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Hello, hello everybody and Thanks very much for having me back. It's nice to see everybody and I hope that you're going to find this evening interesting and and open your eyes to the character of the British theatre.

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That international theatre, who isn't particularly well known, although we should be. And has lots of theatrical connections.

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But is, is somebody who isn't celebrated perhaps as he ought to be? Perhaps some of the things that I'm going to say about it might explain that as we go.

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Yeah, that's getting to it. So Hey, Edward Gordon Craig. And.

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As you can see, I mean.

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He straddles an incredible range of the world from kind of late Victorian writing to the sixties.

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I mean, he was, he was acquainted with Olivier and and Kenneth Tynan at the beginning of the National Theatre.

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At the same time as being God send to Henry Irving and being a being part of the the coaching changes that were going on in British theatre at the end of the Victorian period as well.

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So it is quite a range that he covers.

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It's good to go there. So he was born in Stevenage. The theatre in Stevenage carried his name.

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And he was born to an and Terry. Now Ellen Terry was you know a remarkable and outstanding actress for her period.

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She was probably one of the first women to to become an actress. And be regarded as respectable.

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For the first time and she was a kind of partnered for much of her performing career with Henry Irving and their names are very much associated with each other.

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His father was Edward Godwin, who was a talented architect and furniture and costume designer, which is how he met Ellen Terry.

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But what was remarkable about him was that he was incredibly good in many. And he was very wealthy.

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And the, Terry herself was quite good with money, but the rest of her family was really poor with it and she had lots of hangers on an offspring that she needed to look after.

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And so Marion Godwin was, was kind of a dynastic decision. He was not a particularly good father.

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He was quite a distant father. He had some very odd ideas about the raising of children. I mean odd for the time I suppose.

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And he thought that the children should be raised kind of gender neutral. That he's, his son, Edward and his daughter Edith should be raised with the same kind of toys.

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And that they shouldn't be mollicoddled, that they shouldn't have too much sugar in their diet, which was extraordinary because Teddy as he was known when he was a little boy, was a fat little fellow and was very rarely seen without a biscuit in one hand and a pencil in the other because his passion for drawing and sketching which was to follow him and wrote him around for the

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whole of his life. Starting when he was very young.

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And he was born Edwin William Godwin and he adopted the name Craig. In his early teens.

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Because his, the marriage between Terry and Godwin broke down and she married again to another wealthy man.

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And, he had the delightful surname of Wardle. And both Edward and Edith decided that they didn't like this and they were taken on a trip to Scotland.

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We're Henry Irving and with Bram Stoker who was the author of Dracula who was also another member of the friend of the family and while they were there they saw Al Sir Craig.

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And, the, you know, the rather dramatic rock that rises out of the the air sheer coast.

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And Edie remarked, oh that would be a great stage name. And then she discovered that somebody else was called was already on the on the station was called Els.

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Craig so she couldn't use it. But they then both adopted the name Craig and they both stuck with it for the rest of their lives.

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I think it was partly an attempt to to distance themselves from the Terry dynasty, but also to distance themselves from their stepfather, William Wardle.

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And making sure that they were firmly still attached to to the whole idea of something theatrical. So it was on that particular rock that they founded their careers.

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It was inevitable perhaps that although Ellen Terry resisted it that. Eventually that Edward would go on the stage and she went he went to work with Henry Irving who he regarded as the father he never had.

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And he spoke of him with such affection, throughout his life and, always regards to him as it is the main tool that he should have had and didn't have.

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And he had his training under Henry Irving as part of the innovative Lyceum Company who were making such a difference to the whole kind of view of the way things should be performed and making an enormous difference to that particular part of of the yeah of the world at the time.

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And While Stalin had refused to have him on stage when he was a child, although there were several people who said it would have been a good thing.

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He took to being on the stage and the whole theatrical world very much like a doctor water. There seems to have been something genetic in this drawer towards the theatre that the entire family felt because at the same time, Edith also joined the company.

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Edith was like his older sister and they were all part of this this kind of fluid group that swirled around the Lyceum that included Henry Irving.

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I've already mentioned Brand Stoker, George Burt Shaw comes on the scene. And at 1 point, the Lyceum was also haunted by a young poet called, Thomas Sterns, Elliot.

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And so they were all there. Oh, sort of having this effect and impact on the Lyceum.

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And it means that, Craig is part of this incredible dynasty that the tene, it's a Terry family are.

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So you've got there these these photographs of the family and it is connected to Edie who is the is that related to John Geilgud and, Makes, Edward Gordon great John Geilgud's cousin.

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And again, he had some, experience, his very, very young days with working with Henry Irving and this this incredible ICM company.

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I also just wanted to mention, the portrait that is on the, on the fast far left of the image there which is Ellen Terry is leading at Beth and this stress this incredible dress, is very famous as a piece of theatrical costume.

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And it is the kind of jewels on it are made up rather horrifically from lots and lots of wings of beetles.

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And if you want to see the dress it still exists it's on display in Ellen Terry's home in small hive in Kent, which is a fascinating place and she has our own little theatre at the back.

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Yoga took advice from Craig. When he was, starting out because at that point that Craig was, you know, become, become something of an old man of the theatre and people knew that he had he had connections.

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So the kind of whole family comes together. And these other women are, Geilgud's mother who was also on the stage, in the centre is the young and Terry herself and the woman on the left hand side of Craig.

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That's Edie, his sister.

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So he starts. Moving away. From acting because this draw to create. Design and pattern and considering this whole process he he became really interested in the visuals of the theatre.

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He was also one of these people who found it very difficult to, to take orders.

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And such people very rarely stay as actors, they very often become directors. And you realize that was kind of the way that he wanted to go.

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But design was his first love and he started, creating images without having any commission for them. For plays just of his imagination for them for plays just of his imagination.

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So this image that's on the right, just of his imagination. So this image that's on the right here, this is his first design.

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And it was for Romeo and Juliet a play that was playing at the ICC and at that particular time and he was kind of experimenting with the idea.

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And over time he started to become introverted or interested in the idea of directing and controlling the whole of the look.

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Of something and he was starting to move away. I mean you can see the hints of it here in the image for Romeo and Juliet.

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It's not a great reproduction, but you can see what he's interested in there is colour in light.

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There's not a lot of stuff on the stage is very few properties there that are going to get in the way of the action.

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And it's the start of him trying to think about the idea that the set itself Should you reflect the emotions and the themes of the play rather than something which is more kind of, this is the location.

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He also became very interested in woodcuts and he was from, 1897. When he, really kind of took off, he was making woodcuts throughout his life and he gave some of the wise presents and some of them he sold, he had exhibitions all over all over the Europe.

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Of this artwork that he did. And he met these friends, his mother to the Becker stars who lived in a house that actually Craig lived in a city for a time.

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That they were renting for Ellen Terry, she became bit of a property magnet and putting her money that she earned from the stage into various property deals and then rented the night and that's what kind of what kept the family afloat.

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And these are some examples of her of his woodcuts, and it is fantastical, ideas and, images with all the different textures and it seems that this was kind of something that he would do almost like a doodle when he was thinking about something else.

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And these are 2 examples from the, from a book you wrote called Craig's Book of Mechanical Toys and they are designed to intended to be for children.

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And you can see from the simplicity of them how attracted they would be to a child. They would particularly use particularly thinking of one special child in his life at the time.

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And, This, these images, produce this, little book that was, a quite popular and appeared in quite a few nurseries.

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In Edward in England at the time.

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And then, lots and lots and lots of children. I mean these, this is just a list of the children that, that he kind of acknowledged.

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He was the lover of many, many women and some of them, some of them simultaneously. He married May Gibson.

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And divorced her.

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But at the same time as he was married to Jessica, he was also seeing Elena Mayo, he got involved with Isadora Duncan, more of which in a second, and he had a relationship with a woman called Dorothy Nevilles and he ended his life living with a woman called Daphne Woodward.

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Yeah, this is kind of huge range of women and they were kind of lots of other individual women that we've managed to attract them with apparent ease.

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It did not seem to be something that he had difficulty in and, what he did have difficulty appears to be, hanging on to them.

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He was not somebody who when he was he was with somebody who was kind of all about the chase I think.

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And the image on the right, this is, is, a, Dr, and they're, child, who was It was unfortunately called Deirdre.

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She was she was known as it when she was a when Isadora was pregnant as topsy and within the family she was known as Topsy and after the character in Uncle Ben, in Uncle Tom's Cabby.

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Who didn't have any parents but she just greed and groomed. This was the this was the little girl.

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And also possibly Jess's daughter. Kitty who had with the children's book was written for.

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I want you to say a little bit about, because she and she has a profound influence on,

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Craig and his career. He, they met at a point in his career when, he, she was, she was everywhere.

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She was, she become a household name for the extraordinary, strangeness of her dancing and for the scantiness of her clothing.

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And also for for her own kind of slightly risky lifestyle. And. He was, in Germany at the time.

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He had been invited there to come and consider doing some work. They had seen the projection of his which was called the Vikings which had failed in Britain but had kind of very extraordinary in overtones and he was invited to come to Berlin to investigate whether or not he might do some work for designing some sets there.

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And while he was there he was introduced to Isadore Duncan who was, who was performing there at the time.

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And who was recommended by his friend WB Yates, the poet, to go and see her perform.

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And he wasn't very keen. He didn't think he didn't think he'd be impressed at all.

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And then when he saw her, and he was completely It goes away. He said she was full of natural genius.

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She was speaking her own language, telling to the air the very things we longed to hear and until she came we'd never dreamed we should hear and now we heard them I sat stealing was speechless.

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And they went to lunch with each other the following day and in a very short time they had become lovers and they were a partner together.

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And she then kind of basically took him with her where she went all over Europe. And you know she kept she was a kept man for about for at least 2 years while she followed him around.

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And at which point she came, she became pregnant. And that meant that she couldn't dance for a while.

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And the whole issue about the finances became very difficult. He was trying to get himself a established in.

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In Florence at the time. And all of these things became very difficult. And eventually they separated, they came back together again and then they separated.

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And all this time he was still seeing other women and he became involved with the Eleanor Did Show the Italian actress who he thought was amazing.

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But he was really, he was able to use the time that he was with his Isadora Duncan.

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To and start to develop his own. Ideas about what it was that he wanted for a set.

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So these are kind of a kind of couple of examples of the sort of thing that was existing at the time.

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So. The image on the left is, the Moscow Art Theatre Company's, for the seagull, which the first scene, if you know it takes place outside in a garden where there is a platform outside in a garden where there is a platform has been created for a small stage.

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And you can see the amount of detail that there is there. The same with the image on the right hand side, which is a woodcut.

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Of. Irving's Lysian version of King Lear. You can see that's good Cordelia in the center and again this sense of kind of huge magnitude of these big big Candelaba at the back.

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Lots and lots of detail about the place. Good night, not so much detail about the

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About the play and the emotions that are taking place. So. Departing from, Duncan.

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He, sets himself up in, in Florence. And establishes a theatre school data design.

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Starts publishing a magazine which is called the Mask, which was, the very first Real theatre magazine actually, I mean there was a lot of design material in it but he got people to write articles for it about the nature of theater, the nature of acting, and it was extremely popular amongst the people particular.

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People. Who were kind of considering how theater might develop at this point. One of the issues of course was the beginning, the rise of photography and of course eventually cinema and how theater could compete with that and this was something else that he was tapping into.

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He was travelling all over Europe and directing and designing wherever he could. And one of his big breaks was a production of Rommel, who was the Pro, probably the kind of film.

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Italian equivalent to Sarah Bernhardt. She was like Ellen Terry. She was incredibly famous and to have her commission him to make designs for her.

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It was a real coup for Craig. He had she did ask him to produce designs for a version of Elektra.

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That she was planning, which never actually came off, but she did manage to, to take the robbers on.

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And it was first produced in Florence with this incredible set. Which was extraordinary because Ibsen describes in his Play script, a dining room is the set for the opening of the play with the range table and certain chairs he talks about the kind of color is the walls.

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He's quite specific about what he wants. And Craig ignored all of that. He created a set of flats that were painted with brilliant colors.

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He got house painters to do it. And that could kind of graduated into in from one to the other.

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And they looked extraordinary. And you say was very pleased with them and the play was very successful. So successful in fact that she decided she was going to take it on tour.

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And, she, took it to, to NICE in France. And, when it was there, it was just after Isidore Duncan had given birth to, to the child that, she and Craig were having and they were in Leyden in Germany and Duncan insisted that Craig should go to see the production in Nice.

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And when he got there, he, through the most massive temper tantrum because the the owner of the theater in order to make the set fit had chopped 2 feet off the bottom which had ruined the proportions of this carefully graduated color.

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And he hid the roof. He didn't, go to the theater manager.

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He went to, to, and they had an enormous row. And they had an enormous row and the play was cancelled.

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And they would work together again. This kind of attention to detail is kind of a very great challenge for for Craig throughout his life.

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So his next plan was, and he was writing notes for this all the time he was travelling all over Europe, particularly when you went traveling with Duncan, was that he was thinking about his theory of theater.

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And he produced this book called On the Art of Theatre, which like a number of books on theater at the time.

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And where it takes dialogue. It owed something to Greek. Theater and like, Sam, islasky, he also did a, a book, We did very similar title.

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Where it was the discussion between an experienced actor and a young actor. And Craig's dialogue is between the Play Go and a stage director.

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So he was really interested in the audience as much as he was in what was going on stage. And he argues in the book that He, that it's not the plane right that makes a play.

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It is the performers. Hey, bring the thing to to life. And you can see why that as a philosophy might be something that people might kind of match onto.

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The other thing that he talks about extensively is that audiences are now at a stage at the beginning of the twentieth century.

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Starting to go to the theatre to see a play rather than to hear it. No, those you know your Shakespeare will know that Shakespeare always talks about people hearing plays.

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Hamlet refers to it. It's part of the, pro log to Henry the fifth kind to, hear our play.

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And we know that the best seats in the house in Shakespeare's globe were those that were closest to the stage so you could hear better.

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Craig, argued that that was not no longer the case. The audiences were going to the theatre because they wanted to see something.

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They wanted to see something that was interesting. And that was different to what they might get in their everyday lives.

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And it was this was kind of before its time because this was the argument that was starting to be put in place by the time we get to the sixtys.

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And with the the famous Peter Hall version of Midsummer Night's Dream, he's saying what we theater can't reproduce real life exactly.

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Even though we're talking about a period when writers were trying to do that precisely that. With in Moscow and, people like, in Ireland, all trying to reproduce real life.

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And Craig is saying, no, no, we can't do that. And Craig is saying, no, no, we can't do that because c is saying, no, no, we can't do that because cylinder is going to end up doing that.

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It's not what the audience is going to end up doing that. It's not what the audience are going to come to the theater to see.

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They want to come to the theatre to see. They want to come to see something that is more reflective of a theatrical nature.

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And he's setting the stall out was something that was really important to him.

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And he was trying to reflect it in his, in his own work.

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And he, He was really interested in the role of the actor. And he was getting to a stage when he wasn't sure whether or not the actors were going to be useful.

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But the, the art of the theater came into the hands of Constantine's, Lasky, the grandaddy of naturalistic and performance.

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And, It's time, he was always interested in new ideas, so we invited. Craig to come to Moscow to direct a version of Hamlet.

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At the, where he developed this. This set of portable folding hinge screens that can be used, this set of portable folding hinge screens that can be used, the set of portable folding hinge springs that can be used, to manipulate through the, through all the different locations that were in the play.

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And of course if you think, man, that's kind of common thing on a lot of modern stages, this whole idea of hinge screens, the flats that can be moved into different ways.

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There is a whole set of things which are called teriyactyls. Which are kind of like upright total rates and you paint a scene on each one of the 3 sides.

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This was, these were his designs. And you can see here these, this is no attempt to make it look like a castle.

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Certainly no attempt to make it look like a medieval castle, but what you've got is tall columns where people can be hidden behind.

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You've got a sense of perspective of things going off into the distance. And the image on the left hand side is how it looked in performance.

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So lots of access for the actors and lots of opportunity to make images on stage, which of course was something that was going to become an enormous deal.

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By the time we get to the second half of the set of the twentieth century. Is completely different to those images that we looked at before from the the Lyceum where it was Victorian, Victorian, over the top.

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Nature's things.

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Bye this time he's pretty much separated from Duncan and they he's moved back towards one of the other women is approached.

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He's become involved with other people and he's settled more or less permanently as he's the kind of his home base in Italy.

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He's very much grown to, to begin with. To listening and fascism. Which of course is something that was very common for an awful lot of people at the time.

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And he becomes involved in a woman called youels who it became actually something of a war hero after partying for and from Craig and she she she she she kind of glory night and then he moved on realizing that it was not gonna be a safe place to be.

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He then moved back to England and became involved with a woman called Dafne. We looked after him in his last days.

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He circulated himself between London and Paris. His legacy is enormous. It's very difficult to calculate exactly how how much influence he has on modern design this because it can be seen in everywhere that he was.

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I'm in his own time, he was He influenced. And lots of Exactly, and who himself is extremely influential in a great many, modern, who himself is extremely influential in a great many modern theater practitioners, Peter Brook.

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Like, mentioned, to speak something like stream. Who was a Polish practitioner of theatre just after the Second World War and Groteski came up with this idea for something which is called Poor Theatre.

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And the idea of poor theatre was that it was about storytelling and it was about the actors telling the story.

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And it was kind of made out of necessity because this was in trying to make theater in Poland and there wasn't any money.

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So they created something that was very simplistic. And Craig's idea of, flats and folding.

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Screens that have been put into practice in the Moscow Arts Theatre and also instantly very successfully at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.

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Kind of appealed to that poor theatre notion. And Maya Holt who had a great influence on better brick.

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:46.000
I'm also interested in the idea of creating a sense of. A world that is a themed world rather than a world that, had anything to do with

00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:56.000
We the realities of the situation. And his idea that he, that the theatre should be movement-based.

00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:09.000
And should be in on some group experience. Has an enormous influence on modern device theater and companies such as the to complicity, like by Simon, and DV 8.

00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:15.000
I'm gonna look at some of their images of their work. And nowadays it's almost a given.

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:35.000
That. All of the areas that are that go to make up a production are all connected together and that one of the ideas that we we have is that a director when they take on a play is actually considering every aspect.

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:49.000
Of the performance and very often designs it themselves or works with the same designer who understands them. And from that grows the ideas of the way it looks and the way it's sounds.

00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:55.000
Incidentally, Craig was also one of the first designers. To move away from having footlights at the front of the stage and use lighting from above and from the sides of the stage.

00:31:55.000 --> 00:32:06.000
To make the image much more richer so that you can see the whole of the body so you can see the face more accurately.

00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:16.000
And if you think about how you would light a face from below. What you're gonna get is that kind of.

00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:31.000
Campsite campfire ghost storytelling. Approach and that's kind of the effect that footlights have and what Craig was able to do by projecting for, particularly in light above and below.

00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:35.000
And of course this has to do with technology. We've now got, we're not talking about an age when theatrical lights have become electric.

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:44.000
And made it possible to try and do something a little bit more interesting like this.

00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:57.000
So what you see here is Craigian base design that rather than using flats and design and and folding screens is using light instead.

00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:04.000
Interestingly, if this is another, and this is another design for King.

00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:17.000
It also had a profound influence on dance. And you can see references to this time that Craig spent with Isidore Duncan in a lot of his writing.

00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:34.000
The idea that you can tell a story through movement to the idea that you can if you put lights on the side of the stage so it's crossing in front of the crossing the middle of the body then you can see the dancers much more clearly.

00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:46.000
You can see every move and nuance of what they're doing. And it all seems to stem from his interest in dance that is provoked by this this relationship he had with is a Dora Duncan.

00:33:46.000 --> 00:33:55.000
And the relationship was, intermittent and was of course eventually got to the end by to begin with, Deirdre, Topsy, the little girl.

