Dodgson in wonderland

‘Went to Macmillan’s and wrote in 20 or more copies of Alice to go as presents to various friends.’ This is Charles Dodgson, otherwise known as Lewis Carroll, writing in his diary exactly one hundred and fifty years ago today. Although there are widespread celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the first edition due for publishing in July 1865, was actually pulped - at least all but about 23 copies were. The reprinted work was not available for sale until several months later, with a formal publishing date of 1866.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born into a large family in 1832 in Daresbury, Cheshire. When he was 11, the family moved to Yorkshire, where his father, a clergyman, had been given the living at Croft-on-Tees. Charles was schooled at Richmond Grammar, and Rugby, before entering Christ Church, Oxford, where he excelled in maths and classics, gaining a degree in the former (in 1854). Thereafter, he stayed at the college, as a librarian and holding a lectureship. From early in life, Dodgson suffered from various ailments: he was deaf in one ear, he had a weak chest, and he had a significant stammer.

Settled in Oxford, Dodgson’s social, artistic and intellectual life began to flourish. He was charming and ambitious, it is said, and began to move in pre-Raphaelite circles, with the likes of John Ruskin and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He took up photography in a serious way, often taking portraits of young girls. Having written poems and short stories since his boyhood days, he now began to publish them - mostly humorous or satirical works - to some acclaim. In 1856, a poem called Solitude appeared in The Train under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll - the first time he used the name. As a condition of residency at Christ Church, he was expected to become ordained as a deacon and then a priest. He delayed becoming a deacon, and, almost uniquely, managed to flout college rules and not take the final step to priesthood.

In the latter half of the 1850s, Dodgson became close friends with Henry Liddell, dean of the college, and his family, including a son and three daughters, one of them named Alice. In July 1862, while out boating with Alice and others, he made up the outline of a story that Alice then begged him to write down. More than two years later, he gave her a hand-written manuscript, with his own illustrations, called Alice's Adventures Under Ground. This is now held by the British Library, and can be viewed online. Other children also loved the story, and so, with support from the publisher Macmillan, Dodgson developed the manuscript into a book for publication. He commissioned John Tenniel for the illustrations, and it was published under Dodgson’s pseudonym. It enjoyed huge commercial success and made Lewis Carroll famous.

Dodgson published a sequel to Wonderland in 1871, Alice Through the Looking Glass, and, five years later, his other famous work, The Hunting of the Snark, a fantastical nonsense poem. He also continued to publish books on mathematical subjects; and he was keen on inventing gadgets and games and tricks. Dodgson never married, but he is known to have had several relationships, some thought to be scandalous, with adult women. He retired from his Christ Church lectureship in 1881, but was appointed Curator of Common Room. He died in Guildford in 1898. Further information is readily available online, at Wikipedia, The Lewis Carroll Society, The Victorian Web, an online exhibition at the Harry Ransom Center, an article in The Smithsonian, St Andrew’s University MacTutor archive, CliffsNotes etc.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - currently the focus of many 150th anniversary events - is also readily available online in different formats, at Internet Archive, for example, or as an ebook from the University of Adelaide website. And the internet is awash with information about, and articles on, the book, at Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Independent, The Guardian, for example, or Lenny’s Alice in Wonderland website.

However, it is worth noting that most copies of the book’s first print run, in July 1865, were withdrawn by Carroll because Tenniel thought his illustrations had been reproduced poorly. A new printer was commissioned and the first books available for the public appeared in late 1865 (though dated 1866). Only 23 copies of the original print run are known to exist (called ‘the 1865 Alice’) and remain among the rarest and most sought after books in publishing history. In mid-1866, Carroll sold some of the unbound first print run to Appleton’s in New York which replaced the title page before selling them (these are called ‘the Appleton Alice’).

Dodgson kept a fairly detailed diary throughout his adult life. Nine volumes are extant (with a few missing pages), the first is numbered 2, and the last 13 (covering the years 1855 to 1897), but four are considered missing (i.e. nos. 1, 3, 6 and 7). Following his death, the manuscript diaries were kept by members of the Dodgson family, and then by his estate until purchased by the British Library in 1969.

In 1953, Dodgson’s trustees commissioned Roger Lancelyn Green to edit sections of the journals. About two-thirds of the entire journal was included in this edition - The Diaries of Lewis Carroll (two volumes, Cassell, 1953) - with selections designed to emphasise Dodgson’s literary exploits. Much more recently, between 1993 and 2007, the full text of all nine surviving volumes has been edited by Edward Wakeling and published by The Lewis Carroll Society in 10 volumes (with many annotations and index). A full description and breakdown of these volumes’ contents can be found on the Lewis Carroll Society website.

The fifth volume of this modern edition consists of Dodgson’s ninth journal, from September 1864 to January 1868 (and includes the so-called Russian Journal - which had, in fact been published as early as 1935, by Dutton, New York). The Society provides this description of its contents: ‘The period covered by this ninth volume of Dodgson’s private journal covers the publication of the book which made him internationally famous. The journal begins with an entry for 13 September 1864 in which Dodgson records the completion of the illustrations drawn into his manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, prepared as a gift for Alice Liddell. Already, Dodgson’s decision to publish the book had been taken. He anticipated that its publication would be a significant event in his life, and he left space in his journal to record the chronological development of the book, adding subsequent entries to show the progress from manuscript to the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865.’

The Society’s description continues: ‘Dodgson, now in his early thirties, is revealed in his journal as a confident member of society, at ease in travelling around the country, enjoying the opportunities that life has for a young adult making his way in the world. He is now established as a senior member of Christ Church in the important position of mathematical lecturer with a string of mathematical publications to his name. He makes regular visits to London taking advantage of the art galleries and theatrical productions in which he is greatly interested. His photography, of which he has become very proficient, opens doors to the famous celebrities of his day. Yet there is a thread which runs through his journals which shows a man who is not entirely at ease with himself. The prayers grow in intensity. Self-doubts and his lack of ability to maintain the very high standards he has set for himself return to trouble him.’

Here are several entries from Dodgson’s diary number nine (to be found in the modern edition’s fifth volume) which refer specifically to the story/book that would bring him such fame.

13 September 1864
‘At Croft. Finished drawing the pictures in the MS copy of “Alice’s Adventures.” It was first told July 4, 1862. Headings written out (on my way to London) July 5, 1862. MS copy begun Nov 13, 1862. Text finished before Feb 10, 1864 [. . .]’

12 October 1864
‘Help me, oh God, to serve Thee better. For Jesus Christ’s sake.

Called on Macmillan, and had some talk about the book, but settled little. Then to Terry’s, to say that I have given up photographing in town this time. I found Mr. Terry (whom I had not seen before), Charlie and Tom. Florence is pretty, but not so fascinating as Polly: both will probably grow up beautiful. Thence I went to Tenniel’s who showed me one drawing on wood, the only thing he had, of Alice sitting by the pool of tears, and the rabbit hurrying away. We discussed the book, and agreed on about 34 pictures.’

8 April 1865
‘University Boat Race (it always is on the day before Palm Sunday, according to the Evening Herald), which Oxford won by 10 lengths. I did not go to it, but gave the day to Macmillan, Tenniel (who is doing the 30th picture), Holman Hunt, whom I found working at a very large picture (life size or nearly so) of Mrs. Fairbairn and children. Thence I went to the MacDonalds, and had a game of croquet with them.’

26 May 1865
‘Received from Macmillan a copy (blank all but the first sheet) of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, bound in red cloth as specimen.’

15 July 1865
‘Went to Macmillan’s and wrote in 20 or more copies of Alice to go as presents to various friends. This took so long that I did not get to Terry’s till 12½, where I photographed till about 4½, and took a large one of Miss Terry in fancy costume, Tom, a Miss Martin, a friend of theirs, and finally a family group of all but the baby.

Then I had a game of “Castle Croquet’ with Miss Terry, Mrs. Watts, and Polly. I made a sort of dinner at their tea, and ended by escorting Polly to the Olympic to see The Serf. We had Miss Terry’s season-ticket, and got good places in the dress-circle. After The Serf I took Polly round to the stage-door to join her sister and went back to see Glaucus, a very pretty burlesque. I mark these last three days with a white stone.’ [See Contrariwise for a detailed discussion of Dodgson’s ‘white stone’ references.]

20 July 1865
‘Called on Macmillan, and showed him Tenniel’s letter about the fairy-tale, he is entirely dissatisfied with the printing of the pictures, and I suppose we shall have to do it all again. (Millais recommends keeping back the 2000 printed at Oxford for future edition). Thence to Thomas’, the man there thinks the lamp is the cause, as I found when I tried yellow calico round it and got some first-rate negatives of Mrs. Millais, Effie, and Mary. Spent the evening again at Putney.’

2 August 1865
‘Finally decided on the re-print of Alice, and that the first 2000 shall be sold as waste paper. Wrote about it to Macmillan, Combe and Tenniel. The total cost will be: drawing pictures 138; cutting pictures 142; printing (by Clay) 240; binding & advertising (say) 89 = 600, i.e. 6/- a copy on the 2000. If I make £500 by sale, this will be a loss of £100, and the loss on the first 2000 will probably be £100 leaving me £200 out of pocket.

But if a second 2000 could be sold it would cost £300, and bring in £500, thus squaring accounts: and any further sale would be a gain: but that I can hardly hope for.’

9 November 1865
‘Received from Macmillan a copy of the impression of Alice, very far superior to the old, and in fact a perfect piece of artistic printing.’

An intriguing diary-related snippet about Dodgson is that he kept a short diary for and about Isa Bowman, 14 years old at the time. They had met when she was performing in a stage version of Alice in 1886, and then reprised the role in 1888 (when the diary was written). For a few years, she continued to visit and stay with him. His last novel - Sylvie and Bruno - was dedicated to her in 1889. A year or so after his death, Bowman published The Story of Lewis Carroll told for young people by The Real Alice in Wonderland (J. M. Dent, London, 1899). And in this book, Bowman includes a facsimile of the diary Carroll wrote for her. It is freely available to read online at Internet Archive.

