Devastation in Darwin

Half a century ago today, Cyclone Tracy devastated the Australian town of Darwin, destroying 80% of houses, making 41,000 out of the 47,000 residents homeless, and killing 66 people. The Age newspaper called it a ‘disaster of the first magnitude . . . without parallel in Australia’s history.’ I was there, having arrived from Bali just a few weeks earlier after spending six months travelling across Asia. I’d got a job working in the power station, and I had a room in a house of travellers owned by Dutch Peter. It was Christmas Eve when the wind started blowing, and most people expected Tracy to veer away from land -  like a cyclone earlier in the year - but in the early hours of the morning of Christmas Day it struck with a vengeance, blowing at over 100 mph. Around 3 in the morning, after the eye had given us all a few minutes peace, Dutch Peter’s house exploded, the wooden walls and all its contents, including us, were catapulted into the night. What follows is my (rather hastily written) diary account of that night and the following few days.

24-30 December 1974
‘And suddenly it is Christmas Eve. Work [I was employed by the local power station] isn’t really work (yesterday it was quite interesting - we had to take the complete two ton end of the cylinder off - I was a little afraid the hoist wasn’t going to hold). I finish work at 12:00 and then at 2:00 there’s a nice little work social at the Rugby Union club - beer as free as the air and a constant flow of steaks. I talk to a range of people including the foreman - I am really pissed. He invites me round to lunch tomorrow - I am beginning to get blotto - the beer is running out but he keeps giving me cans - at one point he informs me about the cyclone heading straight for Darwin. I’ve no idea how I get home. Later, Gus tells me I shouted ‘the cyclone’s really coming’ and passed out, and that all attempts to wake me for dinner were in vain.

I wake early in the evening and go upstairs with a splitting headache. I sleep some more until I wake up absolutely soaking - the rain is howling in through the window and the floor is flooded. I join the others downstairs - it’s pretty bad here too. For some reason we all go to Peter’s room or the room behind it, at least it’s dry there. The wind is getting pretty heavy - Wayne is fairly drunk and jolly - doors are banging - the wind continues to get stronger. We make expeditions outside - first one, just after midnight, is to see why a car has stopped - it is virtually impossible to walk, the wind is so strong. Inside again, I go to fetch my diary and clutch onto it - things are getting a little serious - I suggest going to the hospital or somewhere safe, but there are no takers. I fetched my ‘mustn’t lose’ things such as money, passport etc and put them in a plastic bag with the diary. I sleep a while along with Pete and Go and Gus - Wayne falls asleep in the cupboard - Paul and Susie are asleep in the other dry room. When the eye comes, sometime between 2 and 3, it is a chance to sleep undisturbed

When the eye has passed, the wind comes back with a vengeance in the other direction blowing against the windows of the room I’m in - the gusts reach a tremendous force (from virtually nothing at all in a matter of minutes) - Gus is still half asleep, I wake him and he jumps in the cupboard with Wayne - Go and I have drawers over our heads and we crouch down behind the bed - we can’t get out of the room, the door won’t open - the whole wall is going to go - Jesus - I reach up with my hand up to the bed for my plastic bag and pull it down to me - and the house explodes.

I remember shouting and swearing and somersaulting through the air and landing on a load of rubbish - I may have been unconscious for a while. The next thing I know is that thousands of pieces of glass are hitting in my back - I lie down and grope with my hand for some cover - I feel so lucky because I find a board just big enough to cover me - I hold onto it with my life to stop the wind blowing it away. I am lying on my side on glass and wood - I dare not move my left leg because I think it’s slit open or broken - I can’t see much - I think I’m facing away from the house but I’m afraid to move and look round. Rocks hit my board, and sometimes I nearly lose it (the board) - I think through what I’ll do if the board does fly, and I decide to make a run for it. It is cold too - I find a plastic mac by me and wrap myself in it but the wind keeps blowing it off - I am shivering - I can’t decide if I’m going to live - when I think I see lights I shout several times but my voice can’t rise up above the roar of the storm - I am sure all the others [from the house] are dead - I can’t see how they can be alive - I am feeling so lucky that I’m not in pain and that I found the board to protect me.

I lie in two inches of water thinking, working out plans, looking, but never moving other than my hand, which keeps searching around for more protection. Occasionally a light glimmers from across the way - I can’t work out which direction it is, nor can I work out what a bridge-like structure is (it has cars underneath). Later, as visibility improves, I see lights and a house nearby - I am shouting more often now as the dense mistiness lifts.

More than two hours later, and dawn is approaching and the wind is abating to nothing more than a strong gale. I look around a little more and discover that my board has only remained where it is because it’s wedged down by the bed that I’d been hiding behind. Then I hear voices behind me - there are people alive - I pull myself together to turn over - it is the first time I’ve moved properly in two and a half hours, There is a light and I can see Peter and the van. There is no cut in my leg, or anything seriously wrong with it, but I still have to hobble when I walk. I go to the van where I find Gerry. Willem joins us shortly. Paul and Susie are safe in a cupboard. Only Wayne and Gus are missing - Peter and Joel are searching for them frantically but there is no sign. We are really worried that they are under the pile of debris where Peter’s house once stood.

Long after it is light and the wind has fallen still more, we hear that they are next door. I am crying with joy. Incredible. We all have little wounds but nobody is seriously hurt - Gus, Wayne, Paul, Joel and Peter start a frantic search of neighbouring houses, and then they take a couple of cars and start taking people down to the hospital. I really want to be part of this operation - I even try to join them at one point but my knee is really crook. The whole town is completely devastated - steel telegraph poles are bent to the ground - palm trees completely uprooted - roofs lying around everywhere except on the tops of houses. All that is left of Peter’s house is the bathroom on stilts and one of the long walls at a 45 degree angle, not a thing else upstairs. The dining room and kitchen below are wrecked. Everything, absolutely everything, is 100% wet - there are glass, wood, mosquito netting, nails, doors, clothes, books, everywhere. I take a ride down to the hospital - it is fenced in (the wire around the entrance had been put up before to stop hoards of people). I talk to someone at the hospital within 15 minutes but they aren’t interested in my problems and I’m not surprised - many people are bleeding or crying or nursing wounded children - all around is tragedy, tragedy tragedy.

I hitch back to the others - there’s not a building left in tact - corrugated iron, power lines, cars, caravans, trees are strewn everywhere - some of the road is under 6-8 in of water - destruction is everywhere you look.

When I get back, Peter and Wayne are hanging about the house, while most of the others have gone to the first aid centre. I chuck a few things in the van - Paul and I drive to the centre with some food and wine - we find the others from the house huddled in warm blankets - I join them and we swap stories. Gus has some bad cuts by the ear, Joel cut his foot running around helping people afterwards. Peter and Gerry had sheltered in the van soon after the house exploded; Wayne had lain on the grass in the middle of the road, he’d lost his way following Gus who ran to the other house. Gus, Gerry and I are the worst injured. After a couple of hours, a doctor comes, but again he’s not interested in me - Gus and Gerry get some stitches. Willem is OK even though he had been trapped and needed rescuing by Joel and Peter - Go is OK but for some cut knuckles. It’s Christmas Day.

Paul ferries us all to Darwin High School in little groups with blankets as our only clothes. I have real trouble bending my leg, and it takes time to get in and out of the purloined Volkswagen. We are among the first to arrive at the school. Everywhere is under water, but there’s not too much damage. We annex a dryish room for ourselves, but we can’t get the water out because the corridor is under water too. Peter is alternating between fits of crying and fits of trying to organise everybody, and boss them around. Paul goes back to pick up all the obvious things lying about round the house pile, and then he returns the car, and gets Peter’s wagon going

I have a little cry at the thought of Julian and Melanie waking Mum and Dad, then sitting down excitedly for breakfast and turning on the radio and hearing about Darwin. We all manage to send a telegram off home for free, and, a day later, we get a free telephone call. I am emotionally distraught hearing all their voices after so long.

The Aussie prime minister Whitlam flies back from his European tour and spends an afternoon here; Jim Cairns stays a little longer. The head of a newly formed disaster squad is working 25 hours a day, and, apparently, nearly breaking down sometimes.

People begin to pour into the school, and it becomes a main centre where all goods (food, clothes, cigarettes) are brought before distribution. There is a small team of dedicated cooks - so we have good food. My knee doubles in size. I am so incapacitated that I really can’t walk, it is as much as I can do to go to the toilet. Willem, Gerry and Gus do nothing either.

Around us, the authorities (concerned largely about health and disease because the water supply broke down) have acted efficiently. People were already being evacuated on Boxing Day, and by the third day they had got 6,000 people out by plane. The radio station was working again quite quickly, which helped everyone know what was going on, and what to do.

Some of our group keep going back to the house looking for their stuff, and especially for Peter’s money which was supposed to be in an attache case. Poor Peter, having lost his house, never found his money, and one day he just left, in his combie van, for Sydney.

Paul, Joel and Wayne work consistently - Susie and I do a little work in the kitchen - I prefer to wash dishes for two hours, and then get my meal immediately than to queue for half an hour. There are almost 800 people here, I think, and the queues are unbelievable. The evacuation programme continues and is going better than expected.

On 29th December the radio informs us that single men can now be evacuated.