00:33:55.000 --> 00:34:17.000
She died when she was 2. And left, Duncan bereft. Because she you know she really loved the child and then shortly after that of course Danka herself was killed in a very strange accident where she was wearing, a scarf.

00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:25.000
And the scarf was tangled around the tires of a car and she was strangled. There is a name for it.

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:31.000
There is apparently it's common enough to have a nickname that it should be the Isidore Duncan syndrome.

00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:43.000
And who knew? But this is the thing, that this influence of dance and movement on Craig's work seems to have stayed with him.

00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:52.000
So here is some more examples. And the one on the right, again, you can see What you've got is a sense of place.

00:34:52.000 --> 00:35:01.000
That you can see kind of roughly that this is a sort of It's, you know, it's outdoor, it's, pretty rough weather.

00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:07.000
It's, pretty rough weather. It's a road with a gate on it. But there is also a sense of mood.

00:35:07.000 --> 00:35:20.000
And there is, flexibility. That it is much more about giving something of sense for the actors to work against rather than to work in front of.

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:31.000
And the image that's on the left, this is from a work of by deviate called John and you can actually see here these folding screens that they are using.

00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:45.000
I don't know if you can see here this is second actor. And down in the, on the, kind of to, to the right hand side the picture and he's pushing the screens around as is the actor on the left.

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:54.000
And the place called John and everybody in it is representing the same character. And they're folding these screens to make different kind of cells.

00:35:54.000 --> 00:36:09.000
Where the action is taking place. And you could see Craig's influence very strongly in this. And strong colours, you can see the back of these things and you can also see that portability of them.

00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:19.000
Deviate work in a very physical style as well, so they need lots of space in order to be able to.

00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:26.000
To make the thing work to make the thing move around.

00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:29.000
Let's try.

00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:40.000
Whilst we're on the subject of legacy, there is, in Can end the OSPCC, and the society for theatrical research.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:42.000
And Rada holds a lecture. And Rada holds a lecture at their headquarters in London holds a lecture at their headquarters in London every year, at their headquarters in London every year which is the Gordon Craig Memorial Lecture which is talking about.

00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:48.000
It's in London every year, which is the Gordon Craig Memorial Lecture, which is talking about theatre design.

00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:52.000
And last year the talk was about designed for Panto, the image at the top of the screen there is an example.

00:36:52.000 --> 00:37:12.000
The the discussion that they're having that kind of the high level of panto design that there is now and then it is open to probably I haven't been able to find out yet.

00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:18.000
It's usually in June. I haven't been able to find out yet what the topic is for this year, but there certainly will be one.

00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:25.000
It is quite rarefied. I mean, I say it's open to the public, but you know, it is very much design, it, it, the design is talking to the designers.

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:37.000
So, it's not necessarily for everybody, but you know, it is something that is talking to these designers.

00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:43.000
So, it's not necessarily for everybody, but you know, it's just something to anybody who is interested in such things.

00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:49.000
Yeah.

00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:57.000
And that's where I'm going to end. Now I think, I'm sure this kind of lots of thoughts and questions that are buzzing around.

00:37:57.000 --> 00:37:58.000
Hmm.

00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:03.000
I should also mention, I think I've got it here. I hope it's all right, Fiona.

00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:08.000
That the next course I will be running for the WAA is about being an audience member, but an informed one.

00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:24.000
So it will include discussions about set design. And lighting but also theatrical slang so you can say so you know what you're talking about and sound like you're you're part of the the theatrical world.

00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:44.000
But I will also be talking about things like the role of the director and the role of characters that you might not understand whether they're there and kind of new developments like intimacy coordinators and black out shows and other things that are also part of that.

00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:49.000
So if you're further interested in in knowing a little bit more about the world of the theater without actually being on the stage.

00:38:49.000 --> 00:39:00.000
Then maybe this is a course she might be interested in.

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:07.000
Okay, and thanks very much for that. I will, and go straight into some questions and everybody out there.

00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:08.000
Not sharing something.

00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:12.000
Keep sending your questions in because we've got, we've got plenty time. So let's start at the top.

00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:25.000
I've got a couple of questions that are roll together, I think. One from Jan and one from Miranda.

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:26.000
Yeah.

00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:28.000
So. You talked quite early on about the LCM company. I don't know if you could tell us a little bit more about the Lysine company, but was it?

00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:39.000
And Miranda was also asking, is the Lyceum? And the same place as the one in London of the same name or is it something different?

00:39:39.000 --> 00:39:46.000
No, it's exactly that one. It's that same theatre, the Lyceum in London, which is now I think the home of the Lion King.

00:39:46.000 --> 00:39:47.000
Hello.

00:39:47.000 --> 00:40:01.000
It's, just off the strand very close to Bush House. And yes, it's the, it was bought by Henry Irving.

00:40:01.000 --> 00:40:14.000
And the whole idea was that he would set up this company. So that he could, Explore theatre in the way that he wanted to explore it and also to.

00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:19.000
To really. Be the stage star that he wanted to be.

00:40:19.000 --> 00:40:36.000
Up until that point, he was obviously dependent on people employing him. And that meant that he was limited, so he didn't always necessarily get the roles that he wanted.

00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:44.000
And he, He was very interested in doing big ranches and he was most famous for kind of gothic drama.

00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:54.000
There was a play called The Bells that was inspired by a Charles Dickens story. Which is very, has a very similar plot to, Christmas Carol.

00:40:54.000 --> 00:41:00.000
Of a man who is, he is not as nice as he ought to be, who hears the bells.

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:11.000
Of the church telling him to be behave themselves. And, the, performance of it was kind of, it was the smash hit at the time.

00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:17.000
You know, when people talk about, oh, you must go and see Kenyan Murphy in Oppenheimer.

00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:23.000
Henry Irving was doing that. And you know, people would go say, oh, she's seen it and people would go back over and over to see him.

00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:32.000
He was not a very big man when people met him in person they were always kind of a bit surprised.

00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:39.000
How little and how unprepossessing he was. But he had a very big notion of himself.

00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:43.000
If you're interested, I mean, I'll give the information to Fiona.

00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:52.000
There's a really great book by Michael Holroyd. And called a strange and eventful history which talks about the lies of Henry Irving and Ellen Terry and their both their remarkable families.

00:41:52.000 --> 00:42:00.000
It's huge, it's a massive thing. I've got it just here because I was quoting from it.

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:05.000
You can see it's huge, but it's really, really very good. And it's quite, really very good and it's quite readable.

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.000
So if you want to know more about Henry Irving, then that's a good place to start.

00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:15.000
Hmm. Okay, I hope that answers your questions, and Miranda and actually there's a supplementary question from Jan.

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:23.000
So is the Sheffield Lyceum, a copy of the name or originally the same company?

00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:24.000
Okay.

00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:28.000
I would imagine it's a copy of the name because it was so It was so.

00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:34.000
Successful that I mean it would depend on is it how old is the lysine in Sheffield.

00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:37.000
I would imagine it's probably, an homage rather than, being connected to the company.

00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:46.000
I don't know of any offshoots that Henry Irving had, he was very much a Londoner.

00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:47.000
Hmm.

00:42:47.000 --> 00:42:55.000
I mean he did tour but it was very much based in London. And the term ICM itself is, is obviously stolen from Roman theatre originally.

00:42:55.000 --> 00:43:02.000
Hmm. And also from Judith, the Gordon Craig Theatre and Stevenage while we're on the on the subject of actual buildings.

00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:04.000
It's a modern building. Named for him or founded by him.

00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:09.000
Yes. Named for him.

00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:16.000
Okay, there you go, Janice. Okay, let's move on. You talked about the mask magazine.

00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:17.000
Yes.

00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:23.000
And how long did that run for and does it carry on after he had passed on.

00:43:23.000 --> 00:43:33.000
No, it didn't. I mean, he sold it. Onto a publishing company. After about 10 years.

00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:51.000
That's one of that's if you want that number I'll need to put that give that out afterwards because I need to check that I don't want to give you in inaccurate information that he worked on it for about 10 years and eventually It was much more interested in making theatre, so he then moved on with it.

00:43:51.000 --> 00:44:02.000
But it was successful enough that Publishing House paid him to take it off his hands.

00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:09.000
Okay. There we go, Kevin. From David.

00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:23.000
Why is Gordon Craig's married life in affairs relevant to his artistic design flare? So I guess that is, is there a link between the 2 and you suppose you did touch on a little bit in terms of his relationship with Isadora Duncan.

00:44:23.000 --> 00:44:31.000
It's not, I mean, apart from the Isadora Duncan link, which I think I was, I was, I hope I was kind of making clear.

00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:32.000
Hmm.

00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:35.000
Is that he?

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:50.000
If you read a great deal about him, what you find is that he bounces. Around getting away from these various women which takes him to places where he he has the opportunity to explore other things.

00:44:50.000 --> 00:45:02.000
The is probably the only really artistic relationship. That he has. But the other thing that happens with the other women is they're kind of give him the stability he needs.

00:45:02.000 --> 00:45:07.000
To be able to do the work he wants to do. And, you know, there's a whole psychological thing to do with his relationship with his mother.

00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:24.000
Ellen Terry. Was obviously. Very glamorous and very, very, very strong in the public eye that she was not.

00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:27.000
Somebody. She cared about her children, but she wasn't somebody who was a particularly good mother.

00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:37.000
And, So I think there was always kind of this edge to it.

00:45:37.000 --> 00:46:00.000
And the other the final detail of course is money. He leaving this train of children all over Europe meant that he was always kind of trying to look for the next big thing that was also going to pay him, which is one of the reasons why the woodcuts and the exhibitions were also very much part of his life because they were bringing in money when he's theatrical endeavours didn't.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:14.000
He was something of a theatrical, diva at times and that cause some problems. I kind of understand why, you know, you might question whether or not be telling you about them but it's a it's all part of the soap opera of his life I think.

00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:21.000
Yeah. Okay, and this is I guess more of a comment rather than a question, but this is from Ruth.

00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:30.000
Obviously, pared down design is kind of, is his thing. Seems very similar to Greek and Roman theatre.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:33.000
Did you agree? Any thoughts on that?

00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:39.000
One. Yes, I mean I hesitate slightly because Roman theatre goes in in a slightly different direction.

00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:50.000
Rome and it starts to get much more elaborate than the Greeks.

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:52.000
I'll just stop that.

00:46:52.000 --> 00:47:13.000
You know, if you go to a Roman theatre, what you tend to get is you tend to get a big wall backdrop with a lot of windows and a lot of doors and and and all of that kind of thing the Greeks very much tied into the the sort of things that that Craig was exploring the idea that the actors should make part the set that it should be an empty stage.

00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:29.000
What the slight difference is that he was interested in kind of the We reflecting the themes and the psychological insights.

00:47:29.000 --> 00:47:47.000
Of the play that were being given out. Through that. He himself never acknowledges that connection. Think it's obvious to anybody who looks at it why that's the thing that he know he himself never acknowledges that he know he himself never acknowledges that that's the thing.

00:47:47.000 --> 00:47:50.000
But he know he himself never acknowledges that, that's something. And it's very interesting that he's, why that's something.

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:58.000
And it's very interesting that, why that's something. And it's very interesting that his, his explorations, his wanderings around are and he doesn't appear ever to have gone to Greece.

00:47:58.000 --> 00:48:07.000
And And you must have seen Roman theatres in, when he was in Italy. But he doesn't every knowledge that they might have had an influence on what he's doing.

00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:17.000
Hmm. Okay. Right, question here from Miranda, I think this is maybe in relation to some of the images of sets that you showed us.

00:48:17.000 --> 00:48:23.000
She's asking, what was the play to the right of the play called John? I must have missed that bit.

00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:24.000
One of the images you should.

00:48:24.000 --> 00:48:33.000
Yeah, no, Yes, it's the one with the gate. And it is Oh my goodness.

00:48:33.000 --> 00:48:38.000
It's a play that's setting. I think it might have been translation to the Brian Freel play.

00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:41.000
Right. Okay.

00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:44.000
Again, something I can check because it's one of those things I My brain has just had a moment of

00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:56.000
Yeah. Yeah, that's quite all right. Okay. From David, I'm talking about Isadora Duncan?

00:48:56.000 --> 00:48:57.000
Yes.

00:48:57.000 --> 00:49:00.000
Did she really die with a scarf? Seems ready, bizarre and unlikely. Is that something that was quite common back in those days?

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:02.000
It does seem quite sad, isn't it? Is it accident?

00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:14.000
But it's, you think about it was it was an open top car. And you were thinking about long, 1920 scarves.

00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:15.000
Hmm.

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:20.000
But yes, that really did happen. And if you, Okay. It's not great.

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:29.000
That there's a film I think it's Vanessa Red Grey playing is Adora.

00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:30.000
Okay.

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:41.000
Thank you. See, somebody's just said it's luggage. And they reproduce it and you, they see how it basically she, the whole idea is that she's being very flamboyant and She was she wasn't driving.

00:49:41.000 --> 00:49:50.000
She was the passenger. And, it, that's what happened. And I said apparently it happens enough.

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:51.000
If you Google Isadora Duncan syndrome, that's what he comes up with.

00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:58.000
They're in, you know, there's enough cases of this happening. For it to have a name.

00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:05.000
And you're right, it does seem extraordinary. And that. It's true.

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:16.000
Right, well there you go, David. From Kathleen, what when did Gordon Craig actually stop working?

00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:26.000
I don't ever fight, I haven't only found evidence that he really did. He kind of stops designing.

00:50:26.000 --> 00:50:34.000
Basically during the course the Second World War, the fact that he was in Italy and they had to come home and things like that left him rather high and dry.

00:50:34.000 --> 00:50:43.000
But he's in involvement in, interaction with the theatre doesn't really stop.

00:50:43.000 --> 00:50:53.000
You know, as I say, there is a huge flurry of exchange of letters. with him.

00:50:53.000 --> 00:51:05.000
And Olivier and Kenneth Tyne in the process of setting up the National Theatre. And, I'm sure he would have been delighted with Denis Lazdon's design for it.

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:12.000
And this kind of bootless architecture that we all have to live with when we go. And so I think, He doesn't seem to have stopped being interested and involved.

00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:22.000
He stops directing and involved. He stops directing and designing, to have stopped being interested and involved.

00:51:22.000 --> 00:51:26.000
He stops directing and designing, I say in the forties. But not really not really.

00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:37.000
I think old theatricals. Never really stopped working. I mean, look at, you, mkellen, they just keep going on.

00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:43.000
Yeah. Okay, right. What else have we got? Right, here's one for you, from.

00:51:43.000 --> 00:51:44.000
You always say that like it's going to be a challenge.

00:51:44.000 --> 00:51:50.000
Okay. No, no, it's a really interesting one. And Carol is writing a play at the moment.

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:57.000
Kudos to you, Carol. With just 4 characters. She wants to keep it simple with little set change.

00:51:57.000 --> 00:52:04.000
Do you think concentrating on lighting and sound will be a good way to create mood and movement?

00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:14.000
Okay, Carol, as, as it was one playwright to another, I will tell you what you need to do is you need to concentrate on making your play and your characters as interesting as possible.

00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:22.000
The director of your play is the person who will ultimately decide whether or not the sound and the lighting is going to work for you for them.

00:52:22.000 --> 00:52:31.000
You can guide them. But it's always worth. So, focusing on the words.

00:52:31.000 --> 00:52:41.000
Tell the story. Make these people really interesting. And then think about where they are in the world after that.

00:52:41.000 --> 00:52:58.000
It will make a difference. Perhaps to some of the mood issues if you've got If you I'm thinking about a particular style of thing and it's quite a good idea to give some outline of setting.

00:52:58.000 --> 00:53:09.000
But it's the main thing is make the story good, make the characters good, make the structure of your piece interesting, but don't, don't give too much away.

00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:21.000
Let's let the people who know about these things do it unless of course you're going to direct it yourself which is always my down for in which case then you are able to to do it.

00:53:21.000 --> 00:53:26.000
Do it yourself and think about it when you're actually doing it on its feet.

00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:31.000
Excellent. Well, hope that's some advice for you, Carol, and good luck.

00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:36.000
Where are you, where are you going to stage it, Carolyn? Can you can, can you tell me that?

00:53:36.000 --> 00:53:38.000
Let's see if something comes in the chat.

00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:40.000
Okay.

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:45.000
And let's quickly do another question and then we'll see if we get an answer from Carol.

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:55.000
From Sue. Seems like Gordon Craig was really quite progressive. Was it popular?

00:53:55.000 --> 00:54:05.000
Oh, he had successes, he was certainly very popular with the people who were looking at developing theater.

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:13.000
I mean, he was in date, he was, you know, he was invited all over Europe. He got work from Max Reinhardt in B in in Benin.

00:54:13.000 --> 00:54:20.000
He got work as I said, in Moscow, in Moscow, in, in Italy.

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:30.000
So he was involved, you know, he worked for, WB Yates at the Abbey in Dublin.

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:46.000
So he was involved with a lot of the big names at the time. It didn't hurt either that she's mother had a, a relationship with, But.

00:54:46.000 --> 00:54:52.000
In terms of being popular with the public. That's a very difficult measurement to say. His show, he, the things he directed were not always very successful.

00:54:52.000 --> 00:55:08.000
He was much better off when somebody, when you designed something and somebody else directed it. And He was no impassario.

00:55:08.000 --> 00:55:17.000
That his influence was pretty wide and he was very well known. A lot of people were copying, copying material from him.

00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:27.000
So popular probably within the theatrical world, but maybe not as popular and well-known amongst audiences, which is possibly why lots of people don't really know that much about him.

00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:40.000
Hmm. Okay, so I think we've come to the end of our questions and it unless anyone out there has got a last-minute one that you want to ask.

00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:49.000
We'll just give a little second. Susie saying it mazes me that Edward, and Craig is not more well known.

00:55:49.000 --> 00:55:50.000
Okay.

00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:52.000
Great. So I think that's us for today. Thank you very much for all your questions.

00:55:52.000 --> 00:56:11.000
And for your answers. Alison, an interesting man and he clearly did have a huge influence on what we see in the theater today and also really interesting to hear about his little tiny connection with Scotland.

00:56:11.000 --> 00:56:12.000
Did.

00:56:12.000 --> 00:56:14.000
I'm always interested in those little connections. So, really, really interesting.

00:56:14.000 --> 00:56:18.000
I still think you would make a great stage name, wouldn't it? I'll say Craig.

00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:23.000
Yeah. Yeah. So, thanks again.

00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:12.000
Thank you very much Fiona and good evening everyone. It's lovely to see so many people.

00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:26.000
With international women's day fast approaching like tomorrow. It seems very at. That we look at a woman with ideas very much ahead of her time.

00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:43.000
Angela Burdett Coutts. Angela Burdett Coutts was born 20 first of April. 18 full 14, so 20 first of April she shared a birthday with our like Queen Elizabeth.

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And she used her vast inherited wealth. And it was vast. It's estimated today.

00:00:54.000 --> 00:01:11.000
That she gave away to her good causes, her philanthropic. Benevolent causes that she supported the equivalent today of 350 million pounds.

00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:20.000
During her life time. So what, who did she help? Well, it's easier to say who she didn't help than who she did.

00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:44.000
She helped and her money help those in need regardless of age. Color, gender, or religious. Denomination she she really didn't care she was a member of the established church herself in England, the Anglican Church, but she had a very wide vision of causes.

00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:56.000
That she supported and founded. And these forces were both in Britain and abroad. So she didn't confine herself.

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To charitable work within Britain, her money went abroad as well. And she was particularly concerned with promoting the health I'm well being of, people.

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Of individuals. That was her. Mine aim, but she gave as I said to a huge variety of courses.

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And amongst her I'm was the health and well-being of women and children. That was very much.

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Part of her agenda.

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And, it was said. That wherever you were If you stood in in London wherever you were standing in London and you walked for 15 min in any direction.