Better than Proust’s madeleine

Happy birthday Timothy Garton Ash, historian and journalist. I sometimes read your articles in The Guardian, but, on seeing that your 60th birthday was upcoming, I raced to the library, yesterday in fact, to borrow The File: A Personal History. This is a book you wrote in the 1990s partly based on a Stasi report of your earlier life in Berlin (which you describe as ‘better than Proust’s madeleine’) and your own diaries - hence this article. Unfortunately, I can only find one mention of you in my own diaries - concerning something you wrote in 2005 about decivilisation, which chimed so well with a novel I’d just written that I couldn’t resist making a note of it.

Garton Ash was born on 12 July 1955. His father, John, had been a Royal Artillery officer, one of the first to land in Normandy on D-Day, and later a finance expert advising schools in the independent sector. Timothy himself was schooled at Sherborne, and then studied modern history at Oxford University. He moved to Berlin, in the early 1980s, to further his postgraduate research, and then travelled widely through Eastern Europe reporting on the emancipation of Central Europe from communism. He was appointed foreign editor of the Spectator, but also wrote for The Times and The Independent.

Since 1990, Garton Ash has been a Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford, and, since 2000, Professor of European Studies. He is also the Isaiah Berlin Professorial Fellow. In the US, he maintains a part-time residence at the Hoover Institution (Stanford University). There is very little personal information about Garton Ash readily available on the internet, other than that he is married to Danuta, has two children, and is based in Oxford. More readily available is information on his fellowships (Royal Society of Literature, Royal Historical Society, and Royal Society of Arts) and awards (the Somerset Maugham Award, for example, the George Orwell Prize, and Orders of Merit from Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic).

Garton Ash’s most recent books are Facts Are Subversive: Political Writing from a Decade Without a Name and Free World: America, Europe, and the Surprising Future of the West. He writes a weekly column for The Guardian and is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. His current research is listed as being on global free speech in the age of the internet and mass migration.

After authoring, in the 1980s and early 1990s, several books on the recent history of central Europe, Garton Ash turned his attention to a more personal story. He discovered that the Stasi had kept a detailed file on his activities and movements while living in Berlin, and he returned to the city to look into the file, and, ultimately to write and publish a book on his findings - The File: A Personal History (HarperCollins 1997, republished by Atlantic Books in 2009, with a new afterword).

‘In this memoir,’ the publisher says, ‘Garton Ash describes what it was like to rediscover his younger self through the eyes of the Stasi, and then to go on to confront those who actually informed against him to the secret police. Moving from document to remembrance, from the offices of British intelligence to the living rooms of retired Stasi officers, The File is a personal narrative as gripping, as disquieting, and as morally provocative as any fiction by George Orwell or Graham Greene. And it is all true.’

Of interest to me, to this web site, is that Garton Ash kept a diary during his Berlin years, (I’ve no idea whether he has continued to keep one in the 30 odd years since - I hope so), and used that diary to inform and colour his literary and moral adventures in Stasi-land. Unfortunately, however, he rarely quotes from his diary at any length, preferring to cite it as the source of some piece of information about his whereabouts or feelings or thoughts. However, here are a few short extracts, as quoted in The File directly from his diary.

In the first pages of the book, Garton Ash reproduces a Stasi observation report on him for 6 October 1979 when he made a trip to East Berlin. He follows this by describing the contents of his own diary for that day, which has Claudia ‘cheeky in red beret and blue uniform coat’. ‘Over Friedrichstrasse,’ his diary continues, ‘searched down to the soles of my shoes (Duckers. Officer very impressed.)’ He then continues with memories of the day before quoting this, also from his diary of that day: ‘Becoming yet more intimate . . . The torchlit procession. The cold, cold east wind. Our warmth. The maze - encircled. Slipping through the columns, evading the policemen. Finally to ‘Ganymed’. Tolerable dinner. C. re. her ‘Jobben’. Her political activity. We cross back via Friedrichstr. To Diener’s . . . c.0300 at Uhlandstr. Daniel, desperate and pale-faced before the flat door - locked out!’

At the end of this introductory chapter Garton Ash writes: ‘The Stasi’s observation report, my own diary entry: two versions of one day in a life. The ‘object’ described with the cold outward eye of the secret policeman and my own subjective, allusive, emotional self-description. But what a gift to memory is a Stasi file. Far better than Proust’s madeleine.’

Garton Ash’s diary continues to inform and enrich his story in the book, part memoir, part analysis, part drama (in the sense that he confronts several of the people who had informed on him years earlier, and considers at length whether to mention their real names or not). But, as I’ve said, he rarely quotes more than a few words. Here’s some further, very brief, extracts from later in the book when he’s heading for Poland to cover the rise of Solidarity.

- ‘Poland,’ he writes in The File, ‘was what journalists call a ‘breaking story’. To follow such a story is like being lashed to the saddlestraps of a racehorse at full gallop: very exciting, but you don’t get the best view of the race. Yet I tried to achieve a view from the Grandstand, even an aerial view, and to understand the story as part of history. The history of the present. For me, Poland was also a cause. ‘Poland is my Spain,’ I wrote in my diary on Christmas Eve 1980.’

- ‘On the day I left East Berlin, my diary records: ‘It seems to me now odds-on that the Russians will march into Poland. (And the Germans? Dr D. today says Ja.)’ ’

- ‘I am startled to find that on the last page of my diary for 1980 I myself wrote: ‘There will be a nuclear war in the next decade.’ And then in capital letters, as if the lower case formulation was still inadequate: ‘WE WILL SEE A NUCLEAR WAR IN THIS DECADE.’ ’

As mentioned above, Garton Ash appears once only in my own diaries. This was in September 2005, and I was much taken up with my failure to get any attention for a novel I’d published, Kip Fenn - Reflections (more recently re-self-published in three volumes under the title Not a Brave New World - a trilogy in three wives). I had been very excited about this novel - the fictional memoir of an international diplomat, but one set in the future, spanning the whole of the 21st century, and very much focused on political and social issues, particularly the rich-poor divide. Despite its original format and story-line, I’d been unable to get anyone in the publishing industry to even glance at it, let alone take it seriously. That particular day, I noted in my diary several stories in The Guardian, all of which related directly to themes in my novel, in particular Garton Ash’s: Decivilisation is not as far away as we like to think.

Garton Ash concluded that article as follows: ‘In political preaching mode, we may take [hurricane] Katrina as an appeal to get serious about addressing these challenges, which means the great blocs and the great powers of the world [. . .] reaching for a new level of international cooperation.’ This is precisely, but precisely, the main and urgent theme of my novel.

I also note in my diary that day how the media was giving a lot of attention to the UN’s 60th birthday, and calling for an increase in the amount of aid to the developed world - again this is a major theme in my novel, one that dovetails with the need for a new level of international cooperation. Indeed, the career of the narrator, Kip Fenn, in my novel leads him to become head of a major new UN agency designed to fund sustainable development in developing countries to counteract the worst effects of climate change.

What I could not understand then, I still cannot understand today, is why the publishing world - by which I mean publishers, agents, reviewers etc. which effectively guard the gateway to both supply and demand - showed absolutely no interest in considering a serious novel, about our political and social future. As far as I can tell, nothing like it had been published before, or has been since - and yet I personally yearn for such novels, ones that have something to say beyond the emotional landscape of individuals or nirvanas of descriptive paradise.

So, once again Timothy Garton Ash, happy birthday, and if your interest is at all peaked by the idea of my novel, I’d be more than happy to send it to you - I’ve plenty lying around the house.

The rock and roll life

‘Today is my birthday and it’s the first one I ever spent on a train. Arrived Chicago at 1pm. Had a three-hour layover then caught the 4pm train for home. Should be there at 6.35 tomorrow morning. Happy birthday Bill. What a life.’ This is Bill Haley, the great - and some say forgotten - rock and roll star of the 1950s writing in a diary he kept for a few months at the height of his fame. Today also would have been his birthday - his 90th!

Bill Haley was born on 6 July 1925, into a musical family - his father played the banjo, and his mother keyboards. They moved from Highland Park, Michigan, to near Chester, Pennsylvania, during the Great Depression, but, by the age of 15, Bill had left home and was making money where he could by playing guitar. At some point during the 1940s, he was considered one of the top cowboy yodelers, known as Silver Yodeling Bill Haley.

For six years, Haley was a DJ and then musical director of Radio Station WPWA in Chester, Pennsylvania. He married his first wife, Dorothy Crowe, in 1946, and had two children with her. He led his own band - Bill Haley’s Saddlemen - which played at clubs around Philadelphia as well as on the radio. In 1951, the group made its first recordings on Ed Wilson’s Keystone Records. These included a cover of Rocket 88, a rhythm and blues song first recorded by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats earlier the same year in Memphis, Tennessee (considered by some to be the first ever rock and roll record). The following year, the Saddlemen changed its name to Bill Haley and the Comets. Success soon followed, with many top 20 hits over the next few years. Already divorced, Haley married his second wife, Barbara Joan Cupchack, with whom he had two children, though only one survived through infancy.

Crazy Man, Crazy and a cover version of Big Joe Turner’s Shake, Rattle and Roll were the group’s first big hits; and the latter was the first rock and roll song to enter the British singles charts (December 1954). Rock Around the Clock, said to have been written for Haley, released in 1954, did not become a number one single, on both sides of the Atlantic, until a year later, after it appeared as the theme song for Blackboard Jungle starring Glenn Ford. History has settled on Rock Around the Clock, and specifically Haley’s recording of it, as the key record that brought rock and roll into mainstream culture around the world, thus in time displacing the jazz and pop standards performed by singers such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Bing Crosby.

