or poltergeists. He became president of the Society for Psychical Research and Founding President of The Scottish Society for Psychical Research. In 2004 he was awarded the Myers Memorial Medal by the Society for Psychical Research. One of his last books, The Eager Dead - A Study in Haunting with a foreword by Colin Wilson, was published in 2008.

In addition to his two main professional interests, Roy also tried his hand at fiction, and published several novels during the 1970s. He died in December 2012. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia, The Scotsman, The Guardian, The Telegraph, or the Association for Evaluation and Communication of Evidence for Survival.

In March last year (2013), a memorial service was held for Roy at the Glasgow University Chapel. A full report was published in Frontiers magazine. The Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Professor John C Brown, spoke on Roy’s achievements, not least that he had remained a university tutor for nearly 60 years. ‘He had an ability to focus - to penetrate deeply into something he was fascinated by,’ Brown said, whether an astronomical problem or issues in psychic research and the paranormal. His investigations convinced him that existence did not end with death, and he used to enjoy summing it up by saying: ‘If I die and I find out I have not survived, I will be very surprised!’

One of Roy’s sons, Ian, also spoke, and he referred to a diary kept by his father when still a teenager. Ian explained that, at the age of 17, his father had contracted tuberculosis and was subsequently interned at Bridge of Weir sanatorium. It was there that he started to keep a journal: ‘What was most striking from his writing at this time - aged only 19 - was his complete commitment to his chosen science and his determination to return, against all odds, to Glasgow University to pursue his passion, at a time when TB was more than likely to claim the life of sufferers and when his primary interest in ‘astronautics’ was considered little more than fantastical by the mainstream. So, I’d like to share a couple of entries from this diary which I feel best illustrate this part of his life and which I have found both fascinating and humbling.’

10 August 1944
‘On Saturday, Mother, when we were walking along the Bottom Avenue, asked me whether I would not like to enter business, and certainly I feel myself that I have a business mind, although I am simultaneously so romantic in temperament. Mother’s idea was that, as the possessor of a shop or two, I would be my own employer and, if I felt at any time, not entirely fit, I could take a rest from work. It appears to me that there are several flaws in Mother’s argument but at the same time, the prospect of building up a successful business has its appeal.

My mother, of course, has no idea as yet, of my own plans and it with these ambitions before me that I have been debating the usefulness of taking her advice. I have come to the conclusion after some thought, that the course of returning to the university, and studying maths, physics, chemistry and astronomy, is the more certain way of furthering my astronautical career. If I entered business, I might in that way, run the lower risk of breaking down in health again, but I cannot see how it helps my plans. I might find spare time enough to make astronautics my hobby, but the idea has no appeal. Astronautics is my life, and returning to my studies being the best way of serving that science, I shall go back to the University.’

16 January 1945
‘I am home. I arrived here yesterday at five, and even now, on Tuesday evening, I find it hard to believe that I am awake. Bridge of Weir seems to be a dream, though I shall never forget it or the people I met there.

Before I left, I had a long talk with the Chief. He was very kind, wanting to know my plans for the future. I told him I wanted to go back to study Maths, Science and kindred subjects. I did not tell him I meant to devote my life to astronautics. I wanted him to let me home, not send for a mental specialist.’

2 September 1945
‘Father paid the bills but only after the telephone was cut off. He was asking me about my fees for the Varsity. He didn’t seem too happy about them.

I had a letter from the Registrar saying that a place has been kept for me so if all goes well, I start in October. Strewth! How unsettled I feel at times. At others I think of the goal I have set myself and decide that nothing will stop me.’