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Then you couldn't walk for 15 min without walking past a building. Or an organization.

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The Angela Burdette Coutts. Had supported with her money. So that's what a claim, I think.

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As ofsted she's supported organisations all over the country and certainly the great and the good.

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I'm numerous members of all social classes. I including politicians, the military, people from religious denominations would be in attendance at her funeral and she died in 1,906.

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So I'm going to share my screen now. And we'll have the opportunity to look a bit more closely at Angela's life and times.

00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:14.000
So here we are, Angela Burdett Coutts. Queen of the Po was just one of the titles that she was dubbed.

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She was also known as a citizen of the world and perhaps not surprisingly considering that her charity extended itself to all over the world and all different types of charitable enterprises.

00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:42.000
So those were 2 of her titles. And, perhaps she was more proud.

00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:54.000
Those titles then she was the title that she was given in 1871 by Queen Victoria herself. And that was a baroness.

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She was my Baroness Burdette coached in her own right. And the first woman. To be made a Baroness in their own rights.

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I'm, as you might picked up from this slide, she was known as the richest woman in England.

00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:20.000
Next to the Queen. I'm just going to change the slide now. So where did this all begin?

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Well, it began with Angela's parents, of course. And, Angela's parents are shown here.

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Sophie of Budget and her husband, Francis. Francis was a noted radical campaigner.

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In his style. He campaigned on a variety of issues including social welfare. Political reform. I'm, and Angela would share that passion for, animals.

00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:15.000
Being helped. With her father. That was one of his causes. Her mother was a member of the Coates banking family but of course had become when she marries Sir Francis.

00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:29.000
Angela was one of 6 children. She had 4 older sisters and an older brother. The brother story is rather unusual in that he said to have left the family.

00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:48.000
And gone abroad to live whether there was a family disagreement or not it's unclear but certainly he wasn't part of the close family once he reached his twenties he just effectively disappears from the story.

00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:55.000
So, Angela is born Angela Burdett. She would acquire the Coutts at the end of her name and she would acquire the coats at the end of her name and she would hyphenate her name.

00:06:55.000 --> 00:07:14.000
When she inherited money that had originally been left. I her maternal grandfather. I'm growing up, these were The maternal.

00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:31.000
Grandparents that she grew up with. Her grandfather, Sir Thomas Coates, who was one of the Coots banking family, of course he wasn't the original because the bank actually started.

00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:37.000
It's origins began in I believe, 1,600, and 92.

00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:47.000
So, unfortunately he wasn't born as early as that. But he, went into the banking family.

00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:55.000
And after his first wife died he remarried. And this is the lady he remarried.

00:07:55.000 --> 00:08:09.000
Harriet Mellon and she was an actress and this caused Why a lot of comment in the day because acting as we know in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries wasn't regarded.

00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:19.000
Us. A respectable profession for women. Nevertheless, the second marriage seems to have been a very happy one.

00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:30.000
And when Thomas came to make his will. He entrusted. He's second wife. Harriet with a commission.

00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:38.000
He said, after my death, my money in the main will go to you, to Harriet.

00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:49.000
But when the time comes when you realise that you need to make the natural provision. For what your going to leave behind when you die.

00:08:49.000 --> 00:09:04.000
Then what I would like you to do is choose from among my grandchildren. The grandchild who you believe It's the most worthy to inherit the bulk of my state.

00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:10.000
And that was the commission that he left his second wife.

00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:19.000
How are you? And was always very close to Angela, her step granddaughter, and the 2 got on very well.

00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:36.000
Angela's maternal grandfather. Did die? Of course and he died in 1822 and the world was right and sure enough the bulk of his estate and it was considerable.

00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:45.000
Had gone to Harriet for the remainder of her life. Harriet lived until, 1,837.

00:09:45.000 --> 00:10:00.000
And when Harriet's will was read The Burdett family were not very pleased to find out that the bulk of grandfather's estate have been left to one grandchild.

00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:15.000
Angela. The condition of the will was that Angela had coats to her name. So she becomes Angela Burdette Coutts with a hyphen in the middle.

00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:24.000
And that, again, was quite common in the nineteenth century and particularly where a member of your family had left you money.

00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:30.000
Yeah, this is a poultry of Angela by an unknown artist. She always stressed extremely well.

00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:48.000
She liked nice things. She certainly spent money on her appearance. And we've got 3 titles there for her, Queen of the Poet, Citizen of the World, a Lady unknown.

00:10:48.000 --> 00:11:02.000
Can't really call lady unknown title But, the reason why She has been dubbed lady unknown, was The Somers are good causes.

00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:11.000
She would insist on anonymity, not all of them, some of them. And when she was asked, well.

00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:21.000
How do you want a to recall the contribution you've made? She would say, Help me down as lady unknown.

00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:23.000
So there we are.

00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:27.000
This is Stratton Street, Mayfair in London. Very different building on the site now.

00:11:27.000 --> 00:11:46.000
This building dates from about the 19 twenties. But in Angela's day in the 1830, s when she's a young woman of 23 and just inherited a vast amount of wealth.

00:11:46.000 --> 00:12:13.000
This was the house that she lived in. The Coutts family owned a lot of property, not only did her grandfather leave her a 50% share and I'm saying her grandfather left her because of course although the money came from Harriet's will it was originally her grandfather's money

00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:23.000
And he left her not only a huge property, portfolio, but a 50% share. In Coates Bank.

00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:36.000
Jewellery. And money, actual cash. So she was a very wealthy young woman. Simmons Fairy about how much.

00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:47.000
Cash was left but certainly the rest of the estate was made up with the sharing coats bank with property and with jewellery.

00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:58.000
There was a condition to Angela inheriting the 50% share of Coates Bank, the bank in the Strand as it was called.

00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:06.000
And in fact, Coutts. Oh, what is now Couttss? Part of the RBS group.

00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:18.000
Is now, still in the shrine. So that link is still there. But a condition was the Angela take no active.

00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:26.000
Row in the wronging of the bank. Now this was not unusual for the nineteenth century because she's the woman.

00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:31.000
And the common view was that women knew nothing about business matters. Nevertheless, Angela was not convinced.

00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:51.000
So she would make a regular habit of calling in. To the bank just to see what was going on and to make sure that everyone was kept on their toes and she would talk to everyone from the junior clerk.

00:13:51.000 --> 00:14:00.000
Up to the director level. She would just Oh, pass time that I. Question anyone. In the bank.

00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:11.000
She didn't just arrive and go straight to the director's room. She would walk round the bank seeing what was going on and what was happening.

00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:20.000
Apparently the house Stratton Street that stood on this site was quite magnificent in its day.

00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:33.000
And that wasn't all. This is one of the Batett family homes. And this is, yeah, this is for Mark Hall.

00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:37.000
Very impressive.

00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:44.000
And it's And here we have another view. Of it. Today, school. Not a private home.

00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:57.000
Not Somewhere you can walk around. It's a school. Today.

00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:02.000
This is Angela posed with her pet parrots. She loved animals. Animals were always very close to her heart.

00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:15.000
Dogs, cats. Parrots, anything really. And here she is dressed. For the theatre, love music.

00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:27.000
Love the theatre, loved going out and about quite a social. Person. Yes, and, as it says on the slide.

00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:43.000
Equivalent to about 350 million. In today's money. And her inheritance covered a lot of different things.

00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:50.000
Angela looked when she got over the shock of the inheritance and got over some of the ill feeling.

00:15:50.000 --> 00:16:00.000
From family members that, Angela, a woman. Had of all the grandchildren and there were my grandchildren.

00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:08.000
Her sister, Clara. Who am amusingly married a man called Mr. Money.

00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:18.000
So she became Clara Mummy, which is very apt. Clara. HAD, son, and Clara was particularly bitter.

00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:30.000
About her son, Francis not inheriting. And more than he did when his grandfather died. Oh, he's great grandfather died.

00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:42.000
So, Angela sits down and decides what she's going to do with this money. And she afterwards said that she felt she could do no better.

00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:54.000
Then look around and see what Good causes her money could help. Angela was shrewd. She didn't just hang out money in the street.

00:16:54.000 --> 00:17:08.000
To anyone who looked as though they were in need. She was extremely astute. Woman and I think would have made an excellent business woman.

00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:24.000
But the time wasn't right of course. She took a very active role in all of her charities, making sure that the money was used appropriately and that good records were kept.

00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:31.000
So you had to be on your toes when you were working with Angela.

00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:47.000
Now, the money also attracted It's fair share of odd people. And she was subject to a number of proposals of marriage from men she'd never met before in her life.

00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:57.000
But then with the attraction of 3 million pounds, the equivalent today of 3 350 million.

00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:08.000
Well, was it surprising that in the 18 thirties men were clamoring and for 18 fortys were clamoring to try and win her hand in marriage.

00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:17.000
And one of her most persistent suitors was a man called Richard Dunn. Who, surprisingly, was a barrister.

00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:26.000
By occupation and he pursued her relentlessly. And it's quite amusing to read the accounts of what he would do.

00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:37.000
He would walk past the house, Stratton Street, where the garden wall separated the house from the road and he would wave a white handkerchief.

00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:55.000
So he was, I don't know whether he was surrendering his heart. To Angela but yeah his behavior was rather often he had an uneering instinct for knowing exactly where she would be at any one time.

00:18:55.000 --> 00:19:03.000
Now, it's quite likely that he was perhaps bribing the servants at Stratton Street to tell him.

00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:14.000
But Angela was completely puzzled why this man turning up and professing his love for her. He did more than that.

00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:21.000
He wrote her a poem. There were 5 verses and I won't read them all. This is just one.

00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:29.000
And Shakespeare. It isn't. When to hurricane sweet papa beats a retreat.

00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:38.000
To take the spa waters so furious. I could hear your heart thump. As if we stood by the pump.

00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:49.000
While you bolted that stuff. So injurious. Now what he's talking about is the trip that Angela was taken on by her father.

00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:57.000
To Harrogate to take the waters. And he even followed her to Harrogate. If eventually she had to take legal action against him.

00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:09.000
Now risk she done, as I've said, was the barrister. So he defended himself in court very ably indeed.

00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:20.000
And on several occasions was acquitted. Eventually, however, the law caught up with him. But not the harassment.

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:32.000
He was actually imprisoned? I'm not the harassment at all but for perjury. So, I suppose the end result was the same.

00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:37.000
Angela got rid of him for a time.

00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:46.000
Coats and company like today was renowned for having clients who were of the highest social level. The rich, the famous, the great and the good went coots.

00:20:46.000 --> 00:21:04.000
They provided in the nineteenth century a very comprehensive service to clients. They would virtually take over the clients affairs and administer them.

00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:16.000
But obviously, that came at, A cost because you had to be of a certain social level and you had to have a certain amount of money.

00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:27.000
To deport it for coach to take over your account. And these are just some figures. From the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:37.000
That coats. Who were Coats his clients? So from the left, Princess Mary of Check.

00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:47.000
Who became the wife of King George the Third. The Duke of Wellington, the Iron Duke, Arthur Worldsley, was a client of Coats.

00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:55.000
David Livingstone, the missionary. With a client of coats. The Prince Regent.

00:21:55.000 --> 00:22:09.000
Later, King George. The false. Now his affairs were complex. Because he was suspend thrift, but he was a client of coats for many years.

00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:22.000
And last but not least, of course, Queen Victoria herself. Was a client of Coats Bank. So the rich, the powerful, the great and the good.

00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:35.000
Angela lived with a companion. Especially after the death of her parents, she would have been quite lonely without somebody to act as her companion.

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:50.000
And this statue is supposed, supposedly represents her much loved governess. Hannah Meredith who eventually married a doctor, a medical man called Dr.

00:22:50.000 --> 00:23:04.000
Brown. And was close to Angela for the whole of Mrs. Brown's life. They were personal friends rather than Fauna Governess and pupil.

00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:29.000
And this statue appears at an estate in the height of the Hampstead Highgate area that Angela actually built it said she built this estate of houses for employees and format employees of the Burdett and Burdette Coutts family.

00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:38.000
Now I said at the beginning it's easier. To say what Angela didn't support with her money than what she did.

00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:49.000
And the list that I'm going to give you isn't comprehensive. The NSPCC.

00:23:49.000 --> 00:24:08.000
She strongly supported as I said the cause of women and children and working mothers in particular she recognized that women from the working classes often had no choice but to go to work to support their families.

00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:16.000
Because either their husbands were unemployed or couldn't work due to ill health, or maybe the woman was a widow.

00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:28.000
Who knows? But Angela did not discriminate. She looked at all causes and decided whether or not she felt they were worthy of her support.

00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:40.000
So the cause of women in children always very close to her heart. So she supported the National Society for the Prevention of Quality to Children.

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:51.000
H and health care was another thing close to her heart and the Royal Marston Hospital in London that does such marvellous work.

00:24:51.000 --> 00:25:01.000
In giving concert treatment to people, such great ground breaking work. Was funded with Angela Baudette Coates's money.

00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:14.000
She also gave them interest free loans in order to build on. To the hospital as well. Quite apart from the donations that she gave.

00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:29.000
Clinics and dispensaries for medical care of children. It particularly in London in the really poor districts of London, this was something that was not provided.

00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:40.000
Angela believed that every child had the right to medical care if they were ill. Houses and flats for working class occupants.

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:48.000
She built those, she funded them all over London and she worked with others. To fund them as well.

00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:57.000
She didn't always work on her own. She worked with other philanthropists. Columbia market in Bethnal Green.

00:25:57.000 --> 00:26:08.000
In London. Her idea behind a market was somewhere not only to provide shops and stalls. Selling good quality cheap.

00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:19.000
I'med at supplying the poor with food that was good, that was wholesome, but that was reasonably priced and within their budget.

00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:30.000
But also above the shop she had the idea of building flats for working class families too. Churches, all denominations.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:54.000
Because she, didn't belong to the Catholic Church or the Congregationalists or one of the Arthur denominations was no reason why she she wouldn't agree to support them and she gave money particularly generously for missionary work overseas.

00:26:54.000 --> 00:27:05.000
And particularly things like providing wells and clean water for people, things that were essential for health. Soap kitchens for the poor.

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:20.000
During the winter Many poor people in London and the cities and elsewhere. Were unable to work. Oh, perhaps they were unemployed.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:28.000
She would provide soup kitchens to cater for all. A beekeepers association.

00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:39.000
Her love of all things great and small extended to bees and she a beekeepers association was just one of the more unusual causes.

00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:46.000
She She faded. She set up sewing schools for poor girls and women. This was aimed.

00:27:46.000 --> 00:28:05.000
A working class of women who hadn't got the skill of being able to sew for themselves and their families and also perhaps to use sewing as a means of Gaining a livelihood to support themselves.

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:22.000
This was controversial, a home for former prostitutes. Yes, and women. Now there were a few eyebrows raised at this and a few people felt this was not a good use of this and a few people felt this was not a good use of this and a few people felt this was not a good use of the millionaire's money.

00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:33.000
However, jet coats worked for a time. With child Dickens and together they founded a home in Shepherd's Bush.

00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:42.000
In London. They parted company round about 1,858. They had a major falling out.

00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:56.000
And the reason was when Dickens left his wife. And the 2 formerly separated and Dickens had begun an association by them with the actress Ellen Turner.

00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:59.000
A budget coats. Was not happy about this and she did not want to work with Dickens anymore.

00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:19.000
So sadly that sort of petered out but it did very good work. Both vertex coats and Dickens were at pains to make sure that the home wasn't regarded as a punishment.

00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:31.000
The goats were allowed to wear not uniform but bright colorful dresses. They were taught trade and they were helped to emigrate if they wished to do so.

00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:35.000
But above all, Birdie Coates said it mustn't be seen as a place of punishment for these girls.

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:49.000
Because they might be unmarried mothers or had they thought they were former prostitutes and she was a great pain to stress that.

00:29:49.000 --> 00:29:59.000
Drinking fountains to provide clean water. She provides you those in parks everywhere and she also provided horse troughs.

00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:17.000
By working horses, treatment of animals, she shut her love for animals she shared with her father and like him she campaigned long and hard for organizations that supported animal welfare such as cab horses.

00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:24.000
In the middle of London who worked very hard. Cab horses and often weren't well treated.

00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:35.000
So she's supports the RSPCA and other animal charities, elementary schools. Education she regarded as vital.

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:45.000
Every rehabilitation of prisoners as well. She set up all sorts of schemes to rehabilitate prisoners.

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:56.000
And believed that With right rehabilitation these people could go on to lead useful. Valuable lives.

00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:05.000
So she really believed. That nobody was beyond redemption. The Statue of Greyfriars Bobby.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:17.000
In action borough. She didn't wholly fund it, but she partly funded it. And we'll be having a look at the statue in a while.

00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:29.000
Financial support to wives to soldiers serving abroad whose money often didn't come through regularly. Supposed for Army hospitals for schools and evening classes.

00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:43.000
Cancer research quite apart from her subscription, her funding. To the She also supported other cancer charities.

00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:53.000
Building and supposing hospitals I've already touched on that but Apart from the Royal Master and there were others.

00:31:53.000 --> 00:32:03.000
She provided at least 2 lifeboats for the RNLI. And, She also was very much involved.

00:32:03.000 --> 00:32:16.000
With the relief of the great potato famine as it became known in the 18 forties in Ireland when she set up famine relief to Centres.

00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:29.000
And charitable causes worldwide. So quite a comprehensive list. And these were 2 of her friends and colleagues in philanthropic work.

00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:37.000
Dickens I've mentioned but also, Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell on the right.

00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:53.000
And Mrs. Gaskell both admired and supported Burdett Coats and Dickens, one I've seen, 44 novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, was dedicated to Angela This was before they fell out.

00:32:53.000 --> 00:33:03.000
And this is Urania Cottage in Shepherd's Bushland and sadly no longer there, although the sight of the cottage is there.

00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:19.000
And this was the refuge for so-called fallen women as they were known. And it kept going to the 18 sixties, but eventually closed down.

00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:34.000
Now, Angelus will, the money that Angela received from her Father, have a channel grandfather. And step grandmother's will was actually contested.

00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:45.000
At some point. And it was contested. By her sister, Clara Money. How much just mentioned?

00:33:45.000 --> 00:34:02.000
Clara would contest the will when Angela decided that she was going to marry. A man who had The maternal and paternal grandparents, so grandparents on both sides who were British.

00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:17.000
One was that important because the condition in her grandfather and step grandmother's will was that. If Angela married She would false it part of her inheritance.

00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:42.000
If she married somebody who was not a British ancestry. And the fact that the man that Angela married was had American grandparents had English grandparents on both sides but had American had American grandparents, sorry, on both sides.

00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:52.000
Decided the matter It never got caught. If it got cold.

00:34:52.000 --> 00:34:56.000
It may have gone in Angela's favour. Because these were the grandparents of the man she married.

00:34:56.000 --> 00:35:06.000
A man with the wonderful name of William Lehman Ashby Bartlett. But it never got that far.

00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:18.000
Angela decided that rather than go through the hassle of the cold case, she would settle with her sister Clara out of coal.

00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:29.000
And the end result was that Angela lost about 3 fifths. Of her inheritance. And that went to the sun.

00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:39.000
Of her sister Clara. So, that caused enormous family discord. As we might imagine.

00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:49.000
And the lady was Mrs Manny, yes. Angela initially fell in love with this gentleman, the Duke of Wellington, the Iron Duke.

00:35:49.000 --> 00:35:56.000
They were great friends. But I'm fortunately.

00:35:56.000 --> 00:36:02.000
I'm unfortunately he didn't share. He, it wasn't reciprocal. He liked her as a friend.

00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:19.000
He was also considerably older. He was about 40 years older than Angela and he decided that marriage was not on the cards even though he was a widower and free to marry Angela.

00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:29.000
But he felt that she would end up as his nurse rather than his wife. So very gently, very kindly, He turned her down.