Bill Haley and the Comets continued to record hits through the later 1950s, and Haley starred in the first rock and roll musical films Rock Around the Clock and Don’t Knock the Rock, both in 1956. It wasn’t long, though, before Elvis Presley arrived on the scene, eclipsing Haley, whose life, by the early 1960s, was falling apart: the Comets were in trouble, as was his marriage, and he had problem with tax debts. He fled to Mexico where he married his third wife, Martha Velasco, a dancer. They had one child together. There, he also signed up with a domestic record label, Orfeon, and his group released many songs recorded in Spanish.

As the 1960s progressed, Haley toured in Europe with fans keen to discover rock music’s roots, and the Sonet label giving him a lucrative deal. In the US, so-called revival concerts, first staged by promoter Richard Nader in 1969, brought Haley back into the limelight. By the early 70s, Rock Around the Clock was again a hit: re-recorded by Haley for a popular TV show, while the original recording appeared on the soundtrack of American Graffiti. Having been dogged by alcohol problems, Haley’s health deteriorated quickly. After performing in front of Queen Elizabeth II in late 1979 at a Royal Variety Performance, he went on tour to South Africa where he gave his very last performances - a tour to Germany was cancelled. He may, or may not, have had a brain tumour, but his mental and physical health collapsed in the months following, and he died in early 1981. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, in a Guardian re-assessment of Haley as a forgotten pioneer of rock and roll, Rik Hull’s fan site, the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, or the Pennsylvania Center for the Book.

At the height of his early fame, Bill Haley decided to keep a daily diary. Edited extracts were first published (as far as I know) in three editions of the Now Dig This magazine (Nos. 154 and 155 in 1996, covering Haley’s 1956 diary, and No. 166 in 1997, covering Haley’s 1957 diary). Although these diary entries are not available anywhere online, they are quoted extensively in Otto Fuchs’s biography - Bill Haley - The Father of Rock and Roll. This was first published in German, and then in an English language version (900 pages) by Wagner Verlag in 2011. Here are some extracts from Haley’s diary as quoted by Fuchs from Now Dig This.

7 January 1956
‘Started second day on picture at 9.30 am. Everything going well. Saw some re-runs on first scenes. I look terrible I think, but everyone is giving me compliments. Hope we get through this. Quite an experience. Glad to have Cuppy with me.’ [Bill Haley and His Comets were with a large entourage in Hollywood to star in a film named after their greatest hit - Rock Around The Clock.]

9 January 1956
‘Reported at 9.30 am for third day at Colombia lot. Shot more scenes on the picture. Today did ‘Rock Around The Clock’ and ‘Rudy’s Rock’. That makes 5 songs so far we’ve done in the picture. So far the picture is going great. This is a big break for us. Keeping my fingers crossed. To bed early and up at them tomorrow at 7.30 am.’

13 January 1956
‘Finished picture. $20,000 for picture. Started 7.30 am on sixth day of picture. Had my big talking scenes today. Finished work on picture at 3 pm. Now it’s up to the public whether we’re movie stars or not. Worked in El Monte, California tonight - $1,500. Poor crowd. Promoter says disc jockeys are mad at me because I haven’t been able to see them. You can’t win. Hope I can straighten things out. Met Harry Tobias today. He gave me some songs for our firm.’

21 January 1956
‘Salt Lake City, Utah. Rainbow Rondeau - $1,900. Spent day doing D.J. promotion. Treated us like royalty here. Very nice hotel. Worked two shows tonight. Drew over 2,500 people. Very good crowd, Record of ‘Later Alligator’ already in Top 10 here. Looks like we have a big hit. This has been a good day.’

26 January 1956
‘Got my new 1956 Fleetwood Cadillac today. It’s pink and the most gorgeous car I’ve ever seen. Everyone loves the car. The sad part is I leave tomorrow morning for a 10-day tour of one-nighters. I hate to leave home again. But maybe soon we can slack off work.’

22 April 1956
‘3rd day [of 45 day tour]. Weather good so far. All the acts are behaving. Mosque Theatre, Richmond, Virginia. $1,430. Both shows sold out and turned thousands away. 9,600 people for two shows. This tour is like sitting on a keg of dynamite. The show is all coloured but our act. With the racial situation in the south broiling plus the newspapers and magazines like ‘Variety’ stirring up everyone about rock and roll, anything can happen. I hope my nerves hold up.’

28 May 1956
‘Left Miami at 9.30am on Eastern Railroad for Savannahm Georgia where we are tonight. Arrived Savannah at 7.25pm Sports Arena, Savannah, Georgia $1,420. 2,500 people here. Segregation problem is strong here as we expected. This time the negroes refused to come to the second show. Results: 2,500 people first show, second show cancelled. This race problem is not mine. I’ll be glad to finish this tour and let the south alone for now.’

6 July 1956
‘Today is my birthday and it’s the first one I ever spent on a train. Arrived Chicago at 1pm. Had a three-hour layover then caught the 4pm train for home. Should be there at 6.35 tomorrow morning. Happy birthday Bill. What a life.’

The diary entries for 1957 cover tours to Australia and Europe (inc. England), but Haley’s commitment to the diary is waning by then, and his entries get briefer and briefer.

Her genius triumphed

‘She looked ill, and I thought her articulation indistinct, and her voice drawling and funereal during the first act; but as she advanced in the play, her genius triumphed over natural impediments. She was all that could be wished.’ This is Henry Crabb Robinson writing about Sarah Siddons, the most famous tragic actress of her time, who was born 260 years ago today. Although Siddons was already in decline - a year or so later she would give her final, and very memorable, performance as Lady Macbeth - the much younger Robinson is clearly in thrall to the actress, as were many people of the age.

Sarae Kemble was born on 5 July 1755 in Brecon, Wales, the eldest child of Roger Kemble - manager of a touring theatre - and actress Sally Ward. As her family were always travelling, she went to a succession of schools, but aged 12 was offered a free place at Mrs Harris’s School for Young Ladies in Worcester. Later, in 1773, after two years in service, she married her childhood sweetheart ,William Siddons, who had been an actor in her father’s company. They would have seven children, although Sarah outlived all but two.

Sarah Siddons came early to the attention of David Garrick, the great 18th century theatre impresario, and was given a chance at his Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, but her first appearances - soon after the birth of her second child - were not well received, and she lasted but a few months. For the next few years, she worked with touring shows, often in Bath and York. Then, in 1782, at the invitation of Richard Brinsley Sheridan who had taken over from Garrick, she reappeared at Drury Lane - to great success - playing the title role in Garrick’s adaptation of a play by Thomas Southerne, Isabelle. Immediately, she became a public favourite, a cult figure, with audiences said to have fallen into hysterics at her performances. She was much in demand by fashionable society: Joshua Reynolds painted her portrait - The Tragic Muse; and, she was employed to teach elocution to the royal children.

By the mid-1780s, Siddons had settled into London society, mixing with the nobility, writers, and politicians; and for the next fifteen years she maintained a routine of performing in Drury Lane during the winter months and touring in the summer. Her brother, John Philip Kemble, also became a famous Drury Lane actor. In 1803, he bought a share of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, and became its manager. Siddons, having left Drury Lane in 1802 for a period in Ireland, returned to London and performed there too.

Sarah Siddons’ later family life was far from happy, with money problems, conflict with her daughters over their relationship with a painter, Thomas Lawrence, and rumours of her husband having affairs. By the early years of the 19th century, her health was not at its best, with physical ailments and depression affecting her performances - though she continued to command crowds, especially outside London. Her husband William died in 1808, although they were separated by this time.

Siddons played her final season at Covent Garden in 1811–12, ending with a highly emotional farewell benefit on 29 June 1812, when she played Lady Macbeth - her most famous role. After the sleep-walking scene the applause continued for so long that Kemble, her brother, decided to drop the curtain. When it was drawn up again, Siddons was in her own character sitting at a table dressed in white satin with a veil. She rose wishing to speak, but the applause continued so loud that she could not be heard. She curtsied and bowed - all these details come from Joseph Farington, the painter who left behind extensive diaries providing a vivid picture of London in the late Georgian period - until there was silence. She then spoke for eight minutes. Although she, herself, did not cry, it is recorded that her brother did, and when he asked the audience if the play should continue, they did not allow it.

In fact, Siddons continued to perform for several more years, giving her very final stage appearance in 1819. The last years of her life were lived in deep melancholy, according to her niece, Fanny Kemble, also a famous actress and an occasional diarist - see Remembering Fanny Kemble. Siddons died in 1831. Eleven coaches of mourners attended her funeral, which drew crowds of more than 5,000. Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required), or in A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800 (vol. 14) (which at the time of writing is free to view at Googlebooks).

Sarah Siddons was no diarist, but she was such a celebrity in her day that she is often mentioned in other people’s diaries, Farington, for example, and Fanny Burney. Here, though, are several extracts about her from Henry Crabb Robinson’s diaries (see Weeds don’t spoil published earlier this by The Diary Review). They are taken from the first volume of Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb (Macmillan, 1869). Robinson was still a young man about town, and his diary entries about Siddons - then an ageing actress - seem to almost document her decline. But in the early part of his book in which he reminisces on his past, Robinson is describing his life in 1797, and says: ‘One of my principal amusements was the theatre. I had great pleasure in the acting of Mrs. Jordan and others, but my admiration for Mrs. Siddons was boundless.’

4 April 1811
‘At Pope’s benefit, at the Opera House. “The Earl of Warwick.” Mrs. Siddons most nobly played her part as Margaret of Anjou. The character is one to which she can still render justice. She looked ill, and I thought her articulation indistinct, and her voice drawling and funereal during the first act; but as she advanced in the play, her genius triumphed over natural impediments. She was all that could be wished. The scene in which she wrought upon the mind of Warwick was perfect. And in the last act, her triumphant joy at the entrance of Warwick, whom she had stabbed, was incomparable. She laughed convulsively, and staggered off the stage as if drunk with delight; and in every limb showed the tumult of passion with an accuracy and a force equally impressive to the critic and the man of feeling.

Her advancing age is a real pain to me. As an actor, she has left with me the conviction that there never was, and never will be, her equal.’