Susie is going to Sydney. Willem is unsure how he is going to make it back to the island where he was working. Kiki is living and working at the Travel Lodge, and is happy to stay here.

Originally, I had planned to fly to Townsville and hitch down the coast (wanting to see something of Australia) but the evacuation planes are only flying to state capitals. I feel Brisbane is already too far south so I decide I might as well go with Gerry to Sydney. There is a lot of messing about before we are finally taken to the airport (in a beaut air-conditioned bus). However, the officials aren’t expecting another coach load, and there are queues and queues waiting to get on the one plane standing. We, and a lot of others already there, don’t make it - we sleep in the destroyed airport buildings. We spend the next day in the airport watching coach loads of women and children being evacuated; we are given food and drink all day long by the Salvation Army. There are newspapers lying around with long stories about Darwin. I talk for a while to one of the people from the school - he adores Joni Mitchell, but didn’t enjoy his overland trip.

Early evening the Starlifter we’d been promised arrives. It is going to take us all away from this devastated disaster area - we all fetch our bags and rush to the buses. I am horrified at the way the Americans are squeezing every last person in. We have to sit cross-legged in about 1 sq ft - from front to back nobody is going to be able to move. I still can’t bend my legs properly and so decide to get off - I’m not that desperate. I think the American was going for some sort of people record - he left all the baggage behind. Early this morning, on the first flight, they were trying hard to find people to go to Townsville - I should have gone, as I’d planned, but I was loathe to leave new friends after so long travelling. It was sad any way to leave Paul, Wayne and Gus - I had some good times with them.

The following morning I take the first plane - a Hercules to Brisbane. We sit on seats, and are allowed in the cockpit to have a smoke - it’s a beautiful serene sight, floating above the clouds. The journey takes five hours and we land in late afternoon - we are shuttled across a boring-looking town to an evacuation centre - an empty bus garage with clothes, social services, Sally Army, airline officials. We register, are given $62, and then booked onto a flight to Sydney. We eat, and I put on some new underpants.’

A glow of enthusiasm

‘The air is distinctly fragrant with balsam and resin and mint - every breath of it a gift we may well thank God for. Who could ever guess that so rough a wilderness should yet be so full of good things. [. . .] God himself seems to be always doing his best here, working like a man in a glow of enthusiasm.’ This is from the diaries of the Scottish-born American John Muir, an early and influential voice in the development of US national parks who died 110 years ago today. 

Muir was born in 1838 in Dunbar, Scotland. Until the age of eleven he attended local schools but, in 1849, his family emigrated to the US, settling first at Fountain Lake and then moving to Hickory Hill Farm near Portage, Wisconsin. Muir’s father worked his family hard but whenever they had time he and his younger brother would explore the rich Wisconsin countryside. Muir developed a love of the natural world, but he also became an inventor, a carver and clock maker. In 1860 he traveled the short distance south to Madison, to the state fair, where he won admiration and prizes, and enrolled in the university. Although doing well, after three years he left to travel the northern US and Canada, odd-jobbing his way through the as yet unspoiled land. An industrial accident in 1867 nearly cost him an eye; thereafter, it is said, he resolved to dedicate his life to exploring and preserving nature. 

Muir traveled extensively, walking from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico and eventually settling in California in 1868. He became particularly enchanted with Yosemite Valley, describing it as ‘the grandest of all special temples of Nature’. Over the next six years, he explored and studied the Sierra Nevada mountains, developing groundbreaking theories about glacial formation. His environmental advocacy proved transformative as he was instrumental in establishing several national parks, including Yosemite (1890), Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Petrified Forest, and Grand Canyon. In 1892, he co-founded the Sierra Club, serving as its first president, to promote conservation and environmental protection.

Muir’s writings and activism significantly influenced public perception of wilderness areas and inspired conservation efforts. He was particularly close to President Theodore Roosevelt, accompanying him on a pivotal trip to Yosemite that helped secure federal protection for the park. He was also a prolific writer, publishing 300 articles and 10 major books about his travels and environmental philosophy. Some of his notable works include The Mountains of California and Our National Parks. 

Muir married Louie Wanda Strentzel in 1880 and he managed a family fruit ranch in Martinez, California, while continuing his conservation work. He died on 24 December 1914. Encyclopaedia Britannica has this assessment of the man: ‘His conviction that wilderness areas should be federally protected as national parks has given generations of US citizens and tourists an opportunity to appreciate America’s landscapes as they exist in the absence of human industrial influence. Muir’s writings continue to serve as sources of inspiration for naturalists and conservationists in the US and worldwide.’ 

Further information is also available from Wikipedia and The Sierra Club.

Muir kept extensive diaries throughout his life - some 78 journals and 25 notebooks. Nearly every page of these can be viewed at the University of the Pacific’s Scholarly Commons website. The diaries served as a basic resource for his books and many articles though they do not seem to have been published directly. Nevertheless a couple of his early books are presented in diary form: My First Summer in the Sierra (1911) and A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf (1916) both published by Houghton Mifflin Company. 

The following extracts are taken from my First Summer in the Sierra.

19 June 1869 

‘Pure sunshine all day. How beautiful a rock is made by leaf shadows! Those of the live oak are particularly clear and distinct, and beyond all art in grace and delicacy, now still as if painted on stone, now gliding softly as if afraid of noise, now dancing, waltzing in swift, merry swirls, or jumping on and off sunny rocks in quick dashes like wave embroidery on seashore cliffs. How true and substantial is this shadow beauty, and with what sublime extravagance is beauty thus multiplied! The big orange lilies are now arrayed in all their glory of leaf and flower. Noble plants, in perfect health, Nature’s darlings.’

20 June 1869

‘Some of the silly sheep got caught fast in a tangle of chaparral this morning, like flies in a spider’s web, and had to be helped out. Carlo found them and tried to drive them from the trap by the easiest way. How far above sheep are intelligent dogs! No friend and helper can be more affectionate and constant than Carlo. The noble St. Bernard is an honor to his race.

The air is distinctly fragrant with balsam and resin and mint - every breath of it a gift we may well thank God for. Who could ever guess that so rough a wilderness should yet be so full of good things. One seems to be in a majestic domed pavilion in which a grand play is being acted with scenery and music and incense, - all the furniture and action so interesting we are in no danger of being called on to endure one dull moment. God himself seems to be always doing his best here, working like a man in a glow of enthusiasm.’

22 June 1869

‘Unusually cloudy. Besides the periodical shower-bearing cumuli there is a thin, diffused, fog-like cloud overhead. About .75 in all.’

23 June 1869 

‘Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever.’

23 July 1869

‘Another midday cloudland, displaying power and beauty that one never wearies in beholding but hopelessly unsketchable and untellable. What can poor mortals say about clouds? While a description of their huge glowing domes and ridges, shadowy gulfs and cañons, and feather-edged ravines is being tried, they vanish, leading no visible ruins. Nevertheless, these fleeting sky mountains are as substantial and significant as the more lasting upheavals of granite beneath them. Both alike are built up and die, and in God’s calendar difference of duration is nothing. We can only dream about them in wondering, worshiping admiration, happier than we dare tell even to friends who see farthest in sympathy, glad to know that not a crystal or vapor particle of them hard or soft, is lost; that they sink and vanish only to rise again and again in higher and higher beauty. As to our work, duty, influence, etc. concerning which so much fussy pother is made, it will not fail of its due effect, though like lichen on a stone, we keep silent.’

2 August 1869

‘Clouds and showers, about the same as yesterday. Sketching all day on the North Dome until four or five o’clock in the afternoon, when, as I was busily employed thinking only of the glorious Yosemite landscape, trying to draw every tree and every line and feature of the rocks, I was suddenly, and without warning, possessed with the notion that my friend, Professor J. D. Butler, of the State University of Wisconsin, was below me in the valley, and I jumped up full of the idea of meeting him, with almost as much startling excitement as if he had suddenly touched me to make me look up. Leaving my work without the slightest deliberation, I ran down the western slope of the Dome and along the brink of the valley wall, looking for a way to the bottom, until I came to a side cañon, which, judging by its apparently continuous growth of trees and bushes, I thought might afford a practical way into the valley, and immediately began to make the descent, late as it was, as if drawn irresistibly. But after a little, common sense stopped me and explained that it would be long after dark ere I could possibly reach the hotel, that the visitors would be asleep, that nobody would know me, that I had no money in my pockets, and moreover was without a coat. I therefore compelled myself to stop, and finally succeeded in reasoning myself out of the notion of seeking my friend in the dark, whose presence I only felt in a strange, telepathic way. I succeeded in dragging myself back through the woods to camp, never for a moment wavering, however, in my determination to go down to him next morning. This I think is the most unexplainable notion that ever struck me. Had some one whispered in my ear while I sat on the Dome, where I had spent so many days, that Professor Butler was in the valley, I could not have been more surprised and startled. When I was leaving the university, he said, “Now, John, I want to hold you in sight and watch your career. Promise to write me at least once a year.” I received a letter from him in July, at our first camp in the Hollow, written in May, in which he said that he might possibly visit California some time this summer and therefore hoped to meet me. But inasmuch he named no meeting-place, and gave no directions as to the course he would probably follow, and as I should be in the wilderness all summer, I had not the slightest hope of seeing him, and all thought of the matter had vanished from my mind until this afternoon, when he seemed to be wafted bodily almost against my face. Well, to-morrow I shall see; for, reasonable or unreasonable, I feel I must go.’