00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:40.000
And this is an extract from the letter he wrote. My last days would be embittered by the reflection that your life was uncomfortable and hopeless.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:49.000
May God bless you, my dearest. So a very kind way of letting her down gently.

00:36:49.000 --> 00:36:57.000
Great for us, Bobby. I've already mentioned and this is drinking fountain in Edinburgh, probably looking a bit different to how it did when it was.

00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:12.000
First I'm filed and it was unveiled in the eighteenth 70 and part of the money of course was came from Angela.

00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:21.000
And grow for us, Bobby, of course the wonderful story of the little terrier who refused to leave his master's grave.

00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:37.000
And stayed by his master's grave until he himself. Eventually died. Here's Angela photographed in 1881 and 1881 is important.

00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:47.000
Because that is the year she married on the twelfth of February. Here's the gentleman she married.

00:37:47.000 --> 00:37:59.000
William Lehman Ashamed Bartlett He'd worked as her secretary. This is the gentleman with American grandparents on both sides.

00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:03.000
He worked as a secretary, some biographers say that he was simply there as her secretary.

00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:17.000
Others say that he was actually actively involved in her causes visiting them, checking up on them and checking the book.

00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:28.000
So we're a bit unsure about how involved he was. A condition of the marriage was that he take her name as well.

00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:37.000
So he becomes William Lehman Ashley Bartlett Burgett Coats. And I'd love to see anyone who could get that on their tax return.

00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:56.000
But there we are. Queen Victoria and Benjamin Disraeli. Were absolutely aghast. That Angela intended to marry a man who was 37 years her junior.

00:38:56.000 --> 00:39:05.000
And, when the news got out. There was scandal. It was in all the newspapers.

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:21.000
It was the topic of society. It calls the rampus and Queen Victoria said, positively distressing and ridiculous and will do her much harm by lowering her in people's eyes and taking away their respect.

00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:37.000
So Queen Victoria admired the woman but didn't admire the marriage she made. Of course by, 1,881, Angela had already been Baroness Burdett Coutts for 10 years.

00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:40.000
Courtesy of Queen Victoria. Disraeli's comment on the marriage was very succinct.

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:56.000
Next to Afghanistan, I think the greatest Right. Is Lady Burdett's marriage? And here he is.

00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:05.000
As you can imagine, the marriage appeared in all of the papers. But it wasn't very public.

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:13.000
It was a very quiet wedding. And it was in London and it was very private.

00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:29.000
I just, he was ridiculed. In the magazines and journals and one of the names he was given is the Baroness Husband and here he is appearing in Vanity Fair magazine.

00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:36.000
But we have to say for all the ridicule that was heaped on him and Angela, her good causes still went on.

00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:46.000
Albeit on a more restricted scale now because of the fact she'd had to settle this cold case with her sister Mrs. Clara Money.

00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:57.000
This is another of her enterprises. This is a very elaborate fountain. That was erecting in Victoria Park.

00:40:57.000 --> 00:41:06.000
In Hackney, in London. Sadly, the last time I saw it, it was looking rather shabby with railings around it.

00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:21.000
It was made of granite and it was opened in 1,862 and 10,000 spectators came to watch the opening and of course it was designed to provide pure drinking water.

00:41:21.000 --> 00:41:26.000
Columbia Market I've mentioned and and here's a sketch of what Colombia market looked like.

00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:32.000
Yeah, sadly it's no longer there. And, yeah, that was providing food and a accommodation.

00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:43.000
Very much for the poor and the working classes.

00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:49.000
And, yeah, another enterprise. This time it's some Pancras Churchyard.

00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:59.000
In London where the sun dial with a dog said to have been Angela Merkel's own much loved dog.

00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:09.000
Statue was erected the reason for this was some pancreas churchyard had had to take away part of the churchyard.

00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:18.000
And to move Bravestones when the railway. Came through and Angela believed that those.

00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:30.000
Persons whose gravestones had been disturbed should be commemorated on the sundial as they were their names were transferred to the sundial.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:36.000
And And as far as I'm aware, it's still there today.

00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:45.000
Angela became such a familiar figure in the perception of the British public. And but royalty recognised her as well.

00:42:45.000 --> 00:43:02.000
Queen Victoria I've mentioned. But after Victoria's death in 1,901, a son, the Prince of Wales who was now king up with the seventh said, after my mother she is the most remarkable woman in the kingdom.

00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:07.000
And her enterprises were so far reaching.

00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:12.000
Shi died in 1,906.

00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:25.000
At the grand age of 92. And her husband was with her when she died and for all we know it appears to have been a very happy marriage.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:35.000
He never remarried. He entered politics, he became a conservative and pay and he died in 1921.

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:48.000
But he's still carried on, involvement with administering his late wife's good causes. And this style marks her burial place in Westminster Abbey.

00:43:48.000 --> 00:44:10.000
Yes. Very simple, very locate in keeping with Angela. One thing I must mention about the dispute between Angela and her sister in 2,006, the British Library came into possession of some letters.

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:21.000
That were shined in the family. And those letters came to the British Library via an unnamed British auction house.

00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:34.000
And they amply relate how bad the feeling was. Within the budget and the Cootes family. Over the fact that Angela inherited the bulk.

00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:42.000
Of her grandfather's money. And Mrs Clara Manny does not come over as a very nice person at all.

00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:56.000
But the letters are in the British Library for anyone who wants to research them to consult. Angela's funeral was quite amazing.

00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:04.000
Everyone who could. Try to get to London. For her funeral. People lined the streets.

00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:09.000
So the procession to Westminster Abbey.

00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:15.000
And it wasn't just the rich. It wasn't just members of the royal family.

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:23.000
The aristocracy, the military, the politicians, the great and the good. It was people from the working class.

00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:39.000
It was the very power. All regarded it as a badge of honor. To have been in London and watched the procession and it said that at points in the procession people stood 8 deep.

00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:48.000
On the pavements to watch the procession go by and she was very sincerely mourned.

00:45:48.000 --> 00:46:01.000
Coats is still in London. I believe they know this coats wealth management today. And you probably still have to be extremely wealthy.

00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:19.000
So, bank with coats and code, but it's worth story began. They're still in the strand and this is maternal grandfather Sir Thomas Coates who still watches over what's happening at the bank albeit in marble.

00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:24.000
Thank you so much for attending the talk today.

00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:32.000
There are some books about Angela. And they're all interesting. They're all worth reading.

00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:41.000
And certainly I can let the owner have them and I know she'll put the titles on the website if anyone wants to read them.

00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:49.000
So thank you very much everyone. I'll come back now on questions. Very welcome.

00:46:49.000 --> 00:46:53.000
Thank you very much, Margaret. Let's go straight to some questions. We've got a few here and we'll try and get through as many as them.

00:46:53.000 --> 00:47:07.000
Of them as we can before at 6 o'clock. So firstly from Jill. Did Angela ever do any hands on work with any of the charities that she supported?

00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:21.000
Well, it isn't documented. But I believe she did. I cannot believe that Angela Burdett Coats didn't roll up her sleeves.

00:47:21.000 --> 00:47:36.000
And get actually practically involved. I can't remember coming across it being documented. In, her biographies, but she was certainly hands on.

00:47:36.000 --> 00:47:44.000
How the money was being spent. And she had many, suggestions of her own and wasn't afraid.

00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:55.000
To disagree. If she felt the money was not being spent in such a way that she would have preferred.

00:47:55.000 --> 00:48:07.000
So she kept a very, very close eye on what was happening and her will prevailed. Because she was a strong character, but she visited all.

00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:25.000
Of her. Every single one of them, even the beekeepers association, she visited. And I can't believe that while she was there she didn't roll up her sleeves and get involved.

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:34.000
Okay, I hope that answers your question, Jill. Now a question from, hold on second.

00:48:34.000 --> 00:48:38.000
I'm all. Did she ever work with the Octavia Hill?

00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:53.000
Yes, she did. The 2 of them exchanged ideas. They said off of each other. Very much like her relationship with Charles Dickens when it was good.

00:48:53.000 --> 00:48:56.000
Sadly, from about, 1,858, she started to write him quite vitriolic letters.

00:48:56.000 --> 00:49:05.000
I'm telling him that he shouldn't have left his wife. But yes, she, she did.

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:18.000
She would collaborate with anybody else who was working in the field. She wasn't possessive about my charities.

00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:31.000
Not in the She just believed in the greater good. Whoever was doing good, it didn't matter if you work together or you worked separately.

00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:32.000
She did.

00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:41.000
Okay, thank you. I hope that answers your question. Ama, now I've got a couple of questions from 2 people and I'm going to kind of roll these together a little bit.

00:49:41.000 --> 00:49:49.000
Firstly from Stuart, do you think Coots felt some remorse for the origins of some of the money?

00:49:49.000 --> 00:50:03.000
Which included slavery and general imperial exploitation and tried to make amends for that and also from a vet.

00:50:03.000 --> 00:50:04.000
Yeah.

00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:07.000
Who, mentioned that Angela's father, was involved in the East India Company, which probably propagated from similar things.

00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:18.000
Yes, I mean even before she inherited the coats many many many many millions. Angela obviously didn't come from a poor family.

00:50:18.000 --> 00:50:26.000
And Sophia, her mother, would have had an allowance from her father anyway, Thomas Coates.

00:50:26.000 --> 00:50:39.000
So, they did have money. And, yes, France's money probably did come from what today we would say were very tubious sauces.

00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:49.000
And I don't know about Angela whether she had, I would guess she probably did have views on it.

00:50:49.000 --> 00:50:58.000
But, she never, as far as I'm aware. She never wrote. She never put anything in writing.

00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:07.000
That, indicated that she had a real crisis of conscience going on about the source of that money.

00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:21.000
I mean, her father was a great campaigner. He even for a time was put in the Tower of London but inciting riots in the streets of London.

00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:32.000
So, yeah, he, he was prepared. Stand up and be counted. But with He ever reproached.

00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:41.000
Himself for the money that he he had that he was using to support himself and his wife and his family.

00:51:41.000 --> 00:51:54.000
I would guess he put a lot of his own money and I have no proof of this. But I think he must have put a lot of his own money into the causes that he espoused.

00:51:54.000 --> 00:52:06.000
So maybe he kind of reckon, so it that way. But other than that, I Don't ever remember reading anywhere what Angelus.

00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:10.000
Viewpoint was on the source of the money.

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:15.000
Okay, right, I hope that goes some way to answering your question. And

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:26.000
Yeah, sorry I can't be more Definite than that, but I, I can never remember reading anything that indicated there was a crisis of conscience over the source of their wealth.

00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:32.000
Yeah. And Margaret, we can't see you very well at the moment. Yeah.

00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:40.000
I know, I'm so sorry, it is so dark here. It's unbelievable and it's gone dark all of a sudden.

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:41.000
I'm gonna have to put a I can put a light on. Yeah, I think so.

00:52:41.000 --> 00:52:50.000
Yeah. One pop a light on that would be really helpful. Thank you.

00:52:50.000 --> 00:53:04.000
No, the other one, if you would. Thank you. Yeah, that one doesn't. Yeah.

00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:08.000
Okay.

00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:12.000
Yeah, I'm so sorry about that. Yeah, sorry about that. Yeah.

00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:21.000
Oh, that's a lot better. Okay, let's go to some more questions then. This is from Peggy.

00:53:21.000 --> 00:53:26.000
Do we know what Clara's son did with all that money that he got?

00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:33.000
Went into politics, would you believe?

00:53:33.000 --> 00:53:34.000
Okay.

00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:42.000
He became a politician! Francis money. But what he did with it all Apart from fun, his political ambitions.

00:53:42.000 --> 00:53:46.000
I confess I know not.

00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:47.000
Hmm. Okay.

00:53:47.000 --> 00:53:52.000
Yeah, but he definitely used it to support a political career.

00:53:52.000 --> 00:54:02.000
Okay, right. Now this from Kaslin. And a couple of questions, which again, I'll sort of roll together, I think.

00:54:02.000 --> 00:54:13.000
And Catherine's asking why she isn't more celebrated and also do we know if there are any descendants still alive with people who directly benefited from Angela?

00:54:13.000 --> 00:54:15.000
I guess there must be lots.

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:26.000
I think there are. I actually think. But again can't prove. That Clara Clara Money.

00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:37.000
Her sister, Angela's sister. There are descendants of the money family still around.

00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:40.000
And her other sisters.

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:45.000
I don't know. They may well be, there may well be the brother, the family sort of, that is a really strange story.

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:57.000
Because the brother whether he fell out with his father, his mother or both of his parents and he sort of takes off abroad and and he disappears from the story.

00:54:57.000 --> 00:55:00.000
Hmm.

00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:10.000
Maybe, maybe. I'm pretty sure there are descendants from the money. Side of the family.

00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:14.000
That are still out there. Yes. Whether they're still associated with coats and cow. Don't know.

00:55:14.000 --> 00:55:31.000
Okay. Here's a really good question from Sue. Sue's asking, I wonder if she knew about the beginning of the WBA in 1,903.

00:55:31.000 --> 00:55:41.000
Yeah, I wonder what it was 3 years before her death she probably did I do apologize, I also didn't deal with the second part of that.

00:55:41.000 --> 00:55:53.000
Question. Before as well. Why isn't she better known? I freely confess I don't know I been banging the drum for her for years.

00:55:53.000 --> 00:55:58.000
Perhaps that's why she's not so well known. Perhaps I should stop banging the drum.

00:55:58.000 --> 00:56:09.000
She's an incredible character. And of course, you know, for a woman, there are enormous prejudice against women.

00:56:09.000 --> 00:56:22.000
Trying to get involved in what was perceived as a man's world and having all this money, you know, people were saying, well, of course, once she gets married, the husband will take over.

00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:29.000
That actually didn't happen. He didn't say, right, okay, on the mine.

00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:39.000
I'm going to take over. I mean, this is, you know, nineteenth century. When the woman's money was the man's money.

00:56:39.000 --> 00:56:46.000
So, why she's not known? Why isn't she known? There are monuments to her throughout the country.

00:56:46.000 --> 00:57:01.000
And hurt that money! That she Guy is still out there really because so many of these causes that she Chuck on.

00:57:01.000 --> 00:57:12.000
I still around today. So I'm in the Royal Marston is still around NSPCC RSPCA is still around.

00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:29.000
There still her money is still out there in these in in bricks and malter and in the work that these places and this organisations go hospitals, schools, whatever.

00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:39.000
So yes, it's quite amazing. How she really has been marching.

00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:48.000
Yeah. Right, we've got a couple of final questions and then I think we'll wrap up folks because that's us at 6 o'clock now.

00:57:48.000 --> 00:57:54.000
And now let me just find them. No, this from Carl. Burdett Road in Myland.

00:57:54.000 --> 00:57:56.000
Is that named after her?

00:57:56.000 --> 00:58:05.000
Yes. Yeah. Commemorates the Bergett family. Yeah.

00:58:05.000 --> 00:58:06.000
Yes, indeed.

00:58:06.000 --> 00:58:11.000
There we go. Nice easy answer. And from Margaret, you talked about for Mark Hall earlier on.

00:58:11.000 --> 00:58:14.000
Did she ever live there? You did.

00:58:14.000 --> 00:58:23.000
Yeah, she did. For, I mean, she certainly, although she had all this money and she's doing a great deal.

00:58:23.000 --> 00:58:38.000
For charitable causes. She enjoyed her money. She enjoyed staying in these grind houses. She loved it and she enjoyed nice clothes, she enjoyed being beautifully dressed.

00:58:38.000 --> 00:58:55.000
I'm going to and dinner parties. She, she certainly didn't say, well, you know, I've got all this money, but I'm not going to spend a penny on myself.

00:58:55.000 --> 00:59:07.000
She, she loved going to other people's homes. She had a wide social circle. Yeah, yeah, she she did she did she did spend time at Pharmaco.

00:59:07.000 --> 00:59:19.000
I mean that was a BUtET family home and family gatherings would regularly be held there. And she entertained widely at Stratton Street.

00:59:19.000 --> 00:59:34.000
You know the crate, the clutch? The people who were involved in her organisations all received an invitation at some time or another to come through the doors of Stratton Street.

00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:41.000
Well, there we have it. I think we need to start to wrap up things there. Thanks again Margaret.

00:59:41.000 --> 00:59:46.000
Thank you.

00:59:46.000 --> 00:59:47.000
Absolutely.

00:59:47.000 --> 00:59:48.000
All I can really say I think is what a woman. And I'm sure there's probably quite a few of you out there thinking exactly the same thing.

00:59:48.000 --> 00:59:49.000
Yeah.

00:59:49.000 --> 00:59:57.000
And I was very pleased to see the statue of Wee Bobby as well, I have to say I pass it quite a lot on my traipsing around the city.

00:59:57.000 --> 01:00:00.000
So, it was good to see Bobby. Okay.

01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:09.000
Well, I was quite upset to know that there are people who cast out on the authenticity of Greyfriars Bobby's story.

01:00:09.000 --> 01:00:11.000
Hmm. I would be devastated if it wasn't real.

01:00:11.000 --> 01:00:19.000
I was very upset to read that. I thought was loved that story.

01:00:19.000 --> 01:00:20.000
Yeah.

01:00:20.000 --> 01:00:24.000
Yeah. Yeah, and the film is great as well. So thank you very much again, Margaret.

01:00:24.000 --> 01:00:32.000
Thanks everyone. Thank you and thank you very much for all your questions. Thank you.

00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:21.000
Hey, thank you very much for that. Fiona and I hope, thank you very much.

00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:29.000
Very much for everybody else turning up for this. Brief lecture on food sustainability. My main priority is I am an environmental health practitioner.

00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:56.000
What used to be environmental health officer back in the days. However, not really worked with the local authority, mainly worked with the military by Well, it's all over the world and have that with these sort of issues that we're dealing with in all sorts of, in all types of, continents and countries all over the place.

00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:01.000
So hopefully, by the end of the lecture, we should have give you some ideas on how to reduce our environmental footprint through sustainable practices.

00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:13.000
When looking at the way our food is produced. How we eat our food, how we deal with our food waste.

00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:17.000
And how we deal with food packaging.

00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:24.000
So, following on from that, what is sustainedability? So what you're seeing there on the screen.

00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:33.000
Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs.

00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:41.000
Now that was an actual, definition which came from the, World Commission on Environment and Development.

00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:51.000
Our common future, it was a report written in 1987. Now, the biggest question is, is that definition still pertinent today?

00:01:51.000 --> 00:02:05.000
Because it assumes universal agreement. On development and requirements both socially, physically, upside socially, politically and environmentally by all countries, which definitely is not happening today.

00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:12.000
It was quite generic in its needs. And basically How can they anticipate future needs from the 19 eighties?

00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:28.000
We know for a fact that everything has changed since COVID. The use of AI, I'm bringing in telecommunications so there has been a lot of changes since then

00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:44.000
So. And out of this there's now 17 to, sustainable development goals. Which the UN have put out and all of these goals are supposed to be reached by 2,030.

00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:53.000
So these, as you can see here, one that we'll be dealing with today is our sustainable development goal number 2.

00:02:53.000 --> 00:03:02.000
No hunger by 2030. However, just having a quick look at the, the, 17 of them.

00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:10.000
There are major issues with regards to these goals, buzzing, first of all, there's too many of them.

00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:23.000
Which ones would we prioritize? There's too many trade-offs. We can trade off on our good health for us sustainable city or we can trade off clean water and sanitation for better life.

00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:32.000
Below water. And that's just for a few examples. Most of these goals are non bonding.

00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:43.000
Definitely underfunded because not all countries pay equally into the UN to sort of hope these out. Or is there any most countries budgets towards these goals?

00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:58.000
Themselves. Vary depending on the cost of living within that country. The very thinking nature. They can be easily politicized and we've seen that with regards to.

00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:08.000
Climate action all over the world. And depending on where you are globally, you can be looking at these from a different perspective, i.