15 October 1811
‘Journey to London. Incledon the singer was in the coach, and I found him just the man I should have expected. Seven rings on his fingers, five seals on his watch-ribbon, and a gold snuff-box, at once betrayed the old beau. I spoke in terms of rapture of Mrs. Siddons. He replied, “Ah! Sally’s a fine creature. She has a charming place on the Edgeware Road. I dined with her last year, and she paid me one of the finest compliments I ever received. I sang “The Storm” after dinner. She cried and sobbed like a child. Taking both of my hands, she said, ‘All that I and my brother ever did is nothing compared with the effect you produce!’ ’

21 April 1812
‘Accompanied Cargill to Covent Garden. Mrs. Siddons in “Mrs. Beverley”. Her voice appeared to have lost its brilliancy (like a beautiful face through a veil); in other respects, however, her acting is as good as ever. Her “Oh, that my eyes were basilisks!” was her great moment in the play. Her smile was enchantingly beautiful; and her transitions of countenance had all the ease and freedom of youth. If she persist in not playing Mrs. Beverley again, that character will, I am confident, never be played with anything like equal attractions.’

19 May 1812
‘Went to Covent Garden Theatre. Mrs. Siddons played Queen Catherine to perfection, and Kemble as Wolsey, in the scene of his disgrace, was greatly applauded. I think I never saw Mrs. Siddons’s  pantomime in higher excellence. The dying scene was represented with such truthfulness, as almost to go beyond the bounds of beautiful imitation, viz. by shifting her pillow with the restlessness of a person in pain, and the suspended breath in moving, which usually denotes suffering. It was, however, a most delightful performance.’

5 June 1812
‘At Covent Garden. For the first time in my life I saw Mrs. Siddons without any pleasure. It was in the part of the Lady in “Comus.” She was dressed most unbecomingly, and had a low gipsy hat with feathers hanging down the side. She looked old, and I had almost said ugly. Her fine features were lost in the distance. Even her declamation did not please me. She spoke in too tragic a tone for the situation and character.’

22 September 1814
‘I was in the grand gallery at the Louvre when I heard some one say, “Mrs. Siddons is below.” I instantly left the Raphaels and Titians, and went in search of her, and my Journal says: “I am almost ashamed to confess that the sight of her gave me a delight beyond almost any I have received in Paris.” I had never seen her so near. She was walking with Horace Twiss’s mother. I kept as near her as I could with decorum, and without appearing to be watching her; yet there was something about her that disturbed me. So glorious a head ought not to have been covered with a small chip hat. She knit her brows, too, on looking at the pictures, as if to assist a failing sight. But I recognized her fascinating smile with delight, though there was a line or two about her mouth which I thought coarse.’

The witty, dapper Mr. Hay

John Milton Hay, one of the US’s less well-remembered political heroes, died 110 years ago today. As Secretary of State under President McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, he engineered the Open Door Policy, which kept China open to trade with all countries on an equal basis; and he played a very significant role in preparing the diplomatic treaties which allowed for construction of the Panama Canal. Although these achievements came late in life after spending the best part of three decades away from front-line politics, he had, as a young man, been taken on as an aide by President Abraham Lincoln, and had lived in the White House. During that time he kept a diary which has proved invaluable to Lincoln’s biographers.

Hay was born in 1838 in Salem, Indiana, into an anti-slavery family. In 1849 he moved to Illinois to live with his uncle, Milton Hay - a friend of Springfield attorney Abraham Lincoln. From the age of 13, John went to live with his grandparents in Springifield, where he attended Illinois State University for a while, before moving on to study at Brown University, Rhode Island. After graduating, he went to work as a law clerk in his uncle’s firm, by then in Springfield next door to Lincoln’s firm. He was admitted to the bar early in 1861. When, a few weeks later, Lincoln took office as president in 1861, he took Hay with him to the White House, largely on the recommendation of John George Nicolay (who had served as Lincoln’s private secretary for the election campaign).

Nicolay and Hay then both acted as Lincoln’s personal assistants - Hay travelling often during the Civil War on Lincoln’s business. Biographers say that after the death of his own son in 1862, Lincoln grew very attached to Hay, and Hay, likewise, saw Lincoln as a father figure and a very great man. Following Lincoln’s re-election at the end of 1864 and shortly before his assassination, he appointed Hay and Nicolay to roles in the US delegation in Paris, which they took up in 1865. Hay’s job did not last long, but he got another, temporary, diplomatic post in Vienna, and then one in Madrid. While in Spain he wrote articles for magazine that he later published in book form - Castilian Days. Indeed, he would go on to write much in his life, including novels and poetry.

After having failed to secure a significant political posting, Hay turned to journalism, and, in 1870, he joined the staff of the New-York Tribune. In 1874, he married Clara, daughter of the multimillionaire, Amasa Stone. He and Clara eventually went to live in a newly-built mansion next door to Stone in Cleveland. Hay helped manage Stone’s investments, and even took over running his empire when a rail disaster related to his businesses led Stone to recuperate in Europe. Hay and Clara had four children.

Between 1879 and 1881, Hay served as Assistant Secretary of State. Thereafter, though, he did not return to public office till the late 1890s. Amasa Stone’s suicide in 1883, left the Hays very wealthy. They commissioned a house to be built in Washington, facing the White House; and most years they travelled in Europe for several months. Hay worked consistently (with Nicolay) on a 10-volume biography of Lincoln, published in 1890; and regularly helped campaign for the Republican party. When his friend William McKinley was elected President, Hay was named Ambassador to Great Britain. He stayed in that post two years before being appointed Secretary of State, an office he held from 1898 under Presidents McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.

Hay’s most significant political achievement, biographers say, is the so-called Open Door Policy. Having persuaded McKinley that the US should champion equal trading rights in China, Hay sent similar diplomatic notes to six interested nations setting forth this proposition, designed to counter the trend toward divisive spheres of influence in the Orient. During the Boxer Rebellion, he proposed that all nations cooperate to preserve China’s territorial and administrative integrity. By negotiating the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty (with the UK) and treaties with other countries, Hay cleared the way for the US to build the Panama Canal; subsequently, he also assisted Roosevelt in negotiating Panama’s independence.

Hay died on 1 July 1905, still in office, not long after returning from Europe where he had gone to recuperate from heart problems. Wikipedia quotes this assessment of Hay by historian Lewis Gould in his biography of McKinley: ‘One of the most entertaining and interesting letter writers who ever ran the State Department, the witty, dapper, and bearded Hay left behind an abundance of documentary evidence on his public career. His name is indelibly linked with that verity of the nation’s Asian policy, the Open Door, and he contributed much to the resolution of the longstanding problems with the British. Patient, discreet, and judicious, Hay deserves to stand in the front rank of secretaries of state.’ Further biographical information is also available at Mr Lincoln & Friends, Mr. Lincoln’s White House, and New World Enclopedia.

As a young man in Lincoln’s White House, Hay kept a diary which has proved particularly useful to historians for the information it provides on Lincoln and his administration. Extracts were first published as early as 1908 in Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary. Although this appeared in three volumes, only the first contains any diary extracts, and this can be freely read online at Internet Archive. In 1939, New York City publishers, Dodd, Mead and Company brought out Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay, as selected by Tyler Dennett. Much more recently, in 1999, Southern Illinois University Press published Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay, edited by Michael Burlingame and John R. Turner Ettlinger.

The publisher states: [This] edition of the diary is the first to publish the complete text of all of Hay’s entries from 1861 through 1864. In 1939 Tyler Dennett published Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay, which, as Civil War historian Allan Nevins observed, was “rather casually edited.” This new edition is essential in part because Dennett omitted approximately 10 percent of Hay’s 1861-64 entries. Not only did the Dennett edition omit important parts of the diaries, it also introduced some glaring errors.’ The publisher adds: ‘Justly deemed the most intimate record we will ever have of Abraham Lincoln in the White House, the Hay diary is, according to Burlingame and Ettlinger, “one of the richest deposits of high-grade ore for the smelters of Lincoln biographers and Civil War historians.” ’ See the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association for a review by Frederick J. Blue.

Here are several extracts from Hay’s diary, taken from the Burlingame and Ettlinger edition. (The 1908 edition, as well as being incomplete, suffers from a surfeit of initials followed by dashes instead of actual names, and much added-in punctuation.)

18 April 1861
‘The White House is turned into barracks. Jim Lane marshalled his Kansas warriors to-day at Willard’s and placed them at the disposal of Maj. Hunter, who turned them tonight into the East Room. It is a splendid company - worthy of such an armory. Besides the western Jayhawkers it comprises some of the best materiel of the East. Senator Pomeroy and old Anthony Bleecker stood shoulder to shoulder in the ranks. Jim Lane walked proudly up and down the ranks with a new sword that the Major had given him. The Major has made me his aid, and I labored under some uncertainty as to whether I should speak to privates or not. [. . .]

All day the notes of preparation have been heard at the public buildings and the Armories. Everybody seems to be expecting a Son or brother or “young man” in the coming regiments.

To-night Edward brought me a card from Mrs. Ann S. Stephens expressing a wish to see the President on matters concerning his personal safety. As the Ancient was in bed, I volunteered to receive the harrowing communication. Edward took me to the little room adjoining the hall and I waited. Mrs. Stephens, who is neither young nor yet fair to any miraculous extent came in leading a lady, who was a little of both whom she introduced as Mrs. Col. Lander. I was delighted at this chance interview with the Medea, the Julia the Mona Lisa of my stage-struck days. After many hesitating and bashful trials, Mrs. Lander told the impulse that brought them. Some young Virginian long-haired swaggering chivalrous of course and indiscreet friend had come into town in great anxiety for a new saddle, and meeting her had said that he and half a dozen others including a daredevil guerilla from Richmond named Ficklin would do a thing within forty-eight hours that would ring through the world. Connecting this central fact with a multiplicity of attendant details she concluded that the President was either to be assassinated or captured. She ended by renewing her protestations of earnest solicitude mingled with fears of the impropriety of the step. Lander has made her very womanly since he married her. Imagine Jean M. Davenport a blushing hesitating wife!