Cloves, cumin, ginger

Vasco da Gama, the famous Portuguese explorer, died all of half a millennium ago today. Although he did not leave behind a diary of his own, an unknown author did keep a journal of da Gama’s first expedition to India. This was stored in a Portuguese convent for centuries, before being published in the 1860s, and then translated into English in the 1890s. It provides a rich and colourful account of the very earliest days of European attempts to colonise the sub-continent.

Da Gama was born in Sines, Portugal, around 1460. His father was Estêvão da Gama, commander of the local fort. In 1492, Vasco da Gama was sent by King John II to the south of the country to take revenge against the French, who had been seizing Portuguese ships. Meanwhile, Estêvão da Gama was chosen by the king to lead a Portuguese fleet to India in search of lucrative trade routes. However, both the king and Estêvão da Gama died, and the mission was handed to Vasco de Gama by the new King Manuel.

In 1497, da Gama sailed from Lisbon with four ships; he rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and, with the aid of a pilot found on the east coast of Africa, sailed to the west coast of India, stopping at various ports, before reaching Calicut (now Kozhikode) on the Malabar coast. Unable to establish a colony because of opposition from the local Muslims, da Gama returned to Portugal, with a cargo of very profitable spices and the certain knowledge of a potential trade route. The mission was, thus, celebrated as a great success. Around 1500, he married Catarina de Ataíde who bore him six sons.

Vasco da Gama, by this time ranked as an admiral, undertook a second journey, in 1502, to try and secure the trading colony established in the interim by Pedro Carbal, but which had been wiped out in a massacre. He successfully laid siege to Calicut, and concluded favourable peace treaties with the native rulers. However, on his return, he felt inadequately rewarded, and became embroiled in an ongoing dispute concerning his ownership of the town of Sines (given him by the king in 1499, but still claimed by the Military Order of Santiago).

For some years after, da Gama lived a relatively quiet life. In 1519, he was appointed Count of Vidigueira; and, in 1524, after Manuel’s death, King John III appointed him as Portuguese Viceroy in India. He set sail for a third time, to try and restore administrative order to the Portuguese holdings. However, he fell ill at Cochin and died on 23 December 1524. Further information is available from Wikipedia, or from various out-of-copyright biographies available at Internet Archive, such as Vasco da Gama and his successors 1460-1580 by K. G. Jayne.

A diary account of da Gama’s first voyage - named Roteiro - survived over 300 years, and was first published in 1838. This was edited by Diogo Kopke and Dr. Antonio da Costa Paiva, both teachers at the Academia Polytechnica of Oporto, and funded by subscription. Only 392 copies were printed then, but a second edition appeared in Lisbon in 1861. A few years later, in 1869, the Hakluyt Society published Lord Stanley of Alderley’s translation of the Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama, and intended to bring out an English translation of the Roteiro, but this latter was left in abeyance for another three decades, until the Society published, in 1898, A journal of the first voyage of Vasco da Gama in 1497-99 as translated and edited by E. G. Ravenstein. The book is freely available online at Internet Archive or Googlebooks.

Ravenstein notes, in his introduction, that the extant manuscript is not the original, but only a copy, and that the author of the original remains unknown. He explains: ‘The manuscript originally belonged to the famous Convent of Santa Cruz at Coimbra, whence it was transferred, together with other precious manuscripts, to the public library of Oporto. [. . .] This copy, however, was taken in the beginning of the sixteenth century, as may be seen from the style of the writing. [. . .] It is quite possible, as suggested by Prof. Kopke, that the title by which the Roteiro was known at the convent of Santa Cruz misled certain bibliographers into a belief that Vasco da Gama himself had written this account of his voyage. [. . .] No one has yet succeeded in discovering the author of the Roteiro.’ Ravenstein adds that his translation is ‘literal and complete’. Here are a few extracts.

8 April 1497
‘On Palm Sunday the King of Mombaça sent the captain-major a sheep and large quantities of oranges, lemons and sugar-cane, together with a ring, as a pledge of safety, letting him know that in case of his entering the port he would be supplied with all he stood in need of. This present was conveyed to us by two men, almost white, who said they were Christians, which appeared to be the fact. The captain-major sent the king a string of coral-beads as a return present, and let him know that he purposed entering the port on the following day. On the same day the captain-major’s vessel was visited by four Moors of distinction.

Two men were sent by the captain-major to the king, still further to confirm these peaceful assurances. When these landed they were followed by a crowd as far as the gates of the palace. Before reaching the king they passed through four doors, each guarded by a doorkeeper with a drawn cutlass. The king received them hospitably, and ordered that they should be shown over the city. They stopped on their way at the house of two Christian merchants, who showed them a paper (carta), an object of their adoration, on which was a sketch of the Holy Ghost. When they had seen all, the king sent them back with samples of cloves, pepper and corn, with which articles he would allow us to load our ships.’

10 April 1497
‘On Tuesday, when weighing anchor to enter the port, the captain-major’s vessel would not pay off, and struck the vessel which followed astern. We therefore again cast anchor. When the Moors who were in our ship saw that we did not go on, they scrambled into a zavra attached to our stern; whilst the two pilots whom we had brought from Moçambique jumped into the water, and were picked up by the men in the zavra. At night the captain-major “questioned” two Moors whom we had on board, by dropping boiling oil upon their skin, so that they might confess any treachery intended against us. They said that orders had been given to capture us as soon as we entered the port, and thus to avenge what we had done at Moçambique. And when this torture was being applied a second time, one of the Moors, although his hands were tied, threw himself into the sea, whilst the other did so during the morning watch.

About midnight two almadias, with many men in them, approached. The almadias stood off whilst the men entered the water, some swimming in the direction of the Berrio others in that of the Raphael. Those who swam to the Berrio began to cut the cable. The men on watch thought at first that they were tunny fish, but when they perceived their mistake they shouted to the other vessels. The other swimmers had already got hold of the rigging of the mizzen-mast. Seeing themselves discovered, they silently slipped down and fled. These and other wicked tricks were practised upon us by these dogs, but our Lord did not allow them to succeed, because they were unbelievers.

Mombaça is a large city seated upon an eminence washed by the sea. Its port is entered daily by numerous vessels. At its entrance stands a pillar, and by the sea a low-lying fortress.Those who had gone on shore told us that in the town they had seen many men in irons; and it seemed to us that these must be Christians, as the Christians in that country are at war with the Moors.

The Christian merchants in the town are only temporary residents, and are held in much subjection, they not being allowed to do anything except by the order of the Moorish King.

It pleased God in his mercy that on arriving at this city all our sick recovered their health, for the climate (“air”) of this place is very good.

After the malice and treachery planned by these dogs had been discovered, we still remained on Wednesday and Thursday.’

17 April 1497
‘We approached nearer to the town [Malindi, now Kenya]. The king sent the captain-major six sheep, besides quantities of cloves, cumin, ginger, nutmeg and pepper, as also a message, telling him that if he desired to have an interview with him he (the king) would come out in his zavra when the captain-major could meet him in a boat.’

18 April 1497
‘On Wednesday, after dinner, when the king came up close to the ships in a zavra, the captain-major at once entered one of his boats, which had been well furnished, and many friendly words were exchanged when they lay side by side. The king having invited the captain-major to come to his house to rest, after which he (the king) would visit him on board his ship, the captain-major said that he was not permitted by his master to go on land, and if he were to do so a bad report would be given of him. The king wanted to know what would be said of himself by his people if he were to visit the ships, and what account could he render them? He then asked for the name of our king, which was written down for him, and said that on our return he would send an ambassador with us, or a letter.

When both had said all they desired, the captain-major sent for the Moors whom he had taken prisoner, and surrendered them all. This gave much satisfaction to the king, who said that he valued this act more highly than if he had been presented with a town. And the king, much pleased, made the circuit of our ships, the bombards of which fired a salute. About three hours were spent in this way. When the king went away he left in the ship one of his sons and a sharif, and took two of us away with him, to whom he desired to show his palace. He, moreover, told the captain that as he would not go ashore he would himself return on the following day to the beach, and would order his horsemen to go through some exercises.

The king wore a robe (royal cloak) of damask trimmed with green satin, and a rich touca. He was seated on two cushioned chairs of bronze, beneath a round sunshade of crimson satin attached to a pole. An old man, who attended him as page, carried a short sword in a silver sheath. There were many players on anafils, and two trumpets of ivory, richly carved, and of the size of a man, which were blown from a hole in the side, and made sweet harmony with the anafils.’

19 April 1497
‘On Thursday the captain-major and Nicolau Coelho rowed along the front of the town, bombards having been placed in the poops of their long-boats. Many people were along the shore, and among them two horsemen, who appeared to take much delight in a sham-fight. The king was carried in a palanquin from the stone steps of his palace to the side of the captain-major’s boats. He again begged the captain to come ashore, as he had a helpless father who wanted to see him, and that he and his sons would go on board the ships as hostages. The captain, however, excused himself.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 23 December 2014.