00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:17.000
E. In developing countries, there's different needs to what we have in our in our own sort of area.

00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:29.000
So this is the actual report infographic for the report for 2,023 for this sustainable development group for goal 2 hunger.

00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:37.000
And as you can see there. There's very little progress. I've been made. Worldwide.

00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:42.000
This report is about creating a free

00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:53.000
World. And free hunger, free of hunger. The goal issues of hunger and food insecurity are shown an alarming increase since 2,015.

00:04:53.000 --> 00:05:03.000
And the trend is exacerbated by a combination of factors. Including the COVID pandemic. Conflicting Ukraine.

00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:10.000
And now in, in the Middle East, climate change and deepening inequalities across the world.

00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:22.000
By 2022. It was recorded that approximately 735 million people or 9.2% of the world Phone observes in the chronic stage of hunger.

00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:41.000
This is a stuck in rise compared to 2019. Now bearing in mind that we're looking at 0 hunger in 2030 It's now been projected that there'll still be 600 million people worldwide still facing Hungary in 2,030 itself.

00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:57.000
Which is highlighting the immense challenge of achieving 0 hunger target. People who experience more moderate food insecurity are typically unable to eat a healthy balanced diet on a regular basis because of the income and other resource constraints.

00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:04.000
Boys, rising cost of living, civil insecurity and blinding food production. Adds to all of this.

00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:12.000
And basically what we're doing today is discussing how we As individuals. Can look at the policies and look at our impact in general.

00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:28.000
Sorry, the environment impact of food in general, how we can look at food sustainability and basically how we can then Further, reduce.

00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:32.000
So this impact.

00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:44.000
So. Through production itself. Is responsible for a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. On contributing to global warning.

00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:55.000
However, the environment impact of different foods varies, hugely. So what you can see here, and this is an example we've got here.

00:06:55.000 --> 00:07:05.000
2026% of food. Sorry, a quarter of all global emissions come from food.

00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:19.000
Oh, that's 20 all of that quarter of global emissions. 58% are animal products and then 50% of that is beef.

00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:27.000
And the start comes that you see here now is based on research published in the Science Journal which estimated emissions per serving of different foods.

00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:37.000
It shows a wide range of potential environmental impact even with the same foods depending on how and where they are.

00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:41.000
According to the Uk's aquaculture and horticulture, development board.

00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:50.000
Greenhouse gas emissions are lower from UK produced based part because the landscape and climate in the UK is perfect for growing glass.

00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:57.000
We've got a grasslands covering 65% of our farmland on 50% of our land in total.

00:07:57.000 --> 00:08:00.000
This means cows don't rely on as much rain and other food. Which is like even higher carbon footprint.

00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:18.000
Which is mostly found in other countries. Other impacts around the world vary the environmental impact. Beef projection is the leading cause of deforestation in tropical reggae forests such as the Animal.

00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:27.000
And this adds to the environment and to impact of the beef. But all around the world.

00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:37.000
It's study that you see here is found up to 61% of the total emissions linked to some foods are generated as they are prepared in the home.

00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:44.000
Chicken with vegetables so it's our actual cooking ourselves at home. Is worsening the situation.

00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:52.000
Potentially even when we toast our bread it's significantly more carbon intensive than the regular type of bread that we eat.

00:08:52.000 --> 00:09:08.000
The final act of cooking or toasting bread can add 13% to its footprint. For foods that have already been partially pre cooked in factories are such as examples here of tofu and certain meats substitutes.

00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:16.000
The job contributes around 42%. Of their total initiatives.

00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:32.000
So. One of the main options seen by most people to reduce our environmental impact for food. sorry, the environment about the food is for people to sort of consider going to become a vegetarian.

00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:44.000
So, this face it we are on divorce. We are designed to eat meat. And vegetables. But however, over the past few years there's been an interest in veganism booming with supermarkets and restaurants.

00:09:44.000 --> 00:10:00.000
Competing to offer vegan menus and ranges to growing consumer demand. Perhaps you've been scratching your head wondering what exactly are the differences between a vegan and a vegetarian diet.

00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:03.000
Well, most people are familiar with the terms. And what this entails, some there is some confusion around the chord.

00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:12.000
Differences between these lifestyles.

00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:20.000
So as you can see here. The vegetarian diet is not just a diet of eating vegetables.

00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:28.000
We do need vitamins and other minerals which vegetables don't. Oh, don't apply.

00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:36.000
So therefore, what we're looking at here is the different types of vegetarian diet. So Those include.

00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:45.000
Not too vegetarians who do not eat eggs. Over vegetarians which exclude dairy but include eggs in the diet.

00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:54.000
Basketarians that do not eat meat or meat by products but they do eat fish. And sometimes they do, pescatians will eat.

00:10:54.000 --> 00:11:00.000
Eggs as well. That gives you a wide range of what we have there on types of vegetarianism.

00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:17.000
So it's not just simple eating veg. Band in mind as well. Following this, you're going to have to take supplements, extra for vitamins and, have to take supplements, extra for vitamins and, as, as you go through daily life.

00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:22.000
So there is definitely is a difference between vegans and vegetarianism. However, it does get confused when people are talking about it.

00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:37.000
But mainly, thinking is a lifestyle. It does not, vegans do not buy clothes or footwear made from any animal byproducts.

00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:48.000
They will avoid all animal products within their homes. The main difference between a vegan and a vegetarian diet is that a vegan diet excludes all animal products.

00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:55.000
Including dairy, eggs and honey. Watch the vegetarian. As we sung before may eat some dairy products.

00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:58.000
Thank you, turns do not eat meat, vulture or fish, but they may consume dairy products.

00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:06.000
Both diets have been made around for centuries. They've been practiced in Far East and in India.

00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:14.000
And what we also, with both diets to maintain health, maintain a healthy lifestyle.

00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:32.000
You need to get some, supplements. And basically what we've got here one of the main ones is vitamin B 12 which is primarily found in animal products.

00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:47.000
So what's the environmental impact of all of this? Deagan diets can sometimes include foods which have traveled long distances by air and require a large amount of water, such as avocados, exotic fruit, oleans.

00:12:47.000 --> 00:13:02.000
But is still by far the diet with the lowest footprint. In 2019 the UN released a report that stated a plant based diet is the single different single biggest way to reduce our impact on the planet.

00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:12.000
The difference between veganism and vegetarianism is that vegetarians typically consume a lot of dairy, which is a range of consequences when it comes to climate change.

00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:22.000
Yeah, approximately 270 million dairy cows worldwide, all of which produce vast amounts of greenhouse gases, water pollution.

00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:34.000
Post-defort patches force station and soil degradation. In fact, another recent report estimated that emissions from the top world, the sorry the world's top.

00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:44.000
There are 2 dairy farms, the largest ones, equal that the whole of the UK in itself.

00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:48.000
So is our current food strategy sustainable?

00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:59.000
It's an increasingly important question to ask when it comes to what we eat. And the UN have given a definition of which is defines a sustainable diet.

00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:10.000
It is basically states those diets with low environmental impact which contribute to food and nutrition security. And to a healthy lifestyle for present and future generations.

00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:21.000
Descendable diets are protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems. Culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable.

00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:32.000
You choose to clear out the nutritionally adequate, safe and healthy. And optimizing a lot of natural and human resources.

00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:43.000
So effectively, what does this mean in practice? In practice, sustainable eating is all about choosing foods under health and not all helpful to our environment and our bodies.

00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:51.000
2 is responsible as we mentioned early for 30% of US US. Sorry, UK greenhouse gas emissions.

00:14:51.000 --> 00:15:00.000
The resilience of Canada is being destroyed faster than the Amazon due to soy production. Most of which is fed to the animals that we eat.

00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:09.000
Over in Borneo, ancient tropical forests have been failed to plant palm trees to provide palm oil for what bread and low fat spread.

00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:20.000
Daily reports of writing food prices not to mention civil invest arising from food insecurity. Mean that what we eat matters more than ever before.

00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:30.000
Taking personal responsibility for eating habits and understanding as much as possible about the food we eat is a matter we should all consider.

00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:38.000
The issue of a sustainable diet may be complex, extending beyond the systems and structures of normal food production.

00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:45.000
But on a micro level, maintain a diet which process here is kept to a minimum is a simple and effective solution.

00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:53.000
By knowing your ingredients you can feed a family for far less than by buying the equivalent amount in ready meals.

00:15:53.000 --> 00:16:01.000
Farms livestock can be consumed in moderation. Eating, Seaton, the produced, veg, also makes a big difference.

00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:11.000
There is a myriad of reasons why we should all be eating more fruit and vent.

00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:19.000
To sustain a healthier human diet is not just the quantity of food that is important. But adequate and appropriate magician is also essential.

00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:33.000
Even though the police is on food, focus on feeding 9 billion people by 2,050. In reality, it's not distributed equally and some people have poor access to food than others.

00:16:33.000 --> 00:16:44.000
So this then, on to look at food sustainability, food security and nutritional security. Addition to the accessibility of food affordability.

00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:54.000
It's also important. 400 sorry in addition to the accessibility of Making it affordable is important to us all.

00:16:54.000 --> 00:17:01.000
Food for hundreds of millions of people in the world, the cost of sufficient and nutrition food can be prohibitive.

00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:08.000
Also what we've got to take into account is to additional and spiritual associations of food and also important.

00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:22.000
Food. Food pervades deeply into the organisation of human society and the Fuji is strong influenced by where you live.

00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:31.000
Food has to be transported across the world. On the following gives you a rough idea of what the impacts of transportation are.

00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:43.000
But we have air pollution, problems with health. Water pollution, carbon dioxide emissions. Or we have health and safety problems with accidents with, with vehicles and ships.

00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:54.000
Noise from food transport congestion from road transport Yeah, it's a different state. Something that we call the food print.

00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:05.000
So each stage of the food transport and production process contributes to carbon emissions. And basically we cannot do anything about this carbon emissions.

00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:15.000
They're just gonna happen. However, we can try and look at them from a different point of view when we consider.

00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:22.000
Miles

00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:34.000
Only a small percent food is transported by lorries, trains, planes and ships, all burned fossil fuels in their engines releasing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:47.000
This contribute, as we've already said, to global warming and climate change. Air freight, the least environmentally friendly way of transporting food due to the huge amount of gas is given off by aircraft.

00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:59.000
It's not the most quickly expanding method of food transposition since 1992. The amount of foods found by aeroplanes now is risen by a hundred 40%.

00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:09.000
Beauty is responsible for approximately 26% of global Greenhouse gash emissions with CM rail producing 20% of the world's food transport emissions.

00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:16.000
Road being the most common form of transport in food, which, once it's reached a country of origin.

00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:26.000
Is also as contributing significantly to carbon dioxide. Permissions.

00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:36.000
So we've mentioned food malls earlier, so basically what are they? Food models or a way of attempting to measure how far food is traveled before it reaches the consumer.

00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:50.000
It is a good way of looking into the environment impact of food and their ingredients. It also includes getting foods to you but also getting waste away from from your food waste away from you and getting it to landfill.

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:56.000
So what does food, what does it mean? It means that it is time to think about where your food has come from.

00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:00.000
And what environmental effects it has.

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:14.000
All we know from that. What can you do? So when we look at food miles and processed foods Votage foods will contain a list of different ingredients.

00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:19.000
Each ingredient will already traveled some distance before they're all mixed together. For example, a prepackaged fruit sided from the supermarket contains strawberries from Scotland.

00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:30.000
Pine apples from Costa Rica. And grapes from Egypt. That is a lot of food models.

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:35.000
Each of the foods created. Few miles on the way to the factory where they are prepared and packed.

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:42.000
And also they gain more food laws within the country. We're within the country when they've been delivered to the supermarkets.

00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:56.000
Also, you take into account if you're travelling to buy the food. If when you're going by bus or by Call.

00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:05.000
So when we look at fresh food fresh fruit gains malls when they're transported from where they are grown to where they are bought.

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:12.000
So it is better to keep it local as possible. And again, and examples. We have pairs.

00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:21.000
Coming from Argentina to have traveled over 7,000 miles to reach the UK when we have pairs already grown in this country.

00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:29.000
So you can you can weigh and balance up the carbon footprint there.

00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:41.000
So I think the first thing you can do when you're looking out. Where your food come from is always check the labels.

00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:52.000
So as you can see there, that's we have highlighted. Oraging there's always has to be by law face of origin on the food label.

00:21:52.000 --> 00:22:07.000
So when you are buying new food and if you I'm sure most of you do it already You can take into account where that foods come from and check.

00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:26.000
So we've mentioned food security previously, so why is this important? So. He's quite important because it was actually mentioned by the Prime Minister this week in a speech that he gave to the National Farmers Union about food security in the UK and how they're invited towards it.

00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:35.000
So food security refers to once. Access to safe and nutritious food. It is multi-dimensional concept that looks at different food systems.

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:53.000
And elements including production, processing, distribution. Consumption and the actual delivery of the food. Food security covers all access points from physical to economic and social access to the food supplies.

00:22:53.000 --> 00:22:56.000
To achieve optimum food security.

00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:06.000
We should follow the thought we should have enough produce provided by our food supplies within the UK. Maintain a steady influx of food.

00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:12.000
Ensure that those in need can access food supplies easily.

00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:28.000
And basically we've got to ensure That's we do have sufficient and nutritional food. To make sure that there is food security because then this leads on to a better lifestyle.

00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:39.000
When we have, decent food security, education and health care. Become better and also lifestyle improvements become better.

00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:47.000
So all in all, food securities link to economic well-being.

00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:50.000
But on the flip side.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:24:04.000
Hello, unhealthy eating, it can be a consequence of food insecurity. So therefore Well, a fifth of UK households are resorting to unhealthy.

00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:13.000
Hi, Calorie, food and diets. Due to trouble accessing good quality food at reasonable prices.

00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:22.000
The promotion of cheap, calorie dense foods lacking essential nutrients has resulted in 30% of the population becoming obese.

00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:32.000
This figure is expected to rise to 40% by 2035. But the NHS spent spending a lot more money on type 2 diabetes treatment.

00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:45.000
Outweighing current expenditure on treating all cancers. And other lifestyle problems. Basically obesity is a chronic complex relapsing condition.

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:54.000
Which with multiple factors impacting its development around genetic psychology and biologic biological along social factors such as poverty.

00:24:54.000 --> 00:25:06.000
Often food choices in those living with obesity and food insecurity. Or made through financial constraints rather than the knowledge of a healthy diet.

00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:20.000
And what we've got here hopefully is an example. Of where it is in the UK. So there's an increase in few foods insecurity.

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:27.000
Is part throughout the UK is partly because consumer price inflation is at its highest in the last 40 years.

00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:39.000
Meaning many households are resorting to money saving measures. Like skipping meals. Evidence shows that more healthy food, over choices expenses as less healthy options.

00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:47.000
And it is viable to farmers as mentioned in the PM speech this week. It's vital for farmers.

00:25:47.000 --> 00:26:01.000
And other food producers to be able to. Get sufficient and suitable food and at least it's quite near to all citizens.

00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:16.000
Nutritional security is vitally important for health and well-being and lack of nutrition security manifests in malnutrition caused by not any enough of the right things necessary for an active and healthy lifestyle.

00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:21.000
And youtritious diet consists of macro nutrients, carbohydrates.

00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:29.000
Proteins and fats, etc. In certain proportions. And a wide range of micro nutrients, vitamin, and minerals.

00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:38.000
What does the global But sorry, but does the current global food production address those nutritional needs? Unfortunately, it does not.

00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:46.000
The 2017 global nutrition report suggest that nutrition is still a large scale and universal problem.

00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:57.000
So this leads to quite a concept of balancing. Food security versus nutrition security.

00:26:57.000 --> 00:27:04.000
It's these terms are often used. Interchangeability in food policy discourse and under debate.

00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:16.000
While the strategies to address each of these are intertwined, there are important differences that should be noted and understood by educators, policymakers, community leaders and other stakeholders.

00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:21.000
Food and nutrition security will it exist when all people at all times have physical, social and economical access to food which is consumed in sufficient quantity.

00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:30.000
And quality to meet their dietary needs. And food preferences and is supported by an environment of adequate.

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:43.000
Sanitation, health services and care alone for a healthy and active lifestyle. So this is looked at on a regular basis.

00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:53.000
Why the United Nations? And this report provides an update on global. Progress towards the targets of ended hunger.

00:27:53.000 --> 00:28:01.000
And the all forms of malnutrition. And estimates on the number of people who are unable to afford a healthy diet.

00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:15.000
Since it's 2017 edition. This report has repeatedly highlighted that the intensification interaction of conflict, climate and climate extremes and economic slowdowns and tangent downturns.

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:29.000
Combined with highly unaffordable nutritious food and glowing, growing inequality are pushing off track to meet the the targets for sgd 2 in the same with goals.

00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:38.000
However, other important mega trends must also be factored into the analysis to fully understand the challenges and opportunities to meet these targets.

00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:47.000
One such mega trained. Is urbanization. New evidence shows that food produced in some countries are no longer.

00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:58.000
Owning among urban houses but among rural households either. Conception of highly processed food is also increasing in How are you open and rural?

00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:07.000
Hey, areas of some countries.

00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:23.000
Let me look at dietary choices and preferences. As much as the affordability of food is what people eat is strongly influenced by their dieter performances, preferences, which in turn is closely connected to behavioral culture and religious and social factors as mentioned earlier.

00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:31.000
These factors add other dimensions to future security. And these top useful, these are meant to fulfill these dimensions.

00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:37.000
And this is on production alone is not sufficient. So when we're looking at all our diets and our food choices now.

00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:48.000
We're having to look at affordability by which we profess pet preferences then that then our behavioral culture, religion and social aspects.

00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:56.000
So basically emphasis is not on production alone.

00:29:56.000 --> 00:30:08.000
So one, that that thing to consider is do we have enough? Oh, or too much food. When we're looking at our our daily lives.

00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:16.000
That for basically we need to think about our portion sizes. Most of us probably do not think about portion size when we eat.

00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:22.000
It depends on what we usually have, how hunger we feel. How much is in a packet or on a plate?

00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:28.000
But having a healthy balance diet is about getting the right types of food and drinks in the right amounts.

00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:42.000
These guys, guys, aim to help you find the right balance for you is known how much you eat, it's also about eating differently.

00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:47.000
So what we have here is from the British Nutritional Foundation and it gives you a rough idea.

00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:58.000
Of what you have should have nutritionally on your plate. Basically your 5 a day which you've all heard about.

00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:03.000
However

00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:13.000
We're looking at basically, 2,000 kilo calories a day. Nobody's going to sit there and weigh the food out every time they look at or wait.

00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:17.000
And so what we've got here for you is just a Rough idea of how to measure food.

00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:31.000
So 2 handfuls of dry pasta, at about 75 grams. The spaghetti round about one pound coin again is 75 grams.

00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:42.000
Etc, etc. 3 handfuls of breakfast cereal, 40 grams. So this will be put into the notes at the end so it can give you a rough idea.

00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:52.000
How you can measure out your food and keep within. The appropriate portion sizes.

00:31:52.000 --> 00:32:01.000
Following on from that, also we need to look. To reduce our carbon footprint. Where are foods come from?

00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:13.000
Now, obviously. You're looking at country of origin on each label. But when we look at a chocolate For instance, this gives you an idea of where it comes from.

00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:19.000
So the makeup of a chocolate bar itself. Elko's from South America, salts from China.

00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:30.000
Sugars from the Caribbean. How chimps sulfate from India. Nok and wheat from the EU, Palmol from the Southeast Asia.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:40.000
Even though it's manufactured locally, the ingredients source from is sourced from many areas and overseas as you can see.

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.000
It typical biscuit containing chocolate, a buyer they bought, like you can buy from a shop.

00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:54.000
Has most probably been manufactured in a British factory and has very high food miles. So effectively you're talking in there.