They went away and I went to the bedside of the Chief couché. I told him the yarn; he quietly grinned.

Going to my room, I met the Captain. He was a little boozy and very eloquent. He dilated on the troubles of the time and bewailed the existence of a garrison in the White House, “to give éclat to Jim Lane.”

Hill Lamon came in about midnight saying that Cash. Clay was drilling a splendid company at Willard’s Hall and that the town was in a general tempest of enthusiastic excitement. which not being very new, I went to sleep.’

7 November 1861
‘I talked tonight with the President about opening of the cotton trade by our sea-side excursionists. I represented the interest felt by Northern spinners who want it still blockaded. He doubted their statement that they had a large supply on hand whose price would be reduced by opening the trade and seemed to think that we equally with France and England would gain by it. He said it was an object to show the world we were fair in this matter favouring outsiders as much as ourselves. That it was by no means sure that they would bring their cotton to the port after we opened it. But it would be well to show Europe that it was secession that distressed them and not we. That the chief difficulty was in discovering how far the planters who bring us their cotton can be trusted with the money they receive for it.

I went in strong for the opening of the ports, I don’t know why, using all the arguments I could think of, and rather gained the idea that he also slanted in that direction.’

23 September 1862.
‘The President wrote the Proclamation on Sunday morning carefully. He called the Cabinet together on Monday made a little talk to them and read the momentous document. Mr. Blair and Mr. Bates made objections, otherwise the Cabinet was unanimous. The next day Mr. Blair who had promised to file his objections, sent a note stating that as his objections were only to the time of the act he would not file them, lest they should be subject to misconstruction.

I told the President of the Serenade that was coming and asked if he would make any remarks. He said, no, but he did say half a dozen words, & said them with great grace and dignity. I spoke to him about the editorials in the leading papers. He said he had studied the matter so long that he knew more about it than they did.

At Governor Chase’s there was some talking after the Serenade. Chase and Clay made speeches and the crowd was in a glorious humor. After the crowd went away, to force Mr. Bates to say something, a few old fogies staid at the Governor’s and drank wine. Chase spoke earnestly of the Proclamation. He said “this was a most wonderful history of an insanity of a class that the world had ever seen. If the Slaveholders had staid in the Union they might have kept the life in their institution for many years to come. That what no party and no public feeling in the North could ever have hoped to touch they had madly placed in the very path of destruction.” They all seemed to feel a sort of new and exhilarated life; they breathed freer; the Prest. Procn had freed them as well as the slaves. They gleefully and merrily called each other and themselves abolitionists, and seemed to enjoy the novel accusation of appropriating that horrible name.’

26 September 1862
‘Last night September 25 the President and I were riding to Soldiers Home; he said he had heard of an officer who had said they did not mean to gain any decisive victory but to keep things running on so that they the army might manage things to suit themselves. He said he should have the matter examined and if any such language had been used, his head should go off.

I talked a great deal about the McClellan conspiracy but he would make no answer to anything. He merely said that McC. was doing nothing to make himself either respected or feared.’

The Diary Junction

The earliest literary diary

It is one thousand and seventy years since the death of  Ki no Tsurayuki, a nobleman and poet renowned for his erudition and skills in Chinese and Japanese. He is acknowledged as the author of The Tosa Diary, which is considered the oldest literary diary in existence - predating English diaries by half a millennium!

Tsurayuki was a son of Ki no Mochiyuki, and grew up to become a poet of waka, short poems composed in Japanese. In 905, under the order of Emperor Daigo, he was one of four poets selected to compile an imperial anthology of waka poetry (Kokin Wakashū). His preface to the anthology is credited with being the first formal description of Japanese poetry. After holding a few offices in Kyoto, he became the provincial governor of Tosa province from 930 until 935. Later, he lived in Suo province. He died - according to Wikipedia’s entry - on 30 June 945.

Apart from his contribution to the imperial anthology, Tsurayuki is also considered a literary figure of some historical importance because of the Tosa Nikki - which, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica, is the earliest example of a literary diary. (The first English diaries date from the 16th century.) Although, apparently by a woman, and published anonymously, Tsurayuki is acknowledge as being its author. It was first translated into English by William N. Porter in 1912 and published by Henry Frowde as The Tosa Diary. Some pages of a more recent edition, published by Turtle Publishing (Boston) in 1981, is available to preview at Googlebooks.

The narrator of The Tosa Diary states at the outset: ‘It is generally a man who writes what is called a Diary, but now a woman will see what she can do.’ Porter explains in his introduction that this opening sentence means the diary is to be written in ‘the women’s language’. i.e. phonetic characters only, without the use of ideographs; and, in order to be consistent, the author writes as if he was a woman, and mentions himself only in the third person, using different names, such as ‘a certain personage’, ‘the seafarer’ etc. The diary tells of a journey by boat (being rowed) to the then capital Kyoto; although only 200 miles, it took 55 days. (At night, those travelling would camp on shore, and remain there if the weather for the day looked threatening.)

28 January 955 [first entry in published book]
‘One year on the twenty-first day of the twelfth month ‘a certain personage’ left home at the Hour of the Dog, which was the beginning of this modest record. He had just completed the usual period of four or five years as Governor of a Province; everything had been wound up, documents etc. had been handed over, and now he was about to go down to the place of embarkation; for he was about to travel on shipboard. All sorts of people, both friends and strangers, came to see him off, including many who had served him faithfully during the past years, and who sorrowed at the thought of losing him that day. There was endless bustle and confusion; and so with one thing and another the night drew on.’

6 February 955 New Year’s Day
‘Still they remained at the same place. The byakusan had been placed for safe-keeping during the night in the ship’s cabin; but the wind which is usual at this time of year got up and blew it all into the sea. They had nothing left to drink, no potatoes, no seaweed and no rice-cakes; the neighbourhood could supply nothing of this kind, and so their wants could not be satisfied. They could no nothing more than suck the head of a trout. What must the trout have thought of everybody sucking it in turn! That day he could think of nothing but the Capital, and talk of nothing but the straw rope stretched across the Gates of the Imperial Palace, the mullet heads and the holly.’ [These foods etc. are all to do with the then customs of New Year.]

18 February 955
‘The rain was gently falling at daybreak, but it soon stopped, and then the men and women together went down to a suitable place in the vicinity and had a hot bath. Looking out over the sea, he composed this verse:
Overhead the clouds
Look to me like rippling waves;
Were the fishers here,
Which is sea, and which is sky?
I would ask, and they’d reply
Well, as it was after the tenth day, the moon was particularly beautiful. All these days, since first he set foot aboard ship, he had never worn his handsome bright scarlet costume, because he feared to offend the God of the Sea; yet . . .’

25 February 955
‘Just as yesterday the boat could not start. All the people were sighing most dolefully, for their hearts were sad at wasting so many days. How many did they amount to already? Twenty? Thirty? It would make my fingers ache to count them. At night he could not sleep and was in a melancholy mood. The rising moon, twenty days old, came up out of the midst of the sea, for there were no mountain-tops (for it to rise from).’

28 February 955
‘The sun shone forth from the clouds, and, as there was said to be danger of pirates during the voyage, he prayed for protection to the Shinto and Buddhist gods.’

22 March 955
‘This day the carriage arrived. Owing to the dirt on board he removed from the boat to the house of a friend.’

23 March 955
‘That evening as he went up to the Capital, he saw in the shops at Yamasaki the little boxes painted with pictures and the rice-cakes twisted into the shape of conch shells, just the same as ever; and he wondered if the hearts of shopkeepers also were the same. [. . .] Planning to arrive at the Capital by night, he did not hasten. The moon had risen, and he crossed the Katsura River in bright moonlight. [. . .] He recited this also:
Once Katsura’s Stream
Seemed to me as far away
As the clouds of heaven
Now, while crossing, I perceive
It has wet my dipping sleeve.

And again he composed this:
Well I know my heart
And the River Katsura
Never were alike:
Yet in depth my heart would seem
Not unlike the flowing stream.

These too many verses are due to his excessive pleasure at reaching the Capital.’

The Diary Junction

Ran about all day

The Australian cricketer Victor Trumper, once called the best batsman in the world, died a century ago today - and he was only in his late 30s. He is particularly remembered for the astonishing feat of scoring 100 runs before lunch on the first day of a Test Match in England. While researching a biography of Trumper in the 1980s, the author Ashley Mallett found a small diary Trumper had kept during that match and others of the 1902 tour to England. While history has made much of that tour and Trumper’s role in it, the man himself - rather amusingly in retrospect - seems to have hardly noticed the excitement, and more often than not simply recorded in his diary ‘as usual ran about all day’.

Victor Thomas Trumper was born in 1877 in Sydney, and was, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, probably a great-grandson of Charles Trumper, hatter, and his wife Jane, née Samson, who were married in London in 1834 and migrated to Sydney in 1837. Victor’s father was probably a footwear manufacturer, and well off enough to keep him at Crown Street Superior Public School. On leaving school, Victor became a junior clerk in the Treasury.

However, cricket was taking up much of Trumper’s time. When still only 17, he had played at Sydney Cricket Ground, scoring well in a game against a touring English team; soon after he played for New South Wales against South Australia. In 1899, he was selected for Australia’s tour of England, where he is known to have impressed the famous W. G. Grace. And, in 1902, Trumper had a remarkable season in England scoring an average of 48.49 runs. During that tour, he also became the first player to score a century on the first morning of a Test Match. That year he was described by the cricketer’s bible Wisden as ‘the best batsman in the world’. He was also a clean living young man - a teetotaller, non-smoking, Anglican.