Praise from the King

‘I was invited to go to Buckingham Palace for Dinner to meet Mrs Roosevelt, the wife of the President of the United States who is over here on a visit. She is the guest of the King and Queen. [. . .] Before dinner when the King and Queen joined the party in the ante-room, the King as he shook hands with me said that he thought the Ministry of Food was doing an excellent job, and said that he and the country were grateful to me.’ This is from the diaries of Frederick James Marquis, 1st Earl of Woolton, who died 60 years ago today. The published diaries cover Woolton’s time during World War II under Churchill, first as Minister for Food and then Minister for Reconstruction. 

Woolton was born in 1883 in Salford, Lancashire, the only surviving child of a saddler. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and the University of Manchester. He hoped to pursue an academic career in the social sciences but his wish was frustrated by his family’s financial circumstances; instead he became a mathematics teacher at Burnley Grammar School. In 1912 he married Maud Smith, and they had two children. Having been judged unfit for military service, he became a civil servant, first in the War Office, then at the Leather Control Board. At the end of the war, he became secretary of the Boot Manufacturers’ Federation, and joined the John Lewis organisation, becoming director in 1928 and chairman in 1936. 

Woolton was knighted in 1935 and was raised to the peerage in 1939 for his contribution to British industry. His career took a significant turn during World War II when, in April 1940 and despite not being affiliated to any political party, he was appointed Minister of Food. He established the rationing system, the National Food Campaign, and the introduction of free school meals and milk for children. His business acumen and communication skills earned him the affectionate public nickname of ‘Uncle Fred’. 

In 1943, Woolton was appointed Minister of Reconstruction, and then, after the war, from 1946 to 1955, he served as Chairman of the Conservative Party. His efforts in rebuilding and revitalising the party were credited with the Conservative victory in 1951. In 1956, he was further honoured when he became Earl of Woolton with the subsidiary title Viscount Walberton. After the death of his wife in 1961, Woolton married Dr Margaret Thomas, the family doctor who had cared for his first wife. He himself died on 14 December 1964. Further information is available from Wikipedia and Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts.

For two periods in his life - 1940-1945 and 1953-1960 -  Woolton kept a diary. However, there seems to be no clear explanation as to why he started to write a diary, why he stopped, nor why he restarted in 1953. Nevertheless, a selection of extracts (alongside letters, a few official papers and other official materials) were published in 2020 by Oxford University Press for The British Academy as The Diaries and Letters of Lord Woolton 1940-1945 (edited by Michael Kandiah and Judith Rowbotham). OUP says this work ‘showcases a wartime figure who has in prior academic work tended to be relegated to the sidelines, enabling an understanding of the importance of the roles undertaken by Woolton, and a better appreciation of his wartime contribution.’ A review found at The Churchill Project suggests that Diaries and Letters is ’an important and revealing addition to the scholarship of the era.’

Here are several extracts

3 February 1941

‘I took to the cabinet proposals for dealing with the milk trade . . . My proposal, in short, was to remove the minimum price for milk and let free competition have its way with the result that milk would have been cheaper.

The proposal was opposed by Mr Alexander (ex-Co-operative Society) who made a very good capitalist speech, supported bv Mr Bevin, who wanted the country to buy out all the milk people and run a nationalised milk scheme. The Labour people were quite solidly against what would have been tor the benefit of the community, in spite of the fact that they are supposed to be anxious to do something about the milk trade.

The Prime Minister asked if the little milkman would be subject to the ravages of competition. And so I withdrew the Report.

The Prime Minister had previously asked me why I had produced it, and I told him that the politicians had been trying for years to get something done about this trade, but since they now didn’t seem to want anything to be done. I wasn’t interested.’

11 March 1942

‘I made a statement in the House of Lords about the introduction ot the 85 per cent extraction flour. I did not make a long speech - merely a statement ot the whole of the facts, and said that the Government knew that it would not be popular with the people, but as it saved a considerable amount of shipping space in the year they also knew that people would accept it without complaint. The House accepted it all right, and Horder came along and spiked the guns of all the people who would complain on medical grounds, by saying that anybody who could eat bread at all could eat wheat meal with impunity as it suited all digestions. The announcement got a very good press. The country doesn’t mind what is asked of it so long as it feels that there is both reason and control.’

19 March 1942

‘I had a very bad attack of colitis in the night, and went this morning to a Privy Council meeting wondering how I would manage to stand through it. I managed but only just.

After the meeting the King took me to his room: he immediately said that I didn’t look very well, and pulled up an easy chair for me to sit in. He talked very intelligently about the food situation, and very frankly about my colleagues! He spoke of Bevin - and mentioned in passing that when he (Bevin) sat in the chair in which I was sitting he bulged all over the sides.  He said that Bevin has no understanding of the mind of the people, adding ‘Neither has the Prime Minister’ The King has been brought up to do the industrial side of the Royal job and he knows more about working men than the Minister of Labour. The King told Leathers a few days ago that the two of his Ministers of whom he always heard as really being in charge of their departments and getting their jobs done were himself and me.’

12 May 1942

‘I made a speech in the House. Lord Arnold had put down a motion about beer. He’s a bigoted teetotaller of the worst variety and made a speech which was little short of offensive. It was difficult not to adopt the same tone with him, but I tried to make a reasoned statement. I suggested to the House that at a time when we were calling for the maximum physical effort from the working-man it was unfair to deprive him of his glass of beer if he wanted it. The House was with me.’

1 June 1942

‘We had a Cabinet Meeting this evening at which I explained the proposals that we intended to put into force to reduce waste of transport and manpower in the milk industry: it’s a scheme to rationalise distribution. I had had charts prepared which had been put up in the Committee Room. I didn’t observe when I went in that they had been put up over the map of Europe that was hanging on the wall, and as soon as I sat down Winston growled at me ‘So you’re disfiguring the map of Europe now’! He was in his best form, and when I’d explained the scheme, which I did in a series of quick thumbnail sketches - which I think it took most of the Cabinet all their time to follow - if they did - and Winston pronounced it a good scheme and silenced any questioning by remarking that ‘He’d follow Lord Woolton anywhere’! There was method in it all: the Honours List is to be published next week and it was being made clear to the other Ministers that there was a reason for this selection.’

9 June 1942

‘In the afternoon I went to the House to address an All-Party meeting of members on the work of the Ministry. I took charts with me, and did the thumbnail sketch technique on them. They were very impressed and indicated their approval of the way we were doing the job.’

13 July 1942

‘We had a Cabinet meeting in the evening. There has been a secret debate about the shipping position, and the press has been urging that more information about the state of our shipping should should be given. The cabinet decided that an impartial statement should be made. It to be that no information would be given! Doesn’t sound very impartial to me.

We also discussed the probable food situation in Europe after the war, and everybody seemed very concerned about how we should feed the starving nations of Europe. Winston was very downright: he realised that there could be no question of the immediate removal of rationing restrictions on food, but said that he felt the people to be considered first were the people who had sweated and toiled to win the war, and that if we had worked and endured as we should have to, in order to gain the victory over the Nazis, both for ourselves and for the other European countries, he felt that we were the first people to be considered so far as food was concerned. I think he’s right, but we can’t leave the other countries to starve because we’ve won the war. It’s going to be a problem.’

28 July 1942

‘Mabane had his first debate in the House of Commons as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food and I went to listen to it. He did very well, and there was really very little raised that was of any importance. On the whole the House is pleased with the conduct of the Ministry of Food - although one of its late parliamentary secretaries - Boothby, who was sacked from it - did his best to be difficult.’

18 August 1942

‘I had a talk with Kingsley Wood, who told me that he thought I’d done my job as Minister of food, and he wanted me to tell Winston this, and look for fresh worlds to conquer, he told me again how well he considered the food problem had been managed, and told me that he thought I ought to hold very high office in the Government.’

24 October 1942

‘I was invited to go to Buckingham Palace for Dinner to meet Mrs Roosevelt, the wife of the President of the United States who is over here on a visit. She is the guest of the King and Queen.

It was a small party - the King and Queen, and Mrs Roosevelt, Hardinge, the King’s private secretary and his wife, and Lascelles, one of the assistant private secretaries, and his wife, Ernest Bevin and myself.

Before dinner when the King and Queen joined the party in the ante-room, the King as he shook hands with me said that he thought the Ministry of Food was doing an excellent job, and said that he and the country were grateful to me

I sat next to the Queen, whilst Mrs R. sat on the King’s right-hand with Bevin next to her. The Queen was charming - as she always is - and I had a long conversation with her, chiefly about religion. We were agreed that the only thing that is going to bring England - and the other countries - back to real peace is a re-awakening of a spiritual sense. We talked much about this and I felt that I was sermonising, and begged her pardon adding that she might have thought the Archbishop of Canterbury was talking to her, except, of course, that I felt he would have discussed banking, not religion.’

28 October 1942

‘I dined with Harriman at his flat. Harriman was in a most pessimistic mood about the provision of shipping: said that we were going to be extremely hard put to it and he thought that British agriculture ought to be altered: that we ought to grow more wheat in this country and less feeding-stuffs for animals, thereby saving shipping, both on the importation of wheat and on the importation of meat, since, if we grow less animal feeding stuffs we should have to slaughter our cattle.

I refused lo be drawn into the conversation saying that I thought the only way in which I could possibly get on with Mr Hudson [Minister of Agriculture] was if we each minded our own business.’