00:32:54.000 --> 00:33:00.000
In excess of about 5,000 food loils.

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:09.000
Also, which is used for, environmental impact is the humble banana. And what we've got here just gives you an idea of.

00:33:09.000 --> 00:33:18.000
The environment, to impact of the humble banana. So it takes 130 liters of water.

00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:28.000
Could choose per banana, each banana. 30% of the fresh bananas are produced. Or rejected prior to sale.

00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:37.000
Alright, and they're also part of the 345 kg of food which is wasted annually.

00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:44.000
Before because we don't like them when they start going moldy. Or when you start going black, etc.

00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:55.000
And bananas and other landfill waste emissions increase our CO 2 by 24 times. The normal amount.

00:33:55.000 --> 00:34:03.000
Bulling on from that, this now leads us into talking about food packaging and food waste itself.

00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:07.000
So why do we have food packaging?

00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:11.000
We have it there to ensure that food arrives in a safe and good condition. It provides the information of the contents of the food.

00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:20.000
Useful information as we've seen before. It's essential for transport to stop spinach, etc.

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:28.000
And again, if we shop locally, it needs. Little packaging.

00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:34.000
What we've got here. Is example of the waste. Associated with the grounds responsible for the most plastic.

00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:51.000
Packaging, pollution in the UK. And a lot of them you can see are ones We recognise.

00:34:51.000 --> 00:35:02.000
Also, what this shows here. This is a slide form surface against sewage. On these of the dirty does the companies they call the Bertie Dozen.

00:35:02.000 --> 00:35:14.000
Who's packaging? And waste products or affecting our oceans. Today.

00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:17.000
So.

00:35:17.000 --> 00:35:22.000
What is the problem with, the, that we use? Most of it is not renewable.

00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:37.000
It's made from oil tin and annual. Which is all basically new sources. All manufacture, course there's a lot of pollution during its manufacturing.

00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:43.000
And taint, and seep into plastics. Now we'll show you that a little bit later on in the talk.

00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:55.000
It's required. To ensure food transport. So it does itself cause a few, food malls and emissions.

00:35:55.000 --> 00:36:10.000
And it takes a lot of energy. When we, refrigerate the, the food and, in the packaging that we use and most of it is not recyclable.

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:18.000
Well what we've got here, this gives you an idea of the chemicals of concern. That we find in food packaging.

00:36:18.000 --> 00:36:27.000
Obviously, woken down into paper, plastic and metal. This is just a brief overview of the overview of those chemicals of concern.

00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:39.000
However, some of you may recognize a, the phthalates in there, which are those forever chemicals that have been I've been banded about on social media and in the news.

00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:52.000
And they take a lot of problems coming far, well. They're around forever. Some other chemicals that you've got there are potentially carcinogenic in nature.

00:36:52.000 --> 00:37:03.000
And also some of these leaching to the phone. If left in contact for a long time or if the packages left into in sunlight.

00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:11.000
So it does cause us quite a lot of problems does, food packaging.

00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:17.000
So following on from food production, food consumption, it all causes and food packaging all causes food waste.

00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:23.000
Which also has a major impact on our environment.

00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:32.000
It's year, as you can see there, 1.3 billion tons of food. About a third of it is producing about a third of it is wasted.

00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:39.000
Good waste is a big growing problem. Hey, the amount of food we throw away is accuse waste of resources as well.

00:37:39.000 --> 00:37:48.000
So we can use it for all types of energy. All of the energy. And water and packaging used in food production, transport and storage is wasted completely.

00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:55.000
When we throw it. Is most of the time. Food, even though it is collective. In our bins.

00:37:55.000 --> 00:38:05.000
Unless there's anything specifically set up by the council, it will all go to landfill.

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:25.000
Got and its own right causes pop and when it goes to landfill because it generates something called leech 8 in landfill which can contaminate local water tables and so in its well and is one of the most toxic chemicals, known to man.

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:37.000
And makes up to 50% of old household waste. Requires, transportation. And I said, mentioned there, 2425 times.

00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:51.000
The rate of CO 2 emitted from the landfill site is all down to food waste.

00:38:51.000 --> 00:39:08.000
Fruit has happened throughout the food supply chain. Basically It starts at the farm itself. And also at the supermarkets.

00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:17.000
UK supermarkets, I've been known to throw away at least a hundred 15,000 tonnes of perfectly good food each year.

00:39:17.000 --> 00:39:25.000
This is all due to certain variables and necessarily strict sell by dates mean food is disposed of when it could be eaten.

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:32.000
Commercial offers, buy one, get one free, so we all buy too much more food than we need.

00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:48.000
You see, is demand for a cosmetically perfect means. Of their food. And poor storage is a result of it as well.

00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:57.000
On necessarily stripped expiration date means that food is disposed of, people not understanding used by dates, best before dates, etc.

00:39:57.000 --> 00:40:09.000
The rule of thumb basically is the use by date is a is basically a quality. It's a quality.

00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:18.000
Sorry, used by date is there for quality. I'm basically, you can scratch and sniff to see if the food is okay.

00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:24.000
I passed before. So I got that along with that. Please, please forgive me. I'll start again.

00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:38.000
I used by date is for food safety. You cannot use food. Which is gone past that date because it's been, it's been, microbiologically tested and it's known that,

00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:48.000
Organisms will grow after that date which can potentially cause. To, to humans. The best for date is quality.

00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:59.000
That's the one you she can do scratching Smith. And basically test and adjust. See, if the quality of the food is, okay.

00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:07.000
I'd apologise while I go, but have mixed up there. Okay, 70% of post farm gate food is produced by the household.

00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:16.000
And it looked like there was twenty-ninth and 28 9, 2,018, 9.5 million tons of food and drink were wasted in the UK poster farm gate food chain.

00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:26.000
This can all be avoided by just looking at little bits and pieces of how we buy our food.

00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:34.000
While we cook it, how we prep it. And what we do with the food waste.

00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:40.000
Again, dealing with lettuces. 38% of lettuces are actually thrown, thrown away.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:45.000
So, we need to look at when we buy them.

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:56.000
Best before dates. You etc. Thanks. We throw away for 4% of all our own bread.

00:41:56.000 --> 00:42:02.000
Again, scratch and sniff can work wonders with that.

00:42:02.000 --> 00:42:09.000
1% of foods find a way that could be, in, fresh fruit and vegetables.

00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:17.000
And this basically is the main problem falling on from that. Is that the cost of food waste to an average person?

00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:29.000
An average family with children is over a thousand pounds per year. So reducing the amount of food we throw away does not only help the environment, it can actually save us money.

00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:36.000
The overall cost of food waste each year to households in the UK cultures up to 19 billion pounds.

00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:53.000
According to the waste and resources action program, the average UK family with children wastes 244 kg of food or 580 meals each year which costs them over 700 pounds.

00:42:53.000 --> 00:42:57.000
Oh, sorry, between 712,000 pounds.

00:42:57.000 --> 00:43:06.000
The cost of food waste is not just financial, but it's also environmental. And it contributes to greenhouse gases.

00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:20.000
There are suggestions that we'll talk about as we go through for how we can react, reduce our food waste and this cost.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:30.000
Is really at the end of the day there is more than enough food producing the world to feed everyone. Watched 98% of the world's hungry live in developing countries.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:33.000
There were many people in the UK do not get enough to eat. More than 8 million people in Britain live in households that struggle to put enough food on the table.

00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:49.000
Or over half regular, go a day without eating. Get on with 7 million tons of food end up in mouthfuls each year.

00:43:49.000 --> 00:44:03.000
Love food hate campaign. Love food hate waste campaign encourages people to to waste less food. Because at the moment there is no Monday mandatory food waste reduction targets in the UK.

00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:14.000
But there are many voluntary initiatives that have been set up. Consumer campaigns that encourage people to rethink how they can shop plan meals better and use up leftovers.

00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:21.000
And you can find out more about this. If you, Google love food hate waste.

00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:30.000
And look at their website. It's a very very good website and some very very good tips.

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:41.000
Also what we've got. You're looking at is food redistribution schemes which save food from being wasted and make sure it gets to those who need it.

00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:49.000
This is an example of one in Leeds where is now a food waste supermarket that works with stores to put food to good use.

00:44:49.000 --> 00:44:54.000
It means that those, you can, if we can take food. Would otherwise have been thrown out.

00:44:54.000 --> 00:44:57.000
Very, very good. You've also seen. Seen it around, specifically when shopping Morrisons, I've seen it there.

00:44:57.000 --> 00:45:08.000
Many supermarkets have launched a wonky veg range.

00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:15.000
To help reduce food waste.

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:22.000
It is important when you look at, the way you, you make, buy produce.

00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:30.000
You, your food. And get rid of your waste. With night it would be good to follow the waste hierarchy.

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:38.000
So all in all the best thing to do is to prevent food waste by reducing and reusing it. Wait, food has to be thrown away.

00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:43.000
Think about where it goes. And always try to recycle it.

00:45:43.000 --> 00:46:00.000
Would you reduce food where you can, reduce the amount of foods use where you can. Okay, okay, and buy the food that you would you could you can easily eat in one go.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:13.000
As we mentioned, this just basically now gives you Regents to think about caution sizes and explains better than my little sort of mess up earlier on the.

00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:25.000
How to go about using the best before dates and use by dates. Okay. So food is often okay to eat after the best before date.

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:45.000
Does it smell? Page look fine, yes. You can eat the food and keep checking it. If it's past issue by date, it's it is a health risk.

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:58.000
Also. Try and get creative with leftovers. Obviously on Sunday voice you can eat for 2 or 3 sandwiches later in the week or you can make a resort or a curry.

00:46:58.000 --> 00:47:06.000
Thereby reducing. Blue touch being thrown away. If you do have to phone through the way.

00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:14.000
Why don't you use the compost? Once the pride of every gardener, but, the has been a few.

00:47:14.000 --> 00:47:15.000
A lot of people are now put off by compost tips because they think it's too much work.

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:26.000
It is basically it's agent technology introduced by the rooms around about 2,000 and a way of in previous all facility.

00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:35.000
It provides organic waste, it's a value of commodity. It's a great way to stop one cooked kitchen waste ending up in landfill.

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:44.000
And you'll garden will benefit. It can be made easily by leaving materials in a heap, ideally in a one meter square.

00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:52.000
And it should be in close with a brick or timber or cup, timber. Frame and covered to be.

00:47:52.000 --> 00:48:05.000
Catch out as you can see that the wood refrain. Just some palettes or. An old box there on a plastic box that can be used and this.

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:16.000
Produces lovely compost like on your

00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:23.000
Threeed waste can also be recirculated into fertilizer and hopefully or you can check with your local authority.

00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:43.000
To see if they do generate these, these systems. Or. If they do, they should be reporting it on their, with on their environmental websites.

00:48:43.000 --> 00:48:51.000
So we're just gonna run through a few things now. As we lead towards the end of the, of the lecture is things to think about.

00:48:51.000 --> 00:49:01.000
Give you just a few ideas Not to say you must, you must, you must, but when you're walking, right, you know, around the shops, what to consider.

00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:23.000
So where possible, reduce your food mode and shop locally. Okay, so local supermarkets. No local, local, farm shops, farmers markets and Also when you're actually in the supermarket look look down the local shop for local aisle.

00:49:23.000 --> 00:49:35.000
Another great thing to consider is eating fish sustainability are sustainably. So instead of eating cod. Eat hake, set of tuna.

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:43.000
Sorry. Set of prawns, muscles. Set a salmon, try ray more trout.

00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:52.000
Instead of had a place. All of these are basically more sustainable.

00:49:52.000 --> 00:49:58.000
A more. Successful.

00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:02.000
Species of fish and

00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:06.000
And shellfish out there.

00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:07.000
So basically, 80% of the seafood we eat in the UK is made up of just 5 different species.

00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:23.000
Ones that we've mentioned there. We call them the big 5 called haddock salmon tuna and prawns Not only are they really boring when you eat them, but it's a pretty bad idea.

00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:31.000
To keep eating them because they're not they're becoming unsustainable. And these big swaps that I've mentioned here.

00:50:31.000 --> 00:50:35.000
Can make it

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:41.000
Can, sorry, the swaps I've mentioned here. Can take the pressure off off of these species.

00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:52.000
And also a lot of this information you can find in the good fish guide if you google that as well.

00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:59.000
Also something to think about when you go for your weekly shop. Is to buy less process food.

00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:12.000
If you can eat more simple fresh food. Which house? Choose with their natural dieting methods.

00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:19.000
Avoid. Packaging wherever you can, as it does cause pollution. Simper food is likely to be more highly packaged.

00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:26.000
This is because basically it's going to.

00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:36.000
It's part of the processing and preservation process. And it helped extend the shelf life of processed food, it's sport is you maintain in freshness.

00:51:36.000 --> 00:51:41.000
So try even in some ship or buy because you can actually leave the package in behind.

00:51:41.000 --> 00:51:45.000
If you figure it if you feel this too much.

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:57.000
Enjoy food that is in season. Investigate the health food store, the health food shop. Troy, organically if you can.

00:51:57.000 --> 00:52:09.000
So that was just giving you some simple things to think about. What we're looking at now, obviously it's, when we are better off financially, we can look up how we, how we can look.

00:52:09.000 --> 00:52:19.000
Into how we impact the environment more. But in the current sort of. State of play with our finances and the cost of poor cost of living.

00:52:19.000 --> 00:52:26.000
Following a few suggestions from if you've got no money, so if you've got a little bit of money.

00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:27.000
So. Suggestions that help save you money and help the environment as you can see there is drink tap water.

00:52:27.000 --> 00:52:39.000
Set of bottled water. Reduce the amount of meat you eat. I, to only eating meat 2 days a week.

00:52:39.000 --> 00:52:47.000
I've actually done much set up myself and I'm actually starting to enjoy the meat that I eat at the weekend more.

00:52:47.000 --> 00:52:53.000
Also, I don't tend to waste it. As much. And I am enjoying a lot more vegetables.

00:52:53.000 --> 00:53:03.000
So that is a win win as far as I'm concerned. Or grow your own food. Instead of count drinks, use concentrated or juices.

00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:16.000
And try foraging. There's a lot of stuff out there on foraging. Well, by mainly one of the books by Richard may be is that there's the best book you can get on on foraging.

00:53:16.000 --> 00:53:22.000
But just, follow the guidelines and be careful.

00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:31.000
We've mentioned before us. Suggestions that cost nothing and help the environment buy local products, farmers markets.

00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:46.000
My fish pot fish products can be eaten without refrigeration. Use oranges and, instead of, cartoons and juice your own orange juice.

00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:51.000
Trying to voice faster.

00:53:51.000 --> 00:54:02.000
Suggestions that cost a small amount of extra, save towards the environment. Join your organic box scheme, promise yourself more organic item each time you go to the shop.

00:54:02.000 --> 00:54:12.000
Boy local honey. You certified dolphin fended tuna. Free major organic cream, Obviously that's little things that you can do if you've got.

00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:17.000
Sufficient money to do that.

00:54:17.000 --> 00:54:30.000
Hello. So really what is hope that you've got away from this lecture. And some of my gabling all the way through is It is easy to feel that we are no longer in control of our food.

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:45.000
And we are far to remove from the food production. There are things out there that we can do. Taking a few simple steps it is possible for us to improve our health and well being and we choose the impact on the planet.

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:53.000
I don't consider the ideas in this lecture you can feel better about looking and join yourself while creating less pollution.

00:54:53.000 --> 00:55:04.000
And you will feel more in control of your life as well as being on the way to being part of this, part of the solution, from the problem and dealing with our own environmental impact.

00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:12.000
So to end on a good note Environmental and food data shows we can we can think the world twice over.

00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:20.000
The average person needs 2,000 to 2,500 calories per day. If we actually divide up all our global food production equally.

00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:30.000
We can afford 5,000 calories per person per day for everybody in the world. Hungarian farming, still exist or political in nature and can be dealt with.

00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:44.000
Limits to feeding. Everyone inside, entirely self in. Pose and we are resourceful not humans and we have a good track record of dealing with major problems that can affect us so we can.

00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:53.000
We can overcome this. And here's a few examples. Of what to expect in the future for food sustainability.

00:55:53.000 --> 00:56:00.000
We have Spyelina which is a cyclo bacterium or blue green algae. You most probably already seen that in health food shops.

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:10.000
That's to help you. It's. An ancient food type used by the Aztecs.

00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:21.000
And it can give us nearly 60% of our protein requirements. There's something else here from South Africa, which I'm not really a little keen about, but that's insect milk.

00:56:21.000 --> 00:56:30.000
Made from cockroaches. And of course, as we've seen all over the past, we've seen in our shops.

00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:38.000
Which again, Never saw a couple of years ago shows how resourceful we're being.

00:56:38.000 --> 00:56:45.000
Well, thing I would like you to take away from this are At least, leapfrog into next month.

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:55.000
Is this food action week, 2024, eighteenth, 20 fourth of March. It focuses on.

00:56:55.000 --> 00:57:09.000
This is focusing on what will you use. Food wise during that, during that week and if you can reduce your food waste, that would be absolutely superb.

00:57:09.000 --> 00:57:15.000
So depending any questions, thank you very much and I'll pass myself. Back to Fiona.

00:57:15.000 --> 00:57:16.000
Thank you.

00:57:16.000 --> 00:57:31.000
Thanks very much for that, Lee. We got through a lot of stuff there and we've got a few quite a few questions which folks I don't think we're gonna have time to get through them all just now but we will try and get some of the questions done and anything that we can answer live today.

00:57:31.000 --> 00:57:37.000
And we'll take these away, Lee, and we'll get the answers to those and post them up beside the recording when it's ready either tomorrow or early next week.

00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:44.000
Okay, so let me start off with, and I'll try and get through as many as I can.

00:57:44.000 --> 00:57:56.000
Now, I've had a couple of questions about cooking methods, leave, which you talked about kind of quite early on in the presentation.

00:57:56.000 --> 00:58:03.000
So I had a question from Jane and a question from Enid. Now, First of all, how do you decide what's the best way to cook something?

00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:10.000
For example, beef. You know, you've got so many different cooking methods these days, we've got air fryers as well now.

00:58:10.000 --> 00:58:18.000
How can you make those decisions between roasting or slow cooking or air frying and these kinds of things.

00:58:18.000 --> 00:58:30.000
It's quite difficult. And also in it was talking about you talked about the toasting of the bread and kind of what is actually the impact of that.

00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:40.000
We are you can actually use stale bread. Rather than wasting it versus buying another loaf of bread.

00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:41.000
Okay, so.

00:58:41.000 --> 00:58:44.000
So there's kind of Okay, there that we need to try and make isn't there?

00:58:44.000 --> 00:58:53.000
Yeah, I mean with regards to cooking. When we're looking at anything that keeps the oven on quite a long time, is basically adding to, you know, an environment.

00:58:53.000 --> 00:59:00.000
The global emissions X, etc. So we're trying to reduce our cooking in another as much as possible.

00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:09.000
So we can use air, it would be preferable to do something like an air fly or your microwave.

00:59:09.000 --> 00:59:16.000
As well. Because yes, it's high, high use electrically for a microwave, but it's for a short time.

00:59:16.000 --> 00:59:21.000
Where else? When you've got your oven, it can, it can take 2 to 3 h.

00:59:21.000 --> 00:59:30.000
Now, sorry, I missed a bit about the bread.

00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:31.000
All right, so.

00:59:31.000 --> 00:59:32.000
Yeah, so you talked about the twisting of the bread having an environmental impact in terms of emissions and whatnot.

00:59:32.000 --> 00:59:37.000
But the toasting of the bread can allow you to use stale bread that you might otherwise Ben.

00:59:37.000 --> 00:59:38.000
Exactly, yes.

00:59:38.000 --> 00:59:46.000
And so what's the impact of that toasting versus the impact of buying another loaf of bread and wasting.