In 1904, Trumper married Sarah Ann Briggs, a sister-in-law of J. J. Kelly, Australia’s wicket-keeper. The same year Trumper, with Hanson Carter, opened a sports store in Sydney. As well as cricket, Trumper was involved with rugby, and this involvement increased during 1907 when meetings for players discontent with the current administration met in his store. Discussions continued and led to the formation of the New South Wales Rugby Football League, with Trumper as treasurer. He continued playing cricket through to 1914, valued as much for his ability to play on bad wickets as for his scoring ability per se, but his health failed rapidly thereafter, and he died on 28 June 1915. Further information is available at Wikipedia, the Australian Dictionary of Biography, or ESPN Cricinfo.

During that famous 1902 tour in England, Trumper kept a simple, brief diary. Here is Ashley Mallett - author of Trumper - The Illustrated Biography: The greatest batsman of cricket’s Golden Age (Macmillan 1985) - explaining how he found the diary:

‘During my research into the Trumper story, I came across a tiny Collins diary. The diary, with its gold edged pages, was Victor Trumper’s diary - the one he carried with him on the 1902 tour. As a cricket writer the Trumper diary meant as much to me as stumbling across the Lost City of Atlantis would to an archaeologist. It provides us with a fascinating link with the 1902 tour. The diary is not one in the mould of a ship captain’s log, but the sort of small notebook a young cricketer might keep to note coming events, travel arrangements, shows, test and county game dates and the like. Perhaps Trumper wanted to record events chronologically for later reference, perhaps with the idea of writing a book. Yet Trumper was very much a self-effacing man. He hated publicity for publicity’s sake and if he disliked anyone, it was the man who boasted about his achievements. The contents of this diary have not seen the public light of day for some 83 years. Perhaps it was high time we delved deeper into the mystery of Victor Trumper.’

Mallett’s chapter on the 1902 tour - called Diary of a Champion - at 50 pages is easily the longest chapter in the biography. Every day of the tour is described in great detail - in contrast to the laconic entries of Trumper’s diary! Here are several entries, as found in Mallet’s book, many of them about the days of the Test Matches (which were played over three days at the time).

26 May 1902
‘Played MCC [Marylebone Cricket Club, based at Lords]. . . ran about all day. Hard ground . . . 41 not out. MCC dinner at night.’

27 May 1902
‘Continued innings made 105. Side made 270. Poor score. They did not do so well. Very tired. Stayed in and packed up.’

28 May 1902
‘Last men ran us about. Mitchell made 44, 3 hrs and gave 4 chances. I made 86 . . . wanted double century [i.e. two centuries for match]. Left for Birmingham.’

29 May 1902
‘England won toss. As usual ran about all day . . . very tired. Wrote letters home.’

30 May 1902
‘Finished innings. Raining . . . wet wickets. A made 36 . . . batted badly. 2nd innings made 8 n.o. Total score for no wickets. Theatre flag half mast.’

31 May 1902
‘Still raining leave for ground at 1 o’clock. Started match 5.15pm simply to get the crowd in a good humour. Match a draw. Saved us from a good hiding.’

12 June 1902
‘Test match . . . raining hard . . . Mac[Laren] won toss, batted. Two for none . . . had four chances off me . . . wrote letters.’

13 June 1902
‘Rain, no play. Saw Gay Lord Queux [Gay Lord Quex - a play by Arthur Wing Pinero] . . . passable.’

14 June 1902
‘No play. Rain. Saw Opera, Covent Garden. L’elisir d’amor, The Elixir of Love . . . good. HC with me.’

3 July 1902
‘Match started. Made 1. Our chaps made 190 odd. Abel and Archie batted well.’

4 July 1902
‘England 49 behind. Wickets rolled on the quiet. Made 62 in 47 minutes. Clem [Hill] 100. England, Jessop 50 not out, bowled fast.’

5 July 1902
‘Hurras. Won match. Glorious. All drunk . . . Left for Birmingham. Arrived 12pm.’

24 July 1902
‘Wet wicket. Fourth Test. Won toss, made 299. Self 104, RAD 50. 1st W 135. England 5 for 70. Tate 1st test. Fire G Peak and Coy.’ [This was the day Trumper made his record-breaking 100 before lunch!]

25 July 1902
‘England 262. Jackson 122. Bowlers done badly. Australia 8 for 85. Things gloomy. Darling 37. Refused admission theatre.’

26 July 1902
‘Won by three runs. Australia 86, England 120. MacL 35, Theatre Knowles . . . glorious time.’

27 July 1902
‘Left for London. Done out of compartment by women. All have sore heads.’

11 August 1902
‘Test match. Good crowd. Made 42, batted fairly well. Side shaped well.’

12 August 1902
‘Wicket worse. Lead of over 100 for 2nd inngs. Run out 2 . . . easy run. Clem 30. WA not out. HT and JK to go in.’

13 August 1902
‘Test over. England a glorious game. Deserved to win. Wicket bad. Catches missed. Great excitement. Glad Tests all over . . .’

Make the draperies move

‘Work quickly. Don’t stop for anything but the essential. [. . .] Make the draperies move, don’t let them stop. Keep the flow going.’ This is Robert Earl Henri - born 150 years ago today - writing in his diary near the end of his life. Although a first rate artist, and the leader of the Ashcan School of realist painting in the US, his chief claim to fame is as one of the most influential art teachers of the period.

Robert Henry Cozad was born on 24 June 1865 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father, a real estate developer, is credited with founding the towns of Cozaddale, Ohio, and Cozad in Nebraska, but in 1882 he killed a rancher in a land dispute. Although Cozad was cleared of wrongdoing, the family fled to Denver, where they changed their names, the father becoming known as Richard Henry Lee, and his sons posing as adopted children - Robert under the surname Henri (pronounced ‘hen rye’). The family continued to move around, but, by 1886, Henri had enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Two years later, he travelled to Europe, studying at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, and embracing Impressionism. He returned to the Pennsylvania Academy, and, in 1892, began teaching at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women.

While still in Philadelphia, Henri’s vigorous ideas - moving away from Impressionism and towards a realistic portrayal of American cities - began to attract a group of followers, including illustrators for the Philadelphia Press (known as the Philadelphia Four, including John Sloan). Having married Linda Craige, one of his students, she and Henri lived in Paris in 1898-1900, Henri exhibiting at the Salon (Woman in Manteau and La Neige). On returning to the US, Henri moved to teach at the New York School of Art, where he counted Joseph Stella, Edward Hopper and George Bellows among his students. Linda died in 1905, and Henri married Marjorie Organ, a young cartoonist for the New York Journal, three years later.

In 1906, Henri was elected to the National Academy of Design, but when painters in his circle were rejected for the 1907 exhibition, he left to organise a rebel show, entitled ‘The Eight’ (involving himself, the Philadelphia Four, and three other artists) at the Macbeth Galleries. With Sloan’s help, the exhibition went on to travel to several more cities, attracting significant attention. By this time, Henri and his followers - the loose-knit Ashcan School - were depicting urban life at its toughest and most exuberant, and offending conservative mores. In 1910, with Sloan and Walt Kuhn, Henri organised the Exhibition of Independent Artists, modelled after the Salon des Indépendants in France; and in 1913, Henri exhibited at the famous Armory Show, the US’s first large-scale introduction to European Modernism. However, already by this time, Henri had come to focus his own painting more and more on portraits (such as The Beach Hat) - as acknowledged, for example, by this article in The American Magazine of Art.

From 1915 to 1928, Henri taught at the Art Students League in New York City. During these years, he also went abroad often - to Ireland and Mexico - finding both places inspirational for his painting. Although considered an important portraitist and figure painter, he is best remembered as a progressive and influential teacher. Encyclopaedia Britannica states: ‘He affected American art more through his teaching than his painting. He was instrumental in turning the young American painters of his time away from academic eclecticism toward an acceptance of the rich, real life of the modern city as the proper subject of art.’

Henri’s ideas on art were collected by Margery Ryerson, a former pupil, and published as The Art Spirit (Lippincott, Philadelphia) in 1923 - a modern edition can be previewed at Googlebooks. In 1929, Henri was named as one of the top three living US artists by the Arts Council of New York. He died just a few months later, and was honoured with a memorial exhibition of 78 paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For more information consult Wikipedia, the National Gallery of Art, Sullivan Goss, or Traditional Fine Arts Organization. For a list of pictures available to view online see Artcyclopaedia.

Henri kept extensive diaries during long periods of his life, and these were made available to William Innes Homer (with the assistance of Violet Organ) for his 1969 book Robert Henri and his Circle (Cornell University Press). Homer enriches his text with frequent quotes from Henri’s diaries (which otherwise have not been published). Apart from keeping a diary himself, Henri figures extensively in the published diaries of John Sloan: John Sloan’s New York Scene, edited by Bruce St. John and published by Harper & Row in 1965. See Googlebooks to preview a modern edition of Sloan’s diaries. Here, though, are several extracts from Henri’s diary, as taken from Homer’s biography.

16 November 1886
‘I claim the honour of being the revolutioniser of some parts of the Academy. It was me that persuaded W[hipple] to open the Library - was one of the agitators of the sketch class - of the opening to the Antique [class] of the modeling room, and now of the getting of a cast for the modeling room.’

17 December 1886
‘My drawing of one day was as good (better than one) as many of the drawings of five days, not that it had finish - mine was rough but looked like the man.’

28 December 1886
‘I do not think time spent at a good theatre is wasted. Good actors can present to the artist’s eye scenes that in life are only once in a lifetime.’

22 March 1887
‘I don’t like perspective. I hate it. I understand it but can’t take interest. It’s like chopping wood.’

9 April 1887
‘Good theory with earnest practice is what I want.’

19 April 1887
‘All the students were called around to see my improvement and the good things I had done. Wasn’t I as happy as a clam at high tide when I opened the door and saw Hovey lecturing over my study to all the other students! . . . To me this boom was stimulating.’

15 September 1888
‘There are none or few of the works of the [old masters] that are equal to the moderns according to my way of seeing. Now all the world says there is nothing like the old masters and that none of the moderns can compete with them. What I have seen makes me think the opposite and I place the painters of today ahead of all others. I think that the old masters were very great for their time - probably many of them were very much greater for their time than any of the moderns are for theirs. In this I am going against the “good” old laid down beliefs.’