Two or three hundred yaks

‘We sighted two or three hundred yaks drinking in the river, and I wounded three. It was a glorious sight to see the whole herd dashing across ravines and through snow drifts up a lateral valley. I followed them for several miles, and though two of the wounded animals were losing quantities of blood, I failed to get again within range, for the melting snow and the slippery clayey soil were too much for my pony.’ This is from the exploration diary of US diplomat William Woodville Rockhill - who died 110 years ago today - during his second expedition into China and Mongolia. It was Rockhill who is credited with launching the so-called Open Door policy towards China in the early 20th century.

Rockhill was born in Philadelphia in 1854. His father died when he was 13 and his mother relocated the family to France to escape the Civil War. He attended the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr, where he studied Tibetan (having been inspired by Abbé Huc’s account of his 1844-1846 voyage to Lhasa). After graduation, he joined the French Foreign Legion, serving as an officer in Algiers. In 1876, he returned to the US where he married his childhood sweetheart. They had two children. Although they tried ranching in New Mexico, by 1881 they had relocated to Montreux in Switzerland where Rockwood spent three years studying Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Chinese, as well as co-authoring a biography of Buddha.

In 1884, Rockhill was appointed to the US Legation in Beijing. In 1896, his wife died; however he soon got married again, to Edith Howell Perkins. Between 1897 and 1899, Rockhill served as ambassador to Greece/Serbia/Romania. In 1899, he was appointed Director-General of the International Union of American Republics, a position he held until 1905 when he was made ambassador to China (until 1909). He is credited with authoring the Open Door Policy towards China with the aim of preserving Chinese sovereignty while ensuring equal trade opportunities for all nations. In 1910, he was appointed ambassador to Russia and from 1911 to 1913 he was ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.

In addition to his diplomatic work, Rockhill was an accomplished explorer and scholar, undertaking two expeditions to Tibet and western China in the 1880s and 1890s. His meticulous observations on climate, geography, and local cultures established him as a leading expert on the region. En route to take up a position as advisor to the President of China, Yuan Shikai, contracted pleurisy. He died (in Honolulu) on 8 December 1914. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Geographicus, American Diplomacy.

A detailed daily diary Rockhill kept on the second of his expeditions was published in 1894 by the Smithsonian institution with the title - Diary of a Journey Through Mongolia and Tibet in 1891 and 1892.  The full work can be read at Googlebooks or Internet Archive.

In a short note at the start of the work, the institution’s secretary says the publication has ‘the general object of increasing and diffusing knowledge in regard to the little known countries traversed by the explorer.’ 

And in Rockhill’s introduction, he explains: ‘The form in which I now publish the results of my journey was only adopted after much hesitation, as I feared it might prove tedious to even the enthusiastic reader of books of travel - if such happily there still be. But a journal, kept from day to day, and often under great difficulties shows better, 1 think, than any other form of record the true impressions of the writer, his moods, his hopes, his anxieties, even when they concern nothing more important than his next meal, of which I am, however, assured the public likes to be informed. In such a Diary as is here given numerous glaring errors in style - if nothing worse - tedious detail and monotonous repetition cannot fail to confront the too critical reader, but let him be charitable - dirt, cold, starvation and a thousand minor discomforts which beset the explorer in Mongolia and Tibet who lives and travels like the barbarous inhabitants of those wild regions, are not conducive to sustained or successful literary work, as he may find out for himself if he will but try it.’ 

Here’s a flavour of the diary.

30 November 1891

‘I received to-day my passport from the Tsung-li Yamen. It is what we would call at home a “special passport,” authorizing me as former Secretary of the United States Legation to visit Kan-su, Ssü-ch’uan, Yün-nan, Hsin-chiang (the New Dominion), and the Ching-hai, or the Mongol and Tibetan country under the administrative control of the Hsi-ning Amban. This opens the road to Lh’asa for me as far as Dréch’u rabden and consequently Nagch’uk’a, for there are no inhabitants, only an occasional band of roaming K’amba before reaching the latter point.

I have two drafts on a Shan-hsi bank at Kuei-hua Ch’eng for 1103.31 taels, and I carry 172.56 taels in sycee. I will draw an additional 700 taels on reaching Lan-chou Fu in Kan-su. This and the goods I carry with me will have to do for the journey - a year or more.

We hear many rumors about the rebels up Jehol way. It is said here that they have crossed the Great Wall and are marching on Peking. There is no doubt that five hundred desperate men, willing to sacrifice their lives, could capture Peking by a coup de main, for there is only the Peking field force (Shen-ch’i ying) to defend it, which, as a Chinese general remarked a few years ago to the Seventh Prince, who is the chief of this body, is more expert with the opium pipe (yen chiang) than with the musket (yang chiang). This little rebellion is a specimen of what frequently occurs on the northern and southwestern frontiers of China. One day a chief of a band of highwaymen (ma-tsei) gave in his submission to the government and made himself so agreeable that he was after awhile given official preferment. His band, for the sake of economy probably, retained his name on their banners and kept to the road. This caused the Jehol officials to believe that the ex-chief, Li, I think he was named, was still connected with the profession, so he was arrested, tried, and beheaded. His son, to avenge his sire, joined the band, dubbed himself Ping Ch'ing Wang (‘‘The Prince leveler of the Ch’ing dynasty”), and announced on his banners that his platform was “First, right (li), then reason (tao), to put an end to the Catholic (t’ien chu) faith, to bring down the reigning dynasty, and to destroy the hairy foreigners.” A pretty pretentious scheme for a few hundred men. They are more or less connected with a secret society called the Tsai huei, a kind of northern Ko-lao huei, and some people here tell me they are called Hung mao-tzu (“red haired”) because they put on false beards of red hair in their secret conclaves. At all events they are very probably well armed, with Winchester rifles, I believe, supplied them by an enterprising foreign firm at Newchwang. Li Hung-chang is said to be sending troops from around Tientsin to the disturbed district, and soon the rebel band will disperse and the imperial forces will announce a glorious victory and the condign punishment of the guilty ones.’

4 December 1891

‘Got off late as we had the first casualty of the journey in our party. The black mule is dead! The kicker and most disorderly member of the party is no more. Before he had breathed his last, his carcass was sold for $2, his tail cut off to show the owner on the carter’s arrival at home, and his body carried off by the natives who were licking their chops over the anticipated feast. Our loss did not effect our rate of speed, except perhaps that it was slightly better, for we made twenty miles to Ch’i-ming-i. The day was pleasant but the road horribly stony, limestone pebbles, and such jolting as I never experienced. If ever I go over this road again I will take mule litters, they are much more convenient, and one travels just as rapidly as in a cart.’

13 February 1892

‘(15th of 1st moon) - Half of to-day was passed at Kumbum sauntering through the fair. I was surprised to see quite a large number of Bônbo lamas, recognizable by their huge mops of hair and their red gowns, and also from their being dirtier than the ordinary run of people. I heard that throughout this Amdo country they have numerous small lamaseries and that their belief is very popular among the T’u-fan.

There appears to hang a certain mystery about the famous tsandan karpo, the “white sandal wood tree” sprung from Tsong-k’apa’s hair. I now learn that the great and only original one, on the leaves of which images of the saint appear, is kept hidden away in the sanctum sanctorum of the Chin-wa ssü (“golden tiled temple”), remote from the eyes of the vulgar herd. So it would seem that I have never seen it, though I have been shown four or five other “white sandalwoods” in and around the lamasery. I learn, moreover, that the images on the leaves, bark, etc., only appear to those who have firm belief, and that the faithless can distinguish nothing extraordinary on them. This, if true, is rough on Hue, who thought he detected the devil’s hand in the miraculously produced images he perceived on the leaves of this tree.

Some of the Gopa (Lh’asa traders) have their wives here with them. They were out to-day dressed in all their finery and looked remarkably well. Strapping big women they were, with ruddy cheeks and frank open faces, in green satin gowns, aprons of variegated pulo, shirts of raw silk (buré), silver charm boxes (gawo) on their breasts, and crowns of coral beads and turquoises on the top of their long loosely hanging black locks.

In the Gold tiled temple in the northeast corner near the door is an impress in a chunk of sandstone of a human foot about eighteen inches long and two inches deep and said to be that of Tsong-k’apa. It is placed in a vertical position. On the top of the stone is a little wax; on this the people place a copper cash and then examine the footprint to ascertain their luck. If it is good, then bright spots will appear on the surface of the stone in the footmark.

In the evening I again went to Kumbum, this time to “lang t’eng,” as it is called here, anglicè, to see the lanterns and the butter bas-reliefs. The latter were very good - better perhaps than those I saw in ’89. In one of the largest ones the central portion of the design was a temple, and little figures of lamas and laymen about eight to ten inches high were moving in and out of its portals. Another new feature was musicians concealed behind curtains hanging around the bas-reliefs, who discoursed sweet (?) music on flutes, cymbals and hautboys. Four of the largest designs were in the style of the one just described, the others represented images of various gods inside of highly ornamented borders; in these the main figures were about four feet high.’

30 March 1892

‘We left by daylight, as we wanted to reach some place where we could procure fuel and cook a little food. After a few miles through deep snow we reached the main valley of the Tsahan ossu and left the snow behind. The snow line on this side of the Wahon la, as I shall call this mountain, is at least a thousand feet lower than on the northern slope. The predominant formation is still granite.