00:59:46.000 --> 00:59:55.000
Well, let's face it. If you, again, if you're Toasting the bread, not that you are, instead of buying another loaf.

00:59:55.000 --> 01:00:06.000
You are actually reducing the food, aren't you? For totting up bread. Because if you're going to buy a low that starts to hope, that's going to be adding to the food mode because you're going out to the shops to buy the bed.

01:00:06.000 --> 01:00:14.000
It's obviously come from somewhere, etc, etc. So, toasting it.

01:00:14.000 --> 01:00:25.000
Is far more better than buying another local bed. Also, You can you can actually use stale bread in other and other sort of recipes.

01:00:25.000 --> 01:00:35.000
Classic example. it croutons is for soup and also bed but a pudding which is that's the sort of thing.

01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:40.000
So you can look for other recipes where you can use it. Use that type of stuff.

01:00:40.000 --> 01:00:45.000
You can also freeze it.

01:00:45.000 --> 01:00:46.000
Sorry? You can also freeze bed as well, yes, yes.

01:00:46.000 --> 01:00:57.000
Right. You can also freeze bread, to, to to lengthen its shell slice.

01:00:57.000 --> 01:00:58.000
Yeah.

01:00:58.000 --> 01:01:09.000
Okay. And now another question from Stuart. And now what Stuart saying is another measure of food sustainability could be the scarily diminishing number of the world's population who rely on the foods which they grow themselves.

01:01:09.000 --> 01:01:25.000
Do we know the percentage of the UK or indeed the world's population who actually are self-sustaining with regard to their own food needs.

01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:26.000
Hmm.

01:01:26.000 --> 01:01:27.000
That's not is no. I haven't got that. Oh, it doesn't actually come up in any of the UN reports.

01:01:27.000 --> 01:01:38.000
It's not primarily in any UK report. as far as I know, So I can't really answer that question.

01:01:38.000 --> 01:01:42.000
Something that's not necessarily measured.

01:01:42.000 --> 01:01:44.000
Yes, I see.

01:01:44.000 --> 01:01:52.000
Okay. And well, there we go, Stuart. Okay. No, a quick question from Stephen.

01:01:52.000 --> 01:01:58.000
Now this was about, let me see if I can just find it.

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We've got lots of comments in here. This was to do with, the sort of environment impact of meat versus veg.

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And because obviously you can you can eat local meats but obviously a lot of edges imported. And meat does tend to get quite a bad rap sometimes because of the emissions that come from it.

01:02:21.000 --> 01:02:27.000
So I don't know what your thoughts are on that and because you can probably eat meat more locally than you can the veg because we see it in the supermarkets all the time.

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It's that most of the veg is coming from elsewhere.

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I think, and, mentioned, in of the lecture, meet in the UK, it is, if it comes from the UK, it's fairly, fairly good with the gods to environment environmental impacts.

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We're not using a lot of our grains or wheat and we've got a lot of grass etc.

01:02:52.000 --> 01:03:01.000
So it would be better obviously to buy meat. And it would be okay to, it wouldn't cause too much.

01:03:01.000 --> 01:03:13.000
To buy me with regards to food, food bars and the environmental impact if it was from the UK. If it was from, you know, you know, from Europe or things like that, then I would sort of and have to consider food miles, greenhouse gas emissions, etc.

01:03:13.000 --> 01:03:19.000
So by local, by British basically.

01:03:19.000 --> 01:03:25.000
But are there any sort of comparators? Are there any kinds of figures which show?

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Because obviously you know We know that there are huge amounts of fruit and veg that come in with huge huge food miles.

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Are there any figures that tell us kind of what the comparators are between the meat production and the veg?

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Off the top of my head but if you want to put that question I can answer that. For the notes afterwards.

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Right, well that's what we'll do, Stephen. We'll see if we can get full of answer for that.

01:03:48.000 --> 01:03:55.000
And afterwards. Okay. I think we'll probably have time for one more question and then we'll think we'll need to wrap up folks.

01:03:55.000 --> 01:04:02.000
But as I say, I'll gather all your questions together and we'll take a look at them afterwards.

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No, there was an interesting question actually from, Lesley.

01:04:09.000 --> 01:04:26.000
What do we know of the impact of the manufacture of supplements? The impact on the use of power and transport because obviously, you know, if you're thinking about vegetarian or a vegan diet, supplements are something that you would probably want to think about.

01:04:26.000 --> 01:04:35.000
Do we know what the environment environmental impacts are of the manufacture of these supplements?

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Simple answer is no, cause I haven't actually seen any, anything on the environmental impact to supplements.

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From an official point of view, I would have thought, because a lot of the supplements are, sort of chemically based and made in a laboratory.

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I couldn't really answer that question. Again, I can look it up.

01:04:56.000 --> 01:05:05.000
Okay, lovely. Okay. No.

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Right. This is a final question, we'll just answer, ask one more. And this is a question from Ali.

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Now let me just scroll down to see if I can find this.

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If you give me 1 s, Fox.

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Let's have a look.

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Right, I can't find it because we've got so many comments in here which I'll let you see but basically the gist of the question was.

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Do we know what sort of percentage difference can be made by individuals and all the things that we can do?

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To try and you know improve food sustainability compared to The actual food. Industry being better regulated.

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I suppose in terms of packaging and wastage and that kind of thing.

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Sorry, can you repeat that?

01:06:03.000 --> 01:06:10.000
But, what percentage difference can be made by individuals compared to better food regulation, IE, the food industry.

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You know, because we're talking about all the things that we can do. What action, you know, what is the percentage difference that that can make compared to the difference that the food industry.

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Should actually make with better regulation.

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If that makes sense.

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Okay. Okay. Yeah, it is.

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Basically, I think if we all everybody can make it a difference, by little subtle changes, you know, in the way we sort of, live with sort of work and as we sort of, if we went to a supermarket and we kept set hand him back.

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Kept handing back the waste, plastics and things like that. They'll cotton on the producers will cotton on in the end.

01:06:53.000 --> 01:07:01.000
You know, voice is all coming back. Etc. Also I think

01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:08.000
I think really. From a legislative point of view. We're still early in the phase.

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I know we've got till 2030, but sustainable goals. Aren't being reached. With regards to that and there isn't really any, legislation out there.

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To say that we have to follow the requirements on this. I'm I'm getting sorry I'm going to get myself mixed up and skip very dark so I can't see what's going on.

01:07:31.000 --> 01:07:35.000
So can I answer that question again, please in in the notes. Thank you. Yeah.

01:07:35.000 --> 01:07:42.000
Sure, no problem at all. Okay, folks, right, it's now 10 past 6 actually, so we better start wrapping up.

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Okay, so really interesting stuff. I hope that we'll all be coming away with a little bit of food for thought and about what we can all do to reduce the impact on the environment.

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Improve our health and wellbeing and maybe save a little bit of money at the same time, which is obviously very important in the current financial climate.

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So thanks again, Lee. I hope everybody enjoyed that out there. Thanks, Lee.

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Okay, thank you very much, Fiona. Thank you for that introduction. And yes, I just like to welcome everybody to the lecture and I'll just start sharing my screen if that's okay.

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That's looking good, Janet.

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Okay, hope that everybody can see this first slide. Really, that's great. And as Piena said, this presentation is going to be an explanation of some some of the idioms of English and there are a lot we go to.

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Having a little look at how many and just look at their origins where they've come from and what they can tell us about about traditions, about customs and about the English language as well, you know, because they do reflect a history of change there.

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Okay.

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So, so Kosovo, we're going to just have a quick look at what a medium is.

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So the Cambridge Dictionary depends the lidium as a group of words that are in a fixed order that has a specific meaning that's different from the meaning of each word on its own.

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So that means that it's a it's a saying or a phrase that really is a specific sort of grace for that that has a particular meaning.

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Examples of of these idioms could be to peel under the weather or to say has the cat got your turn meaning you know why you being silent or it's raining cats and dogs.

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Some estimates. That I've read online and say that approximately 225,000 idiomatic sayings in the English language.

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And, really, that's quite a lot, but considering this 470,000 words in English, it may be that puts it into perspective, but still that's a considerable number of idioms.

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And one of the things is that we often don't realize that we're using idiomatic sayings, because we used them so frequently never day speech.

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For example, if I was to say I was going up north to Scotland, for example, or down south to London.

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I wouldn't really realize that I was using an idiot, but up and down, in terms of directions, is idiomatic.

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We don't literally go up or down. And it could be that these idioms to do with directions actually stem from putting charts and maps on a wall with the compass point north being look at the top.

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And the south being down at the bottom. And similarly, if I was to say, you know, everything's gone west, I don't mean it's literally gone west.

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But, the saying, to go Westminster. You know, die or to end.

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Could come from the thieves slang where going, going west to Tyburn, and make going to the gallows after you've been tried.

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Or it could simply mean that the West is where the sun sets in the northern hemisphere.

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So going west is where things go down and go and end. So, idioms, they're fascinating and that's what we're going to be looking at here.

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They're also very difficult if you're learning a language, they're probably one of the most difficult things to learn because they the sayings that have a specific meaning that isn't really connected to the the sort of practical meaning of the of the term.

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And of course, idioms, every language has idioms. It isn't unique to English.

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We've got a lot of idioms, but every language has idioms. And idioms can be culturally specific.

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Or they can tell us something about the culture. In Japan, I, I'm not going to try to pronounce these words.

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But because I'd probably mangle the language, which again is idiomatic. But to in Japan there's a medium that's briefly transmitted, means even monkeys call from trees so that means that everybody makes mistakes.

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I just go back a bit sorry about that. And in German there's an idiomatic phrase which means everything has an end.

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Only a sausage has 2, which means everything comes to an end and you can't get much more German than sausages.

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So it's sort of like culturally specific. And in Cuba there's a saying that it's all turned into a bowl of rice and mango.

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I mean it's it's all gone to pot it's gone as we might say in this country it's compare shape.

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And it's Swedish. We were told not to skitter in that blast, gap it. I think of just root Swedish there or to pull in the blue locker.

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And that really means that don't make a mess of things and the blue locker refers to a very expensive piece of furniture because it was coated in fresh and blue paint which was really really expensive.

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So, idioms can be culturally specific and tell us a lot about the culture and certainly in the the idiots we have in English can tell us a lot about what we used to do some of the practices we used to have.

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And something about how the language has changed.

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So we got a lot of rain and so we have a lot of idioms about rain. We for example into each life some rain was fall, meaning you know it can't have a sunny day all the time.

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You can't have, you know, everything can't be nice and rosy all the time.

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And that actually comes from a, a poem by called The Rainy Day by Longfellow.

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Which was Mr. Native. 42. And it says that I fate. And it is a common fatable in 2 some each life, some rain was small.

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And that's like many literary sort of phases that's that's coming to everyday speech.

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People have read the poem or heard the poem and it they it's entity to everyday speech and now people who may never have read or heard of it.

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We'll use that phrase. Save it for a rainy day. And that comes, goes way back to the 15 hundreds from a play called Lasperia.

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Sperutata, which was adapted into English by John Lilly. So that originally came from, you know, another, another language.

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We have some idioms that have come from across the Atlantic like to do a rain check. Which really sort of originates from the baseball scene in in the U.S.A. in the 18 eighties but now we can do a rain check if we want to go on holiday or have a day out and that sort of thing.

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And rain on my parade again has an older origin from about the 18 hundreds but was very much popular.

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In the 1,964 film for the girl. I'm sure that you can find lots of other videos about to rain.

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And there's one in particular that we're going to look at because it's got many possible origins so we've got to look at raining cats and dogs or it's raining cats and dogs in a minute.

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But The so the idioms that we go to look at they can tell us something about our everyday practices and customs or the everyday practices and customs that have died out.

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And since the practice and customs have died out, we don't really associate the idiom with anything in particular.

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Or they can be traced back to maritime and naval history and we've got a very strong sort of maritime and naval history in this country and a lot of idioms have come from some of the beliefs and sort of practices that were in the sort of naval, on the naval scene.

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Then we have false beliefs of familiarity, so I've got a lot of idioms about.

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Animals and particularly animals that we used to use a lot. And false beliefs sometimes about these animals as well so we can have a look at some of those and then of course we look at some idioms from literature.

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So it's going to be a little range of some of the idiots that we're going to look at.

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Some that I think have got quite an interesting history.

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For example, a red herring, which means a pulse clue. You might, you know, detective picture and you might say, well, that must be a red herring.

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And there were 2 possible origins. For that particular saying. And each of them probably true. The it could originate from a hunting and hunting practice where the herring which has a very strong scent.

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Was used as bait to train hounds. Rather like we do now, we don't, do fox hunting anymore, we use bates to if we go in hunting and Thomas Nash wrote about this particular custom in 1599.

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But it could also, on the contrary, sort of refer to a practice that poachers would use when they would drag a red herring behind them to put the landowners dogs off their scent.

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So it's the same thing but used by different people for different purposes. It's not, meaning to get married.

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That's it refers to a very old sort of Celtic tradition, not just Celtic tradition, but tradition, not just Celtic tradition, not just Celtic tradition, not just Celtic tradition, but certainly what it was associated with that, that's certainly what it was associated with, that's, certainly, what it was associated with them, to Celtic nations until very recently.

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And that's of hand pasting and it still goes on. People still hand passed in which 2 people married or underwent to try marriage by tying their hands together to show their commitments.

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So, when we tie up, pay the notch, we're getting married and showing our commitment to each other.

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And beat around the bush when you're wasting time and not getting to the point. Again, that comes from hunting.

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And it was first recorded in the in the porting porches. And the sort of real idiom, the poor lidium is one beats around the bush, the other gets the bird.

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So one waste time trashing around the book, but the other gets a bird. But we often just shorten it to beaten around the bush.

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It cost an arm and a leg. There's a lot of, a lot of different theories about this idiom.

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But one that I like is that it's the saying originates, it means to be very expensive.

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You know, the saying of it from the eighteenth century when people would pay to have their portrait painted.

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And it would cost them quite a bit more to have their arms and their legs sort of included in the painting.

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And so a lot, that's why you got a lot of That sort of busts of people rather than the whole, that portrait.

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But of course it could, it could refer to just be a general saying, meaning very, very expensive.

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But yeah, I quite like that. That possibility as well. Don't it's yes meaning a long time, comes from Cockney Raymond's, slung, donkey's ears, meaning years.

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Just put the 2 together. So, don his years, you know, he's been doing that for donkey's years.

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Been doing it for a long time. From my part of the world because I'm from Yorkshire, we love to say DAFTA, meeting somebody that's being poor.

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This is meant to be quite a friendly term. And all it means is a daft hate Louis or half Pennyworth or someone or something that's of little value.

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So it's not quite a nice, nice thing. It's, as we probably think it was.

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You take the bucket, these are a bit, idioms that are a bit uncomfortable and often idioms are used as euphemisms as well or started out as euphemisms.

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That's why there's a picture of Monty Python's dead parrot scene where the whole list of idioms meaning to die in there.

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But yeah, so a lot of you can be some started off as, sort of a video started off as you.

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It's getting the bucket today. It could have, really originated. But I'm used to slaughter animals and we would in the last throws a death, the animal would literally kick the bucket over.

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Break a leg that's from the theater and so you'd wish someone good luck, well it wasn't, it was considered to be unlucky to wish somebody good luck.

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So you would wish them bad look, you know, I eat a breaker leg. And to turn the blind eye to something again as a quite an interesting history it comes from the Battle of Popenhagen in 18 or one when Horatio Nelson deliberately put Peninsula to his blind eye so he couldn't see the signal to withdraw because he wanted to carry on with the with the battle.

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And So that's, that maybe it may have been saying before that, but certainly that's what it's attributed to widely.

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Then we have terms like biting the bullet, you know, bite the bullet, get it over with, to face up to something that might be uncomfortable.

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And it was first recorded. Again, it's got a literary source in Rudyiard Kipling's novel, The Light That Failed.

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But like many of the literary idioms, they, the these things were probably in general usage before they were actually written by somebody in popularized.

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So it probably, was it within military slang, and based on the purchase, biting the bullet to cope with pay before an aesthetics were used.

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What of the say that I had a lot of fun sort of researching is one for the road. And there's a picture of Frank Sinatra that came to the road as well.

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So and Having won the road, usually has public connotations about taking the last week before we head home.

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That's probably what it means as well. I have one for the world, have one because I got home.

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But there has really just recently I think since about 2,010 there's been a couple of sort of a urban legends it were that the idiom has a darker history.

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And it's associated with this urban legend is associated with the fact that christeners were often offered one last drink because they went to the gallows and that was one for the road and associated with that.

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Alex, that's urban legend, is that on the wagon meant that you abstain from doing because you're on the wagon to go to the the gallows.

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These are really Yeah, I like the idea of that, but I don't think at any time, and particularly in this country, we were we were, kind of the click on that with condemned prisoners to give them the last drink, all too often that opportunity to escape.

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So there's no historical evidence to back that up. It is a nice, a nice story. And yeah, on the wagon, I mentioned, again, in twentieth century, early twentieth century, United States, or certainly.

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And it meant on the water wagon, so I'm not drinking, I'm on the water wagon, I want the water cart.

00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:22.000
And now to call off the wagon, means to, you know, go back onto whatever your, back into drinking or you've gone, you may might have got up a diet or you're calling off the wagon containing to anything you'd given up previously and you're now doing again.

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Putting someone's leg, it's, it's, we often, it's an idiot this often, you know, I'm just pulling your leg.

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I'm just having a bit of a joke with you. And the, but the idioms are quite unclear.

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I thought I'd be able to find, exactly where this came from. One, quite a few sauces, I was, and it originated from the practice of thieves turning on someone's leg to distract them.

00:16:46.000 --> 00:17:03.000
Well, well, part of the pig, the victim's pocket. Incidentally, cutting the wool of your eyes, and, have originated from the fact that thieves might when in the days when people were wigs they would one thing might hold the wig over some of his eyes to stop them seeing what's going on in the pocket.

00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:18.000
So some of these, sayings might have come from rather devious. But they've asked some claims that.

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That although we might think this. So, began the medieval marketplace of Victorian states, it might not have been the correct origin of the id.

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Others have suggested that people were hired on the, at the gallows during public hand. It's a pull on the legs of the victims to speed their legs their end.

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Theopicon, of the Macabre association with idioms. And But, yeah, but nobody's quite sure, but it's got some, some fascinating sort of histories, that possible histories to it.

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When we have painting the town red and this means you know you could have a night of outrageous behavior so I'm you know the when I was your going to go out and paint the town red and this has a specific origin.

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The in 1837 the Mackey of Waterford who was known as a rather bit of a waterford who was known as a rather bit of a man about town let a great group of waterford who was known as a rather bit of a man about town, who was known as a rather bit of a man about town, led a great group of friends on a night of drinking through the English town of Melton Mogree.

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And this ended up in vandalism and all sorts of revelry in this sort of thing. And yeah, they literally.

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Heyated a toll gate and the doors of several homes in under swan statue it's with red paint so that does come from one particular incident.

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Then we come to the idioms from maritime and naval history. And of course we have a lot and many of them we use and don't really realise where they've come from.

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Sort of tied over and means to sort of make a small amount due to a large amount can be sourced.

00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:19.000
And it's something that many people are doing now to sort of having a bits tied them over. And that relates to the old days of the old saline boats, so the Sailing ships, but there wasn't enough winds to blow the sails.

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The ship would sort of float on the tide and just tied over until the wind arrived. Eating blue, the feeling blue will have a lot of different origins.

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And so it could be associated with cleaning blue with the cold. It could be related to, and I think this is a sort of a separate, meaning, meaning, but still meaning to be sad to the blues.

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In America and in the sort of slavery and longing for the the blue blue blue skies and things.

00:19:51.000 --> 00:20:03.000
But being Bluetooth to feel sad does have an origin in our naval history. So when a captain died at sea the crew would put it blue flags and maybe paint a blue line along the ship's side to show respect to morning.