20 September 1888 [in London]
‘[. . .] gazing at these wonderful landmarks of history - at the very things themselves! [. . .] One can get himself mixed up in old rookeries, tangled and narrow, antiquity and picturesqueness at every step - forget that he is in the 19th Century - wander about the haunts of Dickens and all that great list of English men of letters, perfectly out of the world of today, lost in delightful reveries of the past.’

1 April 1891 [in Paris]
‘I think I am nearer right than ever before . . . It is a matter of color. Bouguereau is not a colorist either in combining color or reproducing it. His color is harmonious and in some cases very fine but he is never a colorist and as for reproduction of color, he never does that. It is always the same waxy, angel like color - just a little insipid - so from this I am not inclined to put the same confidence in his criticisms on color as in other branches.’

27 April 1910
‘The exhibition was a great success as far as general notice and attendance - the crush at the opening and continued full attendance to the last day. Financially nothing happened.’

25 August 1926
‘The big movement of the whole canvas should so possess one that the change from part to part, from flesh to collar to coat to shirt or trousers should be such that, however brilliant or sharp the change of color or texture might be in these, there would be no arrest in the observer’s mind. He should be conscious of these changes, conscious of beauty in them, conscious that they are right, but his sense should be of the life that flows beneath these superficial things.’

‘Work quickly. Don’t stop for anything but the essential. (A dilatory worker has too much time to see things of little importance.) Make the draperies move, don’t let them stop. Keep the flow going. Don’t have islands of “things.” The “things,” however wonderfully done, are just what bring a picture down to the commonplace. I never really had any ambition to paint “things.’ It’s the spirit of the thing that counts.’

The towne took on fire

William Whiteway died all of 380 years ago today. He played a significant role in the historic English market town of Dorchester during a period when it was undergoing remarkable civic improvement. He is particularly remembered, however, because of his diary, which records much of that development as well as giving, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), ‘a valuable impression of the mental world of a well-educated, moderately puritan, seventeenth-century provincial townsman’.

Whiteway was born in 1599, the son of a wealthy Dorchester merchant. He was educated at the Dorchester Free School, but did not go to university. He married Elinor in 1620, and although they had several children only two survived childhood. According to the ODNB (log-in required) Whiteway held most of the civic offices in Dorchester, capital burgess in 1624, governor of the Freemen’s Company, and an MP from 1626 parliament (after the death of Dorchester’s previous MP, Michael Humphreys). He was steward of the hospital in 1626, overseer of the Poor for Holy Trinity parish from 1628, and bailiff in 1629 and 1633. He died on 21 June 1635, having suffered some kind of trauma earlier in year when running up a steep hill.

Whiteway kept a meticulous diary, from 1618 until his death, in a leather-bound volume containing 121 parchment folios (with 222 pages of diary entries). Selections from this were first published by the Revd W. Miles Barnes in 1892 in Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club (available at Internet Archive). It was not until 1991, however, that a fuller text was published - William Whiteway of Dorchester: his diary 1618 to 1635 - by Dorset Records Society. The book’s introduction states: ‘His diary provides a window into the mental world of a prosperous and well educated provincial townsman. Far from being merely localist, it illustrates the interaction between the various circles of its author’s existence: circles of family and kin; of town and region; of country and kingdom; and of the wider world beyond its shores.’

According to the ODNB biography, Whiteway grew up in Dorchester during a period of remarkable civic improvement, and his diary records the various projects which transformed Dorchester into one of the most puritan towns in England. (See this Ancestry.com page for many citations from the diary detailing Members of the Dorchester Company 1624-1626.) Entries about his own life are brief, usually matter-of-fact, and otherwise buried among his reporting of the news, whether local or national. Here are several extracts, taken from the 1991 edition of the diary (which reproduces the original spelling, unlike the 1892 edition for which the spelling was modernised!).

14 June 1620
‘I William Whiteway was married to Elinor Parkins by mr John White in the Church of the holy Trinity in Dorchester, in the presence of the greatest part of the Towne.’

30 January 1623
‘This day about one a clocke in the afternoone this towne tooke on fire in the house of mr John Adin in the higher parish, burnt 27 houses in that parish thereabouts, to the value of £3500 sterling. One man was burnt in William Shepherds house, to wit Edmond Benvenue, who running home, all blacke and deformed by the fire, and being followed by some friends, they Laboured to stay him to have him drest, was met by mr Cokers man Jaspar Arnold. He thinking him to be some felon, had a pole in his hand, and beate him with it greivously, and stroke him downe. He died within two daies. The Kings Majestie granted for it a Collection over all England.’

15 November 1623
‘This day about 10 a clocke at night Squire Williams stabd the Tapster of the George to the heart and killd him. Whereupon he fled into Holland, and from thence to France, where he lived at Caen. Some 8 moneths after he returned, have a pardon for £1500.’

4 October 1624
‘This night there was an extraordinary storme of wynd and rayne, which blew downe many houses, overthrew many great trees, cast away many ships in all ports, amongst the rest 4 at Melcombe in the hole, of which one was mr Pits, one mr Royes and 2 french men. There were 11 french men drowned in the same.’

5 June 1625
‘This day at 11 a clocke at night, god took unto his mercy, my eldest daughter Mary, being fower yeares old within 6 or 7 diaes.’

26 October 1625
‘The weekely fast on Wednesdays begun on the 20th July, ended in Dorchester this day with a contribution to the releife of Excester, which was in great distress, many dying for want and many weeke 100 and 150 of the sickenes. The collection that day was £23 16s to which was added £16 4s to mak up to £40 and sent to Mr Ignatius Jordan who was left alone in Exon, of all the Magistrats, all the rest having forsaken them.’

2 February 1626
‘This day king Charles was crowned at Westminster, with great solemnity. The Queen refused to be Crowned by any Protestant Bishop, without dispensation from the Pope. There were now Created 8 Earles and 80 knights of the Bath. The solemnity of the kings riding through London in State is put of to the 1st May next coming.’

15 August 1626
‘The sickenes began to breake out in Blandford, very dangerously, and within 10 daies after at Bridport, and spread into many parishes thereabouts. At Blandford there died in all some 20 person. In Bridport 70. It was suspected also againe to be in Weymouth.’

12 March 1627
‘This day my Unkle John Pit of Bridport died, being 80 yeares old. He died of age, and of the Stone. This day my Cousin James Gould and I did ride to London, to Joine with the merchants of Exeter, in petitioning the king and the Counsell, that we might have as much french goods delivered us as we had arrested in france.’

17 August 1634
‘Two men being at bowles near to Bridport on a Sunday, one beat out his fellowes braines with a bowle.’

13 October 1634
‘This day I rode towards London with Mr Onecipherous Bond, Roger Cole, and my brother Sam Whiteway. We took in Oxford in our way, and viewed all the Colleges, as also Windsore Castle and Eaton Colledge, and from thence went to Hampton Court, where wee saw the King and Queene dine. At lambeth wee saw the rarityes of Tredescant. And in Morefields I saw a woman delivered of a child. I returned home 31 October.’

The Diary Junction

Charlie instead of Concord

‘[Suu Kyi] came back after a hot trek in the sun to some village or other smelling strongly of cheap scent. It’s usual for enthusiastic ladies to spray Ma Ma with perfume [. . .] She said you know Ma Thanegi I’ve gone up in the world, they sprayed me with Charlie instead of Concord.’ This is part of a diary kept by Ma Thanegi, the personal assistant of Aung San Suu Kyi, during the early years campaigning for democracy in Burma. Later this year Suu Kyi, with her National League for Democracy party, will contest a general election, but, unless constitutional changes are enacted, she will not be eligible for the Presidency. Once considered an international icon for freedom, human rights and democracy, her image has become somewhat tarnished in recent years, at least according to widespread media articles celebrating her 70th birthday today.

Suu Kyi was born on 19 June 1945 in Rangoon (now Yangon). Her father, Aung San, was a revolutionary, nationalist, and founder of the modern Burmese army. In 1947, he negotiated Burma’s independence from the British Empire but was assassinated soon after. Suu Kyi grew up with her mother and two brothers (though one brother died aged eight, and the other, in time, became a US citizen). She was educated at the Methodist English High School, but when her mother was appointed Burmese ambassador to India and Nepal in 1960, she continued her studies at the Convent of Jesus and Mary School and Lady Shri Ram College, both in New Delhi, graduating with a degree in politics in 1964. She went on to St Hugh’s College, Oxford, gaining a B.A. degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics in 1969.

After graduating, Suu Kyi lived in New York City, where she worked at the United Nations, primarily on budget matters. In 1972, she married Michael Aris, a Cuban-born Englishman and a scholar of Tibetan culture, then living in Bhutan. They had one son the following year, and another in 1977. The family relocated regularly, living in Bhutan, Japan and India, but settling mostly in England. Between 1985 and 1987, Suu Kyi was working toward an M. Phil degree in Burmese literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (and was elected an Honorary Fellow in 1990).

In 1988, Suu Kyi returned to Burma to see her ailing mother but soon became caught up in the country’s disaffection with its government: following the so-called 8888 Uprising in August, she emerged as a national icon and a leader for the National League for Democracy (NLD). Ma Thanegi, now a well-known writer, but then a painter collaborating with a politically-oriented painters’ organisation, soon joined Suu Kyi and worked as her personal assistant during the forthcoming campaign tours. Thousands of demonstrators were killed over the coming months, and General Saw Maung staged a coup to form a State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). Martial law followed, as did a change of name for the country - to Myanmar.

Nevertheless, the military government organised to hold free elections in 1990 - the first for 30 years. The NLD won 392 out of a total 489 seats, but the military refused to cede power, and Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest at her home in Rangoon. That year she was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and the Nobel Peace Prize followed a year later. The military junta continued to rule until 1997, and then, as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), until its dissolution in 2011. Suu Kyi has said that while under house arrest she spent her time reading philosophy, politics and biographies sent her by Aris, played the piano, and, occasionally, when allowed, saw foreign diplomats.