We noticed in the distance several large herds of wild yaks, hares, very large crows, a variety of bird that I took for a flicker, and a small greyish brown bird were also quite numerous. I saw quite a number of skulls of big-horns (Ovis Poli).

The general direction of the range before us is west-northwest and south-southeast, and its summits rise 2,000 to 3,000 feet above the valley, which in places is, perhaps - counting its width from the summits to the north to the crest of the southern range, two to three miles wide. Many patches of loess are visible on the mountain sides, and along the river bank there is a great deal of gravel and broken, angular pieces of stone. Reddish clay is abundant, I should have noted, on the southern slopes of the range we have just crossed.

We sighted two or three hundred yaks drinking in the river, and I wounded three. It was a glorious sight to see the whole herd dashing across ravines and through snow drifts up a lateral valley. I followed them for several miles, and though two of the wounded animals were losing quantities of blood, I failed to get again within range, for the melting snow and the slippery clayey soil were too much for my pony. I did not want to take any Ts’aidam ponies with me into Tibet, experience had proven them to be worthless for the kind of work I had before me, and so I had to give up the chase, as I could not afford to overwork the good little Konsa pony I was riding.

We camped on the bank of the river in a miserably bleak spot where the wind and the driving snow made it most uncomfortable for us all night, and where our cattle got very little grass or rest. A couple of bears came wandering about among the rocks near us, but we were all too tired to think of shooting. From what old Wang-ma-bum tells me the Tsahan ossu is the same stream which I crossed in ’89, in the Ts’aidam, when on my way to Baron kuré, and which is there called Shara gol. It is like all the rivers of this region, much shallower and of smaller volume in its lower course than at its head, much of the water being lost in the sands and swampy grounds when it leaves the hills.’

The Gordon Riots

‘The people meet accordingly 40 or 50000 and marched through the City to the house of Lords & Commons, burned L.Fs Chappell Warwick St D° and 20 of the Rabbell behaved very ill at my door took refuge in Mr Davitts house untill they were gone’. This is from the diary of William Mawhood, a London draper and Catholic, on the day that the Gordon Riots began. The riots emerged out of widescale protest against the Papists Act 1778 - this was intended to reduce official discrimination against British Catholics. The diary is said to be of particular value for its first hand account of ‘the extent to which Catholics of the period were able to take part in civic and cultural life’.

Mahwood was born to a successful draper and his wife in London on 8 December 1724, the youngest of three surviving children. He was educated at the English College, St Omer, France. He followed his father into the drapery profession, inheriting a shop and house in London. He married Dorothy Kroger, daughter of a brewer, in 1751. The couple had six children that survived into adulthood. The family also owned some 35 acres of land in Finchley.

Mawhood was appointed surveyor of the highways for Finchley for the years 1772 and 1773, supervising the road repairs carried out by local men as required by act of parliament. The Mahwoods were recent converts to catholicism, and worshipped at St Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, though there is no record of them suffering discrimination of any sort. They did, however, get caught up in the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780, with damage to their property, while, at the same time, providing a safe house in Finchley for Bishop Challoner.

Mawhood’s final years were not without their problems. While stricken with palsy and bedridden, his daughter Maria - a nun at the English convent in Bruges - was forced to seek refuge in London in 1790. In 1796, his son Charles threatened to take out a commission of lunacy against him; and his elder son William John continued to request financial assistance. The Finchley estate was sold in 1793, and Mawhood moved into a house in Portman Place, Paddington. He died there in 1797, and was buried in St Bartholomew’s. A little more information can be gleaned from Wikipedia or the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required).

Mahwood kept diaries from the age of 40, amassing 49 notebooks (4,000 pages and half a million words).  The first entry is dated 14 July 1764, and the last 18 October 1790. Although the early notebooks are largely filled with business memoranda, he gradually got into the habit of adding notes of a personal or family interest. A selection from these diaries was published by the Catholic Record Society in 1956 - Selections from the Diary Note-books of William Mawhood, Woollen-draper of London, for the Years 1764-1790. According to the ODNB: ‘The diary of William Mawhood is of particular value for its evidence of the daily life of a Catholic family of the ‘middling sort’, and of the extent to which Catholics of the period were able to take part in civic and cultural life.’ The full work can be read online at Issuu. Here are several extracts.

1 June 1780

‘Mr Read my Presser gave me a hand Bill of Lord George for the people to meet in St Georges feilds at 10 O’Ck’

2 June 1780

‘the people meet accordingly 40 or 50000 and marched through the City to the house of Lords & Commons, burned L.Fs Chappell Warwick St D° and 20 of the Rabbell behaved very ill at my door took refuge in Mr Davitts house untill they were gone’

3 June 1780

‘Mr Fazakerley called before breakfast says L.Fs is burnt down &c &c Self went with Mr Pellett found it true Called & See Mr Brown Sacerdos & See Bishop Chaloner and Mr Bolton who had called on me this Morn that Bishop Chanoler might come to Finchly. I offered him my house which he Accepted, hired William to drive me, sent him at 12 O’Ck on horseback to Finchley with a Letter to Mrs Mawhood that the Bishop would come in the Afternoon. She Dory and Lucy came to Tea, after all Except Son Chas went back to Finchly, found the Bishop there he came in Lady Strutton [Stourton] Chariot’

4 June 1780

‘The Bishop said &c at Breakfast Mr Lamb Agent called walked over the Garding &c says times will mend and we shall be redressed, he stayed over an hour, Son Chas came on horseback after Dinner Vespers &c. Mumford and Chas wrode out Son Chas sent for Town, 7 O’Ck’

5 June 1780

‘Set off for Town at 1/2 past 6 O’Ck called Mrs Hanne’s for 2 Shirts for Bishop found the house Shut knocked several times Nobody at home Called then on Mr Brown all Except Mr Nicolas gone away and moved all their goods, Mr Brown Boye took me to a Mr Lee of Harpur St where Mr Lindow and Rice are but both out Mr Brown’s boy says Moorfields is burned down &c he came at 9 O’Ck says poor Mr Lindow walks aboute the Room as if out if his Sences brought Lining for my Visiter, who was much affected with these times, at 7 O’Ck received a Letter Express from Son Chas by Robinson’s Horsler that it was strongly reported my House would be fired by Lord G. Gordons Blew cockade Banditti, Mrs Mawhood and Self Set of in our Coach arrived at Lord G. Germains office for assistance, neither Ld Germain nor Mr De Gray there the Messenger advised me to the War office went there neither Mr Jenkinson or Lewis there See a Clerk all most the top of the house but he said no assistance could be given me unless Signed by a Justice of the peace but said in case of distress I must send to the Tower or The Savoue [Savoy] Barracks came home with Mr Atkins who informed me he Expected Maberlys house would be that night levelled for his assistance and taking a person at the Sardinian Embasadors, found it difficult getting through the Streets being the Kings birthday, Stopt a Long lane being fearfull of coming directly to my house Mr Atkins went brought word all was safe we then went home found Cap. Thornton Edwards Coldwell and my familly in the utmost fears, being (by then) advised to quit the house. Got Mr Gaisford and a Gard from Robinson’s and arrived Mrs Mawhood and Self at Finchley at 11 O’Ck gave the Gard 2/6. Gaisford Sleept at Finchley, everyone robd on the road but ourselves’

10 May 1785

‘at breakfast I spoke before them all that Chas should stay to his Sister, So youre all to be Old Maids, and I an Old bacheldor for my father will not give us more than Maria had &c &c I told the Girles that I wished them not to give Eares to his nonsince as he wanted Everything himself that my design was to Settle everyone on an Equal footing provided they married with my approbation, to which the Girles were satisfied, Chas left us abruptly and said he would speak to me when I came down into the Shop: he did so. and his discource displeased me much, I attacked him aboute the Maid Servt and his familiarities which he acknowledgd but denied that he had any camel knowledge of her he said if he married all his Attention should be to his Wife, and that he would still have his own will so far as not to do what I ordered, if he thought otherwise than I did, he said would go and speak to the Bishop I told him he had better leave the affair to me that I was to call by Appointment as next Sunday, but least I should trick him just before dinner he did call on the Bishop, and at his return he called me into the Counting house and told me the Bishop said his Neice’s affections were fixt on some other person Dory and Bett drank Tea with Mr & Mrs Lynch Chas behaved as usual, but rather grave he Stayed at home the Even’

4 July 1785

‘Mr Creighton called At 12 o’Ck and said he had been at Burfords several days and that he had heard Son Wm Ship is arrived at Halifax, he dined with us altho he wished to be Excused because Mr Jno Burford was in Town, and he had promissed to dine there, therefore he went away as soon as he had Dined and said he would call to drinking Tea at 5 o’Ck but as I mentioned that Dory Bett and Lucy was to Drink Tea at Mrs Coxs highgate he then said hed calld on tuesday when he should See the Ladies I told him I should be in town toMorrow on which he again promised to call at 5 this day; at 1/2 past 4 Mr Burford Servant called with their and Mr Creightons Compliments but that as Burfords dined so late he could not come, at 1/4 after 8 Burfords and Creighton all came by our house on horseback with their great Dog and another, and as I happened to open our gate at that instant our Dog Popp flew on theirs and their Dog Bitt popp on his Leg Mr and Mrs Burfords make no Appology but Creighton rode up to the gate and did, I cut him very short saying my Dog was to blaim and shut the gate’

Patients becoming hysterical

‘Yesterday evening was really frightening. The air-raid siren went off at eight o’clock, just as we were giving the patients their supper. The anti-aircraft guns immediately began firing very close by. Then suddenly there was a huge burst of thunder and the sound of breaking glass. I was in the women’s ward at the time, and the patients immediately began shouting and groaning, many of them becoming hysterical.’ This is from a diary kept by Lena Mukhina - born 100 years ago today - during the early months of the Siege of Leningrad. She was only 16 at the time, but the diary is said ‘to paint a picture of a city reeling from the impact of war and the struggle of its innocent, defenceless inhabitants for survival’.

