art – Ken Tracey

The nostalgia magazine, ‘Best of British,’ brought to my notice The Francis Frith Collection of photographs. The collection includes pictures of the towns and villages of the UK and Ireland dating from 1860. A massive and interesting record of the past. It is easy to search for your home town/ county and places of interest on their website www.francisfrith.com

Francis Frith (1822-1898), born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, became a successful businessman and photographer. Photography grew to be a passion leading him to travel abroad, particularly to Egypt and the Middle East to record the interesting and unusual.

Back home his interest turned to the towns and villages of the UK. His mission became to photograph every town and village. He set out to do this himself, but the immensity of the project led him to hire photographers to help. His collection interested visitors and tourists and led to the establishment a successful post card company.

After Frith’s death his family continued running the business until 1971 when a photography historian, Bill Jay, saved the collection by convincing Rothmans of Pall Mall of its importance. They purchased the collection, so we are able to look back today on the Francis Frith Collection.

The historical value is enhanced by the written memories of visitors to the website. Old photographs stir memories and prompt folk to post them. A picture of Liverpool’s long gone Overhead Railway-demolished when I was still at school- brought back a ride I had on it. See my post. A Sad Sight. – a nostalgic memory of Liverpool

If you can’t remember whether the empty store in your High Street was ‘Woolworths’ or ‘C&A’s’, there could be a photograph to help you.

Winston Churchill was born 150 years ago on 30 November 1874. The Royal Mail has issued 8 stamps to celebrate this anniversary. Each bears one of the famous quotes from the great writer and lover of the English Language.

A few years after Churchill resigned as prime minister in 1955, our English master thankfully chose, (above some tired classics), his autobiography, ‘My Early Life,’ for us to study for ‘O’ Level English Literature. It read like a ‘Boys Own’ adventure with stories of; soldiering for The British Empire, the Boar War as a journalist and escaping from a P.O.W. camp. He’d crammed a lot into his first 25 years. In our mid-teens we wondered what our first 25 years would bring. (Well, there was a disappointing start, when I failed English Literature.) Studying this book changed my view of him from a defunct prime minister to a swashbuckling hero who had problems at school like us 1960s kids.

When I visited his impressive home, Chartwell in Kent, I admired the extensive boundary walls that he had built. He laid so many bricks that he became an accomplished bricklayer and was allowed to join their union. Having found time to watch massive quantities of bricks being laid during my career in the construction industry, I appreciated his hard-won skill.

Appearing in puppet form on ‘Spitting Images,’ is a nod to his enduring popularity and would probably have amused him. Now the show is over and the puppets have been auctioned off, Churchills fetched £1000.

The man himself was no puppet. He was self-confident, powerful, and assertive, traits that made him unpopular with many. He certainly put his stamp on history and in a recent BBC poll was voted ‘The Greatest Briton of all Time.’

He lives on in the form of a puppet in Paul Jackson’s WW2 puppet show – follow the link.

The Cast – 1945

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The Changing Face of Britain

No Puppet