Although Suu Kyi could have left the country, she would not have been allowed back; and, she has made clear, she preferred to stay with her people, despite the sacrifice of not being with her family. International condemnation of the Myanmar regime and Suu Kyi’s detention have been an ongoing news story for more than two decades. Finally, in 2010 she was released from house arrest. In 2012, she was elected an MP, and entered parliament. The same year she announced her attention to run for president in the 2015 elections, but the current constitution bars her from being eligible. Further information is available from Wikipedia, and from any number of articles celebrating her 70th birthday, many of which, though, draw attention to the fact that her image and reputation internationally is less than it once was, see, for example, Channel 4 (A painful metamorphosis), Deutsche Welle (An icon with a dented image), New Delhi Television (Accelerates political battle as she turns 70), The Telegraph (Is human rights heroine tarnished by her silence on persecution?), Huffington Post (Happy Birthday, Aung San Suu Kyi?).

As far as I know, Suu Kyi has not kept, or at least published, any diary. However, her personal assistant Ma Thanegi did keep a daily diary during their tours around Burma in 1989 and 1990; and extracts from these have been published in a biography of Suu Kyi by Peter Popham, The Lady and the Peacock, (Rider, part of Random House, 2011). Here is how Popham introduces, in his ‘Afterword’, this diary material: ‘There are many things about Suu’s life that are fascinating and instructive. It is extraordinary to observe a woman emerge from the comforts and duties of a suburban life in her early forties and take on a stature and role unimaginable even a year before. [. . .] Within months of accepting the leadership of the democratic movement she was already a legend throughout her country. But it never went to her head. I obtained proof of that when an acquaintance in London, who unfortunately I cannot name, gave me the diaries kept during Suu’s campaigning trips in 1989 by Ma Thanegi, her close companion. Suu’s radiant humanity shines out of those pages, along with her good humour, her stoicism, her appreciation of modern lavatories, and her frequent explosions of temper.’

Popham goes on to say that he met Ma Thanegi three times, and that when he told her he’d been given a copy of her diaries and planned to use them in his book, ’she did not demur’. He then explains how he believes he was betrayed by Ma Thanegi during an undercover trip to Burma in 2010, and how this led to his expulsion (before being able to conclude an interview with Suu Kyi). Ma Thanegi had spent three years in prison, and when released in the mid-1990s, had shown herself to be far more of a critic of Suu Kyi than a friend. Popham suggests she had been ‘won round’ by the country’s military intelligence.

Suu Kyi herself did not cooperate with Popham in writing the biography, and it is hard, therefore, to imagine the book would have had any publishing legs, as it were, without Ma Thanegi’s diaries, since they do provide a unique and substantial primary resource. But I, personally, wonder how come they really came into Popham’s possession, and under what authority/copyright arrangement he felt able to use them - at least until she herself ‘did not demur’.

The book itself can be previewed at Googlebooks, and online reviews can be found at Burma Campaign UK, The Globe and the Mail, London Evening Standard, Journal of Democracy, and New Republic.

The idea that Ma Thanegi should keep a diary during Suu Kyi’s campaigning trips, Popham says, came from Aris as a means for him to be kept in the loop given that he would have to stay home in England with the two boys. Later on, Popham notes that Ma Thanegi ‘seems more interested in recording the practical minutiae of the trip than the political discussions along the way.’ Indeed, many of the diary extracts quoted by Popham start with a detailed description of Suu Kyi’s dress! Unfortunately, unlike more academic biographers, Popham does not give full references for the diary extracts he uses, and so the vast majority of them are undated. Here, though, are several extracts from Ma Thanegi’s diaries as quoted in Popham’s book.

‘Gandhi is Suu Kyi’s role model and hero. Everyone knew it was going to be dangerous: some of the students had the Tharana Gon sutra chanted over them to prepare themselves for sudden death, a mantra recited in Buddhist ritual over the body of the deceased. Some became monks or nuns for a few days in preparation.’
***
‘Great harassment in Bassein, [. . .] armed soldiers barred the way out of the house we were staying in, only allowing us out in twos and threes to visit friends etc.’
***
‘An Australian senator came to see Ma Ma at 8am, [General Saw Maung had] told him elections would be held soon, after discussions with parties . . . Spent the whole night at Ma Ma’s place. Ma Ma up and down stairs whole evening, signing letters, seeing to papers, books. Dr Michael phoned after Ma Ma finished writing a letter to him.’
***
‘Left Rangoon at 4.45 am, fifteen minutes late. Ma Ma a bit annoyed. She was sleepy in the early part of the morning. I held her down by the shoulders on bumpy roads: fragile and light as a papier-mâché doll. Forced to stop unplanned at Pyawbwe . . . Ma Ma VERY annoyed. Stopped for sugarcane juice at Tat-kone: delicious! Ma Ma loved it. Lunch at Ye Tar Shay. People in the villages amazed and overjoyed to see Ma Ma. Ate lunch, fried rice ordered from Chinese restaurant next door.’
***
‘Ma Ma looked so wistful when I swiped chilli suace and onions from under her very nose. Later I relented and picked out onions sans sauce for her. Chilli sauce v. unhealthy stuff in Burma.’
***
11 February 1989
‘She wore green plaid longyi, white jacket, green cardigan with matching scarf and gloves. Got up (had to) at 4.30. Left for Loilam at 5.30, after I insisted she eat soft-boiled eggs.

At her request I borrowed a tape of Fifties and Sixties songs to listen to on the way, coincidentally the same we were listening to in Rangoon. I remember her singing along loudly ‘Love you more than I can say’ as she scooted upstairs. We sang along with the tape on the way: ‘Seven lonely days.’ etc.

Ma Ma v. annoyed at easy going plans. There was supposed to be a convoy on the road ‘for our protection’ but there was no one in sight. We reached Loilam without seeing any. Ma Ma hit the roof.’
***
‘Wonderful sight at Dukgo: as we entered the town the local NLD had issued red NLD caps and we marched in singing a democratic song which was also blared out from one car. We pushed in front of the MI’s videos and still cameras. Ma Ma had been saying for days how she was on the brink of losing her voice but it came on full, clear and strong as she started to talk at the NLD office, amplified out into the road, and she sounded darn mad.

While Ma Ma was talking, people crept up to listen at the side of the road. Police and soldiers told them to get back but we told them to come up and listen. Planned for Ma Ma to walk to jail to visit prisoners but when she came out of the NLD office such a large crowd followed her that we were afraid the police - who hurried to the police station and closed the gates - would say we were invading it and shoot us down. So many kids and women in the crowd that we decided just to pass the police station and jail by.

We walked out of town, crowds following, and I was afraid we would be walking all the way home. But at last, with the last goodbye, Ma Ma got into the car.

Had engine trouble all the way: water pipe broke late afternoon. Stopped for a while at Jundasar at a rice mill. Also we had to stop near a stream just before Dai-oo. Large pack of stray dogs - one of the boys shouted at them about 2/88. SLORC’s rule banning groups of more than five gathering together . . . [. . .]

Ma Ma sat in car and asked if I didn’t feel a sense of unreality about all we are doing. I said, dealing with stupid people can get us caught up in weeks of stupidity, no wonder it makes us all feel so weird.’
***
24 March 1989
‘Left Rangoon 6 am by boat [. . .] Reached Kim Yang Gaung in evening but no one came out of their houses. The whole place deserted, people peeping from deep inside darkened huts, only a few dogs going about their business. Learned that a local man who was democratic-minded was shot dead through forehead by army sergeant or corporal one week ago.

From there a long cart ride to Let Khote Kon. Easier to have gone on by boat but one of the NLD organisers felt we should visit that place and he was right. Ma Ma made speech in compound of a dainty little old lady named Ma Yin Nu. A very big crowd. I gave Ma Yin Nu a photo of Ma Ma . . .

Equally long cart ride back to boat, though it felt longer. Soon it became very dark. We never saw such large stars. As usual I pestered Ma Ma, telling her the names of my favourites. Halfway along our cart met a bunch of armed soldiers, five or six, who rudely called out to us, asking who we were, where we were going etc. There were about six carts in our caravan, our boys were travelling behind us but immediately they brought their cart up and parked between us and the soldiers. . .

Back on the boat at 8.30 pm and found out that we couldn’t leave because it was overloaded with people - NLD people from the villages we had visited had come along for the ride. Damn. And the tide was going out. We slept on moored boat, one corner partitioned off with two mosquito nets where Ma Ma and I curled up unwashed.’
***
‘Ma Ma getting to know well the Burmese character, the bad side. Said she is fed up to the teeth with pushy egoistic stupid people. She is getting to know the true Burmese character and is getting depressed by it. I have a feeling she is too idealistic and emotionally vulnerable. Easy-going as we Burmese are, we are totally selfish, ostrich-like in dealing with unpleasantness and very short-sighted.

When she is in a pensive mood I would search her face and feel a deep sorrow that so many burdens are on this frail-looking and gentle person. I think she needs to be more cynical to deal with the Burmese and of course hard-hearted to some extent. She feels hurt when people complain about the rudeness of our boys, I tell her politeness would not penetrate the thick skulls and dim minds of these people.

She came back after a hot trek in the sun to some village or other smelling strongly of cheap scent. It’s usual for enthusiastic ladies to spray Ma Ma with perfume that they all think is great, and the perfumes are either something called Concord or Charlie. Charlie is slightly more expensive, or Tea Rose, the scent of rose, and we are beginning to recognise these three. Ma Ma is more often sprayed with Concord and we hate this spray business. These ladies are not too careful where they aim the nozzle. Sometimes it gets into her face or her mouth, she has to be careful about moving her face or it would go into her eyes. She said you know Ma Thanegi I’ve gone up in the world, they sprayed me with Charlie instead of Concord.’