Mukhina was born on 21 November 1924 in Ufa, some 1,000 km to the east of Moscow. In the early 1930s, she moved with her mother to Leningrad. There she experienced the first six months of the Nazi siege, part of the time working in a hospital. In June 1942, she was allowed to leave on a special train carrying evacuees to Kotelnich in the Kirov Oblast. But, somehow, she ended up in Gorky where she began a milling apprenticeship at a factory training school. It was not until the autumn of 1945 that she returned to Leningrad, and there she enrolled at the school of art and industry. Three years later she graduated with a degree in mosaics. After only a few weeks as a mosaic artist, and a spell working in a mirror factory, she was made redundant, and headed for Moscow to return to the flour milling industry.

In 1950, Mukhina became a labourer at the Southern Kuzbass thermal power station, rising quickly to become a designer - for the organisation’s slogans, displays etc. However, by 1952, she was working at the Kuntsevo Mechanical Works, where she remained for 15 years, mostly in the branding department. Before retiring due to ill health, she worked as a painter of designs on fabrics at the Kuntsevo Factory of Artistic Haberdashery, and as a homeworker for the Soviet Army factory. She died in 1991.

Mukhina is only remembered today because of a diary she kept for a year, partly during the Siege of Leningrad. This was donated anonymously to a state archive in 1962, only to be rediscovered half a century later by Sergei Yarov. It was edited and printed in Russian (2012) before being translated into English by Amanda Love Darragh - published by Macmillan in 2015 as The Diary of Lena Mukhina. Some pages of the English edition can be previewed at Googlebooks, while the full work can be read freely at Internet Archive (with log-in).

The following paragraph comes from the editors and authors of a foreward (Valentin Kovalchuk, Aleksandr Rupasov and Alexsandr Chistikov): ‘This diary, written by sixteen-year-old Leningrad schoolgirl Elena (Léna) Mukhina and miraculously preserved from that dreadful era, gives us a human insight into the last days of peace and the first days of war. With astonishing candour and a mix of childish naivety and adult wisdom, it paints a picture of a city reeling from the impact of war and the struggle of its innocent, defenceless inhabitants for survival. The obvious talent of the writer captures our attention from the very first pages, swiftly drawing us in and holding us in a constant state of suspense as we experience the tragedy and heroism of ordinary, everyday people, on whom nations are built and by whom history is both made and recorded.’

4 October 1941
‘I haven’t written for such a long time. But today I feel an urge to write. Dear God, what are they doing to us, to my fellow Leningraders and me?

I’m working in the hospital wing of the Clara Zetkin Institute of Maternity and Infancy Protection. We hospital orderlies work twenty-four-hour shifts: I work from nine in the morning to nine the next morning, then I have a day off until nine the following morning. So I am able to sleep only every other night. It’s very hard, but not unbearable. However when I don’t manage to get any sleep at all, just a few moments dozing in the bomb shelter, then it’s horrendous. For example, now it’s quarter to seven. Between half past seven yesterday evening and six o’clock this morning there were six air raids. Of these, two lasted about three hours, two lasted two hours, and the final two were an hour and a half and an hour. I’m working in a hospital and it’s very hard work, but I’m getting used to it. On the positive side, on days when I’m working I don’t go hungry and I’m entitled to a first category ration card with 400g of bread per day.

I haven’t seen Tamara since we composed that note to Vova and promised to see each other the following day. Yesterday I wrote her a note and asked Rozaliya Pavlovna to give it to Osya, so that he could pass it on to Tamara. So 1 still don’t know anything about the fate of my message to Vova. But I have no regrets about writing to him so abruptly.

During one of the air raids I somehow got talking to Ida Isaevna about friendships between men and women. You can love only one man, but at the same time it is possible to be friends with many men. Ida Isaevna told me that when she was seventeen she was friends with some of the boys she knew, and their friendship is still as strong as ever. Five of them from her class were friends - two girls and three boys.

We’re also two girls - Tamara and I, and three boys - Vova, Misha and Yanya. I don’t know why we aren’t friends. Do the boys treat us badly? No. Are they somehow unsuitable as friends? Again no, on the contrary. They’re exactly the kind of boys it’s good to have as friends. So what’s wrong? I don’t know. But in my opinion, we don’t know how to talk to one another.

It’s a pity, such a pity. In these bleak wartime days we are the only five from our class left in Leningrad. We could be developing lifelong friendships. There’s nobody stopping us. Dima, Emma, Roza, none of the other girls are here. But still!

Tamara and I both have fairly calm temperaments. The boys are also quite reserved. Relations between us feel somehow strained, because we’re so formal with one another. Besides, Yanya is not really like the rest of us. He’s so studious, it’s hard to be friends with someone like that. We would become friends more easily if relations between us were simpler, more straightforward. Like normal relationships between boys and girls. If we were attracted to one another. If they made advances towards us. . . and we resisted.’

18 October 1941
‘Yesterday evening was really frightening. The air-raid siren went off at eight o’clock, just as we were giving the patients their supper. The anti-aircraft guns immediately began firing very close by. Then suddenly there was a huge burst of thunder and the sound of breaking glass. I was in the women’s ward at the time, and the patients immediately began shouting and groaning, many of them becoming hysterical. Anisimov ran in with the duty doctor. Somehow they managed to restore calm. When it had quietened down a little I carried the plates to the canteen with another orderly. They told me I could scrape the leftover kasha out of the pot. I had just started eating when I became aware of a strange noise coming from outside the window - people shouting, and police whistles. I asked one of the nurses what was happening. She reacted with astonishment: “Didn’t you know? There’s a fire out there, across the street. The Karl Marx factory is on fire. Go and have a look.” She took me to the bathroom and drew the curtain to one side, and I saw how bright it was outside, brighter than daylight. Great tongues of flame were shooting up into the sky, and red smoke was swirling all around. Yes, it was an enormous fire at the Karl Marx factory, across the street from our building. I understood straight away what the noise was. It was the sound of firemen working and shouting to one another, fire engines arriving and the droning of the water pumps. They didn’t manage to put the fire out until four o’clock in the morning.

Vladimirova died in the night. They brought a new patient with a head injury and a seventeen-year-old boy with a neck injury, who had been one of the firemen on the roof.’

See also Only Tanya is left.

I pray increase my estate

Robert Woodford, a Northamptonshire lawyer, died all of 370 years ago today. He would surely have been forgotten had it not been for one of his diaries surviving down the centuries through the family, and then finding its way to an Oxford University archive. In print for the first time in 2012, its publisher makes some grand claims: the diary provides a ‘unique insight into the puritan psyche and way of life’; and it is ‘a fascinating source for the study of opposition to the Personal Rule of Charles I’.

Robert Woodford was born in 1606 in Northamptonshire, and educated at Brixworth School. He became a provincial lawyer, and married Hannah Haunch in 1635. They had many children, only a few of whom survived childhood. In 1636, he was elected steward of Northampton. He died on 15 November 1654. There is very little further biographical information available online about Woodford, except at Stephen Butt’s Woodforde family website.

However, Woodford is remembered today because he kept a diary which was passed down through the family for centuries. In 1970, Oliver Heighes Woodforde donated it to New College, Oxford. The diary begins in August 1637 and ends in August 1641, and appears to be the sole survivor of several other, possibly four-year, diaries. It contains 588 pages with approximately 89,000 words. The Diary of Robert Woodford 1637-1641, edited by John Fielding (Camden Fifth Series, Volume 42), was published by Cambridge University Press for The Royal Historical Society in 2012. However, it’s a bit pricey at over £50!

Here is the publisher’s blurb: ‘Woodford’s diary, here published in full for the first time with an introduction, provides a unique insight into the puritan psyche and way of life. Woodford is remarkable for the consistency of his worldview, interpreting all experience through the spectacles of godly predestinarianism. His journal is a fascinating source for the study of opposition to the Personal Rule of Charles I and its importance in the formation of Civil War allegiance, demonstrating that the Popish Plot version of politics, held by parliamentary opposition leaders in the 1620s, had by the 1630s been adopted by provincial people from the lower classes. Woodford went further than some of his contemporaries in taking the view that, even before the outbreak of the Bishops’ Wars, government policies had discredited episcopacy and cast grave doubt on the king's religious soundness. Conversely, he regarded parliament as the seat of virtue and potential saviour of the nation.’

A note inside the diary states: ‘who ever finds this booke (if lost) I pray be sparinge in looking into it, & send it to Robte Woodford at Northampton.’

20 August 1637 [first entry]
‘I prayed alone and I and my deare wife prayed in private this morninge to beseech the Lord for his blessing uppon the sacrament of Baptisme to our poore child this that the inward grace might goe a longe with the outward signe &, and that the Lord would make it an Instrument of some service to him in his Church in time to come and a Comfort to us the parents and surely the Lord hath heard us in m[er]cye we prayed not to be hindred in our sanctifcacon of his Sabath this day & to order Conveniences &. Mr ffisher preached in the morninge, but my hart somewhat heavy Lord p[ar]don my dulnes.’

26 September 1637
‘I would give some present to new Mr Maior but want some money. Lord I pray thee increase my estate in thy due time for the Lords sake Amen.’

10 October 1637
‘my wives breasts sore still with chopping [cracks in skin]. I pray unto the Lord for cure in his time my Clyent Some came to me with this P[ro]vidence’

16 October 1637
‘I was with Mr Bullivant at the George & dranke some wormewood beare, & with Mr Rushworth I was very ill after I had supped oh Lord p[ar]don my fayling & make me very watchfull for the Lords sake Amen.’

7 June 1638
‘The small pox are much in London, but the sicknesse at a very Low ebbe blessed be god though they come hether from many p[ar]tes of the Country that are infected.’

8 June 1638
‘The towne very full of people. Mr Robins fayles to pay me money.’

9 June 1638
‘The Lord doth graciously carry me on through diffcultyes: he is with me in the fire & in the water blessed be his name.’

23 October 1638
‘my deare child is still very sick, but the Lord is able to recover her, I now pr[e]pare for my Journey into the Country to morrow, & prayed for my Comfortable arrival at North[amp]ton & for favor in the eyes of the Maior & Bayleifes there & for presrvacon from the devouringe pestilence’

According to the Woodforde family website: ‘Many members of the Woodforde family have written about their history, from Robert Woodforde in Leicestershire in the 15th Century to the owner of this website in the 21st Century, constituting over five hundred year's of literary work. [. . .] Almost every generation has left diaries. These include Robert Woodforde, the 17th Century puritan of Northamptonshire, his son Dr Samuel Woodforde the Divine and founder of the Royal Society, and of course the Revd James Woodforde [author of Diary of a Country Parson].’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 15 November 2014.

The worst is yet to come

‘We stand at the turn of the year more hopeless and depressed than ever during these unfortunate four and a half years of the World War. In the past, we still saw the possibility of a favorable conclusion to the serious crisis for humanity; today, this glimmer of light is only tiny, barely perceptible. The war is only over in theory; it rages on in an even more terrible form than before. Let us not deceive ourselves; the worst is yet to come.’ This is from the published diaries of Alfred Hermann Fried, an Austrian pacifist born 160 years ago. He is remembered for cofounding the German peace movement, winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and championing the use of Esperanto.

Fried was born in Vienna into a Hungarian-Jewish family on 11 November 1864. He left school aged 15 and started to work in a bookshop. In 1883 he moved to Berlin, where he opened a printing press. It was there that Fried became a steadfast pacifist and befriended Bertha von Suttner. Together, in 1892, they launched the magazine, Die Waffen nieder! (Lay Down Your Arms!) - which from 1899 became Die Friedenswarte (The Peacekeeper). He co-founded the German peace society, and became known for advocating ‘fundamental pacifism,’ peace as the ultimate solution. He wrote and published countless articles in his magazines calling for peace and harmony among nations.

The Hague Peace Conference of 1899 was a turning point in the development of Fried’s philosophy of pacifism. Thereafter, in his appeals to the German intellectual community, he placed more reliance on economic cooperation and political organisation among nations as bases for peace, and less upon limitation of armaments and schemes for international justice. ‘War is not in itself a condition so much as the symptom of a condition, that of international anarchy’, he said. ‘If we wish to substitute for war the settlement of disputes by justice, we must first substitute for the condition of international anarchy a condition of international order.’

Fried was a prominent member of the Esperanto movement, and in 1903 published an Esperanto textbook. In 1909, he collaborated with Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine of the Central Office of International Associations in the preparation of the Annuaire de la Vie Internationale. In 1911 he received the Nobel Peace Prize together with Tobias Asser. At the outbreak of World War I, he moved to neutral Switzerland, and worked continuously for an end to the conflict. After the war, he returned to Austria to continue writing and advocating international peace. He died in 1921. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Nobel Prize website, and the Jewish Virtual Library.

During the war, Fried kept a diary, one which he later published in four volumes as Mein Kriegs-Tagebuch (My War Journal). The diary is available online at Internet Archive and, thanks to a ZIMD digitisation project, at this dedicated website. A short introduction at the latter states: ‘Bernhard Tuider [from the Austrian National Library], who wrote one of the few well-founded works about [Fried’s] war diaries, was fascinated by their power. 1,600 pages about the World War from a man who, as a journalist at the NZZ in neutral Switzerland, worked through up to 50 international newspapers every day. The war diaries are unique in their quality and can be counted as part of the heritage of the world culture of peace.’ However, as far as I can tell, the diary appears only to be available in the origial German.

In the diary, Fried documents his activities and those of colleagues in the peace movement; expresses dissatisfaction with the peace settlement; and details his journalistic campaign against the Versailles Treaty. As a whole, the diary served as a platform for Fried to argue that the war proved the validity of his pacifistic analysis of world politics. A more detailed look at Fried’s diary can be found in an article by Tuider. Moreover, a list of the original diaries is available at the online archive of California.

The following two extracts have been sourced from the digitised files and then translated by Google.

31 December 1915
‘The hopes for peace that were kindled by the article in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung prove to be vain. The proposals are rejected by friend and foe alike. People’s minds are too clouded to be able to see that this is not about the terms of peace at all, but only the beginning of discussions. The tools of reason should only be put into use. That is the main thing.

On the other hand: England, England so proud of its freedoms, is introducing general conscription. This is a step backwards in culture for all, which we owe to this war. And a bad prospect. If England is only now beginning to prepare for a continental war, how long will it last?

In France, the Socialist Congress has passed a resolution in favor of continuing the war until a permanent legal peace is achieved. The resolution was adopted by an enormous majority of 2,736 votes to 76.

These are two events that do not mean peace, but war. The continuation of the war and increased bitterness, increased destruction. Hundreds of thousands of young men are to be sacrificed again. That is the meaning of these two events that conclude the war year of 1915.

Last year I raised the question here whether the terrible war would end on New Year’s Eve this year. ‘For those who can measure the magnitude of the shocks that these five months of war have already brought about, it may seem questionable whether New Year’s Eve 1915 will already descend upon a Europe liberated from war.’ - Questionable. And yet I concluded hopefully with a ‘perhaps.’ It is a solemn seriousness that, after the end of this bloody year, provides the answer to the questioning view of the previous year. And today one dares not look into the future of the new year with the same doubt. Everything that must come is terrible. The slaughter has lasted too long; Europe has been destroyed for too long. Our generation can no longer hope for peace. I conclude my notes for 1915 with a curse on the year that has passed away, on the year that has been stolen from us, with a curse on the insane arrangers of this war.’

31 December 1918
‘A year ago we stood before Brest-Litovsk. Today we stand before Versailles. Is it going to be the same? Is the Entente victors going to repeat the fraud of the German military, who then spoke of a peace without territorial cessions and compensation and then emphasized their ‘power position’ and forced the most shameful peace of conquest? Pichon recently spoke in the French Chamber of the annexation of the Saar region as compensation for the injustice committed against France in 1815. Will they ultimately want to restore the integrity of Troy? The failure of the English elections has strengthened Lloyd George’s power politics. All pacifists and politicians of reconciliation have been defeated. These are elections like the Hottentot elections in Germany in 1912. The new state of the Czechoslovaks was in no way different from Wilhelmine Germany in its early days. The areas of the German-Austrians and Magyars are still being occupied and Czechized. In ultra-German Reichenberg, where the town’s police wore spiked helmets in the Prussian style, the Czech language is being introduced as an official language. The Italians want to hold on to the German territories in Tyrol and are constantly coming into conflict with the South Slavs on the Adriatic. The peace that is about to be concluded and which was originally under the sign of the Wilson program threatens to become a new affirmation of the power principle. There is therefore a danger that it will not be peace again, only a period of truce, interspersed with seeds of conflict that will soon flourish under the expected regime of violence. Is it possible that after this terrible object lesson we are threatened with something like this, that the madness that we thought we had overcome has survived? It is clear that if this is to happen, the efforts of those who want to radically overcome the current situation, who believe that new life can only blossom from the total destruction of this society, will gain strength. The German militarists, in their delusion, were the pioneers and firing guard of Bolshevism. Should the military and the militarily minded politicians of the Entente blindly follow in the footsteps of their Prussian predecessors? - The victory of the principle of force in Versailles would mean the victory of the world revolution in its most radical form. Indeed, it would even leave no other hope that the unbearable pressure of the militarism that will still be maintained after this war will be removed. The people who have the decision to shape the coming peace agreement take on a great responsibility. It depends on them whether the institution of war is eliminated by a rational decision or whether its elimination is achieved through decades of terrible bloodbath in the civil war.

We stand at the turn of the year more hopeless and depressed than ever during these unfortunate four and a half years of the World War. In the past, we still saw the possibility of a favorable conclusion to the serious crisis for humanity; today, this glimmer of light is only tiny, barely perceptible. The war is only over in theory; it rages on in an even more terrible form than before. Let us not deceive ourselves; the worst is yet to come.’