00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:10.000
So when you're feeling blue, you're feeling pretty down.

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:29.000
Even the saying to be taken about, look, a surprise or, or startled, and refer to that when the days when the sales of a ship were described as being a back if the wind flattened them or blew against them so it could refer be a reference to that sort of feeling.

00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:32.000
And to pipe down, well, the ship's crew, so we all think of them as big big burly men.

00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:50.000
And they, received a lot of instructions and one single signal was to be piped down piping down the hammock so they got went down below to sleep and they'll play the pipes as they went down below.

00:20:50.000 --> 00:21:02.000
How in the line? So members of the British Navy were required to stand barefoot with their toes placed along a line or a seam of plank on the deck for inspection.

00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:07.000
So if you're toying the line, you've got your toes on that. Line as you're supposed to do, you're doing as you're told.

00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:20.000
And the doldrums. And that was a belt around the equator. And because there was little surface wind in the days of sailorship again, ship could often be come stranded there.

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:26.000
So when you were in the doldrums who were listless, depressed. Bored. And And that's sort of thing.

00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:40.000
And 3 sheets to the wind. We need to be very drunk. And so again, back to the sailing ships, the the Saini ships would have 3, now that they have more, main sales, which we call sheets.

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:47.000
And if the pay, first sale sort of came adrift or lost its taught this, then the, would sort of wobble from side to side.

00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:54.000
Who came with it? Then it was really sort of start lurching and and sort of leering.

00:21:54.000 --> 00:22:09.000
But if all 3 came at Rick then it would pitch and roll and be completely out of control so if you were completely out of control you're so doing the complete out of control you have 3 sheets to the wind.

00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:28.000
And yeah, so we also have, sayings of generalized sort of sayings referring to, sailors as jolly jockeys, Johnny Johnny Jack has sorry and so a lot of these sort of references to people.

00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:40.000
Pam from common names and Jack's been a popular name for centuries. And of course in the days of the Sailors, Sailorships, the ships were made of wood and rigging, and made from hemp.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:51.000
And to stop the rope from sort of eroding, there was soaking tar, which had to be constantly reapplied and sailors, I mean this this is a picture here of Johnny Depp as in Jack's swallow, Sparrow, sorry.

00:22:51.000 --> 00:23:13.000
And he had these sort of dreadlocks and braids and it's the actual that was costume is not really very far removed from reality because the say this would guitar on their hair to deter license things and to stop it flapping around in the wind.

00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:21.000
So they got in the name Johnny Jock, Jack, Come to Jolly because we're a bit drunk, but they came so sure as well.

00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:32.000
So there's some truth between the when we talk about the the TAS and the and Tommy Atkins as well but obviously Tommy is a was a very since still is a very common sort of British name.

00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:47.000
And this it you know, in the sort of world walls, the soldiers, the common soldiers were referred to the Thomas as the Tommy's.

00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:57.000
And it goes back to the Duke of Wellington as well as far back as sort of. And he, the troops by this name in honor of a very brave man of arms called Tommy Atkins.

00:23:57.000 --> 00:24:10.000
So it could have a much more specific. Being as well it could refer to an actual person originally.

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:22.000
So what're going on to look at some animal-based idioms. And so, idioms tend to come from our rice from things that are really, we're familiar with.

00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:36.000
And because We're familiar with the things. We sort of use metopausa to associate with the the entity or the animal and it they become idioms.

00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:42.000
So yeah, so. One actually swims like a fish is and he drinks like a fish.

00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:49.000
They don't need much explanation, you know, fishes, they live in the water, they swim, they seem to drink.

00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:58.000
But a lot of the animal idioms have some interesting sort of histories. So we'll just have a quick look at some of these.

00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:19.000
So I told you about the saying, it's raining cats and dogs. And if you want to fascinating idiom to look up here this one is really quite a fascinating one and it's up to one that if somebody is learning English they will say well why on earth do you say that you know what what's what's the history behind this And nobody is exactly sure about the origins of this idiom.

00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:49.000
It probably has quite a few. So it could have a physical origin. So when the rain fell heavily in the trees, like London, it would carry with it all the debris, including the carbure here, the bodies of dead or drowned animals and Johnny Jonathan Swift actually describes this in 70 10 in the point called the description of a city shower where he describes drowned puppets, thinking.

00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:54.000
sprat, soul, drenched in merged dead cats and turnish tops all came tumbling with the flood.

00:25:54.000 --> 00:26:12.000
And so it could refer to that sort of thing. Other suggestions are that the cats and the dogs would sometimes perched on patched roots and when there was a very heavy rain the patch would give way bringing the animals down with them.

00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:20.000
Which is possible. Not much in dog speed, the touch move rooms, but, you never know.

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:43.000
There's a possible literary source and that's Richard Brahms, 1652 play the city wit in which the main character pretends to love no Latin because he wants to impress his friends and so he he says something like the world is full flow with dancers and it shall rain dogs and polecats and so forth.

00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:54.000
So it could come from a play that was popular in the middle of the seventeenth century.

00:26:54.000 --> 00:27:07.000
And other say what it's just got a very sort of rural origin it comes from the names given to the flowers of the widow tree, in's and cuss a willow and so they will be washed down with the rainfall.

00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:29.000
So when it mains cats and dogs, it's very in in some potty willow. Which is a charming image really And David Milton in the book Words B's a debunking linguistic urban legends suggest that the EDM, that heavy rainfall sounds like cats and dogs.

00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:38.000
Piting. I haven't actually heard that but yeah, it could do. But the, the Library of Congress.

00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:57.000
That the idea might come from the Greek expression, a cataductor or contrary to expressions or especially this denoting a, or contrary to expressions, especially this denoting a sort of extraordinary deluge of rain or from the French word, this denoting a sort of extraordinary deluge of brain or from the French word, denoting a sort of extraordinary deluge of brain or from the French word cadoo, which means a deluge or or water

00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:00.000
call. Nobody knows for sure. Nobody really knows for sure. It could be a mixture of all those things.

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:14.000
But yeah, this become a an idiomatic saying the top 10 battles. People who are learning English.

00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:21.000
And there we go, a whole set of idioms relating to sin bags. Dogs in bags.

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:30.000
Things in pokes when a poke is a, is a bag. And all this sort of thing and you think, well, what on earth is going up there?

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:41.000
So to let the cat out of the bag, we need to give away a secret. So if I was to sort of the No, health something that said small to get secret.

00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:48.000
I let the cat out of the bag opt in and personally. And this comes from the all come from a very similar source.

00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:54.000
In old marketplaces, suckling pigs, so little baby piglets. Rockton sold live.

00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:58.000
In bags or pokes. So if you don't want the pigs running about all the time so it'd be better to just to have them already hide up in a bag.

00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:16.000
And some unscrupulous tradeers will put a live pat in the bag. He said of a pig and the customer wouldn't realize that they had been swindled to they opened the bag at home and the cat slept out.

00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:34.000
And, and it's similar to buy a puck, and that means it's from the same, same practice or same malpractice, you know, when the circling pig was replaced with a puppy, you bought a pot meaning to you bought something that's no good and the pig in the poke is when you've actually bought something without seeing.

00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:41.000
So you haven't had a look at your pig that's in the in the coke. You know you might actually be a cat in the dog if you haven't looked at it.

00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:55.000
So these all come from this unscrupulous sort of practice that was in the marketplaces from the medieval times up to the, well I would say quite recently, so, I do.

00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:05.000
Live animals are no longer sold in marketplaces. Then we've got a of idioms about horses so pigs and cats and dogs are very familiar animals so are horses.

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:17.000
So if you say don't look a get horse in the mouth you know you're given something so don't don't complain about it.

00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:23.000
Don't don't look it's imperfections. Actually comes it can be traced back to 380 BCE.

00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:32.000
And so you know don't we and it just goes on the fact they can hell the horse's age and its help from its teeth.

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:41.000
And so, don't look too meticulously. That's something that's a gift to you.

00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:52.000
And came straight from the horses mouth as well. Horse traders might lie about a horse's age and a customer get a better idea if they actually looked at the horse's mouth and got it straight from the horse's mouth the age.

00:30:52.000 --> 00:31:05.000
Same as longing the tooth as a horse ages. Is teeth don't actually get longer but the gums recede which makes its teeth look longer so we've got a collection of idioms all to do with horses and mouths and horses teeth.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:14.000
As well which go back to all the, you know, when we used to buy horses in, in market places as well.

00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:27.000
It's a more horse related, idioms as well. So, something that I used to say with the, with my children, you know, it could take a host of water, but you can't make it drink.

00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:45.000
So there's a limit to what you can do. You can only do so much. And this got way back to old English in parts to the eleventh century where it says, you know, basically that's, you could take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:51.000
A horse of a different color. This comes from Shakespeare. We've been looking at a few more idioms.

00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:54.000
There are a lot of idioms that come from Shakespeare. And of course Shakespeare, might not have invented these idioms.

00:31:54.000 --> 00:32:06.000
He was very, very, very good at making theologians and new sayings, but he certainly popularized them.

00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:11.000
And so this comes from twelfth night, a horse of different color. Wild horses wouldn't keep me away.

00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:25.000
Now we're going back into sort of McCabra territory again here. So it is assumed to refer to an old method of quartering being pulled apart by a team of wild horses.

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:31.000
Again, it's probably more fictional than actual, it wouldn't have been very practical to have.

00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:49.000
Call to people this way, but who knows? And then we've got the hair of the dog that bit you, which I've always thought was a very strange practice, you know, when it, it means basically we've got a hangover, you have another drink to.

00:32:49.000 --> 00:33:01.000
Make you feel better. And it, it arises from a fault, which actually part of homeopathy were like cures light.

00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:07.000
And it can be traced the idea of this that like to, you know, cures like.

00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:12.000
So if you take if something's done harm to you take a little bit more but it might help.

00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:18.000
Can we create as far back to as Hippocrates, core 60 to 3 77 PC.

00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:26.000
And they had a dog bit you basically meant that if you were bitten by a rabid dog then putting a hair of the infected animal onto a wound would prevent the infection of rabies.

00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:38.000
It didn't, but There's very additional that they could do at that time. Probably was where anything was worth the try.

00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:45.000
But that's, yeah, the head, the.

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:50.000
The bees, knees, yes, so you're the biggest knees, you're the very best.

00:33:50.000 --> 00:34:08.000
And so yes, It's, it actually, comes from, what we call folk, etymology, which is the suddenly a history of was, I'm phrases and made it by the fault, made it by the common people.

00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:15.000
And, These don't actually have these as such, but it was thought that they have little lumpy things on the legs.

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:31.000
It was thought that they used these sacks on their legs to carry pollen, which was then used to make honey and therefore the the needs that these little colours that were really really precious because it made honey and honey was very very very precious.

00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:38.000
Of course, that that isn't the case, but it's the maybe 100 for the nectar.

00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:40.000
And another one about this, it comes from full came to me is that it's about bees making a B line for something.

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:58.000
So be and that we person you know making it you're going in a straight line a B line which comes from the sort of belief that bees take the most direct route back to their hives.

00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:23.000
They don't actually, but the say you make it a B line does have a little truth because a forager be goes out of scouts for pollen sauce and then it returns to the, does a little waggle dance or something and then makes a beat then the rest of the swarm make a bee line for the to the salt all the workers do anyway so so yeah they do they do take most direct route

00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:34.000
afterwards when after they Bees come back. And that idiom make it a bee line was first seen in print in the U.S.A. in the 18 hundreds.

00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:42.000
Robert was in common use of Bush before then. Like a lot of these sayings were were used colloquially.

00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:47.000
And before they actually came into print.

00:35:47.000 --> 00:36:05.000
And of course when this one idiot we can make Hundreds more and we'll sort of something so they are fixed expressions but we can sometimes make make a few alternative ones that are very explosive structure to the original and we still know what's going on.

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:14.000
So the spiders, ankles, the ants, pants, hypothesis, sops, the camels hump for the cat's pyjamas, of all derivations of the bee's knees.

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:19.000
I'll be the same.

00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:32.000
Really good other ones. So open a can of words. Yes, so again, it's, most likely comes from Pishing, when Angela's might open the bait boxes and spill the content.

00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:44.000
So it could come from just an everyday common occurrence. Or yes, and it, yeah. Would also refer to something rather like Tandorver spots.

00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:51.000
To get all your ducks in a row to get things in order. So the That's, from the observation that the things.

00:36:51.000 --> 00:37:00.000
And often follow their mother in a line. And we will love to see this, that the things, often follow their mother in a line. And we'll love to see this.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:08.000
We see the mother that going and and it could also be from the eighteenth century lawn bowling game in which the ducks were, they were the pins, had to be set up before the bowling took place.

00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:19.000
Or it could even be an arcade shooting game where you shoot there rifle at these these doves.

00:37:19.000 --> 00:37:31.000
So there are lots of different origins for that. I tend to think that probably there's a little bit of who seen all of them.

00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:49.000
And I'll be a monkey's uncle. I'll be very surprised. So yeah, this comes from a originally or the first printed version of the saying comes from a newspaper called the Brass Monkey printed in Texas in 1,917.

00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:54.000
And it was supposed to be a sarcastic response by creationists who Darwin's theory of evolution.

00:37:54.000 --> 00:38:06.000
But now it's not really used sarcastically, it's just used as way of saying I'm be very surprised.

00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:13.000
That's the cat got your turn, you're probably thinking, well, these idioms have some rather, list and savory origins.

00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:28.000
And this is this is no exception. So has a cat got your turn? It could have been originated from earlier practices in ancient societies in which liars had their tongues cut out and possibly petered cats.

00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:41.000
There's no evidence to say it is. It could also refer back to the naval histories where the catanine tails or wick will be used if I say it has answered that so they kept quiet.

00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:53.000
So the sort of cats actually got their their tongue as it were. Oh, it might even have a reference to medieval beliefs that witches familiar may be cats who could bind ones speechless.

00:38:53.000 --> 00:39:03.000
So yeah, this, yeah. Yeah. It's a much maligned in in in mediums.

00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:08.000
There's mad as a hatter, we tend to associate this with Lewis Carroll's book.

00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:18.000
I listen in Wonderland, which is a character called the Mad Hatter. But it the term was quite well-established before, in the, in 1865.

00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:19.000
It would be really interesting though and I'm sure that Carol knew that knew this, Lewis Carroll.

00:39:19.000 --> 00:39:37.000
In 1,800 hat makers would use mercury nitrate to stabilize the felt and this could give them a form of mercury poisoning which caused, yeah, I wouldn't even try to pronounce it, but it was a sort of a delirium.

00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:48.000
And to do with mercury poisoning. So being as mad as a hatter could have literally been.

00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:56.000
Observation for people suffering from in the hatting industry suffering from Yeah, mercury poisoning. But snobs.

00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:09.000
Dot com suggests that this idiom is really, really very old. It, it, from the old English and middle English saying as mad as a matter.

00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:17.000
Where the word mad could mean dangerous or venomous, not necessarily sort of crazy. And Natter was adder.

00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:28.000
And we're going to see that a lot of these words that, beginning with an A of a day and they change.

00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:42.000
We could have a look at some of those words that change over time. So the praise originally meant as feminists as a, as a viper.

00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:47.000
So yeah, so there's a few ones which do begin with, and then now begin with the bubble.

00:40:47.000 --> 00:41:02.000
So, and that there was once a, an apron was once, an apron. And when people start putting these words into print in the fifteenth century and beyond, they didn't know whether it was an adder or a nadder or a napalon nap.

00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:13.000
So they made the division, they said, right, okay, we go to put the indefinite article here and, and you it, begin with, with a, with a vowel.

00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:25.000
A nude was initially an you, so that one had a different sort of change in its constriction through printing.

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:34.000
And to eat humble pie. And that's another one that when we're talking about sort of linguistic changes.

00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:41.000
So the the liver entrails and the heart of the, I know we should all very good bit free, live in the heart.

00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:47.000
We're called the Numbles. Like on the French Numbles and Latin Lumbler really little loin.

00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:59.000
And the numbers of the animal were often eaten by hunts the huntsman, his companions and and the the servants they were considered to be you know that they were eaten by the lower class.

00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:05.000
The better cuts of meat were reserved for the masts and the lords and their families.

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:19.000
So if a gentleman, you know, the mass is a lot of, and his associates committed some misdemeanor or error, they'd be asked to eat number pie rather than prestigious cuts of meat.

00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:27.000
So they'd be served this number pie, which is where we get the word humble pie. The N was actually lost at some time in history because people began to think that a number power was an humble pie.

00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:44.000
And some of your peeps actually wrote in his diary, Mrs Turner came in and did bring us an umble pie hot out of her of an extraordinary good.

00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:51.000
On Webster's dictionary sort of estimates that Numbles passed the numbers in about the 13 hundreds and then became humbles in 1,400 and they became humbles or humble due to associations with lack of prestige.

00:42:51.000 --> 00:43:10.000
In the 15 hundreds. But it wasn't common everywhere. So yes, so we've had a change from numbers to humble and in between for that one.

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:18.000
And then we've got to just have a quick look at some literary sources where, idioms have come from.

00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:29.000
And so there's a common saying, isn't this, if you want to know where a saying comes from, look at the Bible or Shakespeare and also the Aesop's fables.

00:43:29.000 --> 00:43:42.000
So don't get a manger, that comes from a story by, from, aes, which is one of the earliest sort of widely published, children's literature, of widely published children's literature.

00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:53.000
And so, yeah, that's about a dog that, children's literature. And so, yeah, that's about a dog that was very protective of a major pull of hay, even though the hay was of no use to me to kept the ox and the sheep away from it.

00:43:53.000 --> 00:43:58.000
And these pebbles, originate from about 600 BC and but the, inium didn't.

00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:09.000
Enter English until well popularly until about 15 hundreds when the, the, were widely published.

00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:14.000
Let me have the King James Bible and there are lots of Gideons and sayings that come from the King James Bibles and there are lots of idioms and sayings that come from the King James Bibles and sometimes again we don't really realize where where they came from.

00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:33.000
So in David Crystal, found 200 depicted 7 phrases from the King James Bible in English, but only 18 were unique to the King James version, others had come from Wycliffe's earlier translation of the Bible.

00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:41.000
Shakespeare? Introduced about a hundred phrases and 1,700 new words so Shakespeare Introduce a lot more new words.

00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:51.000
And Christine actually just say though that much Shakespeare's work was a drama so there would be much more need for more video.

00:44:51.000 --> 00:44:58.000
Matic sayings, new words, this sort of thing. And the Bibles produced to be critical to the original text.

00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:10.000
So 2 different genres. But they still both produce a lot of Indians. So we'll have a look at a few of these.

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:16.000
Bye.

00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:23.000
There we go. So these are some mediums from the Bible that we've probably heard of, to be the salt of the earth.

00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:31.000
To give up the go. The set your teeth on edge. We also got the skin of the teeth as well, although youth don't have skin.

00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:39.000
And that could be a translation from a Hebrew saying as well, and that makes more sense in Hebrew that does in in English.

00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:57.000
Out of the mouths of babes. Spare the child, spoil the child. Position here thereself, Brothers Keeper, wash one's hands off, an even hotly rhyme's slang has a records would you autumn and believe that would you believe that So we get a lot of our idioms and expressions from the Bible.

00:45:57.000 --> 00:46:06.000
Of course, the Bible was probably the most widely read read literature for many. And yes, Shakespeare.

00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:14.000
Yeah, so Shakespeare, he, he was, his works have been printed and performed at the time of standardization and improved levels of literacy occurring.

00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:30.000
So what he wrote often was taken up by the public as well. And so yes, he's accredited for bringing in about 1,700 new words, sayings.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:43.000
This Bernard Levin quotas has a performs quoting Shakespeare. If you look it up on YouTube, it's really, really, sort of, well-performed.

00:46:43.000 --> 00:47:03.000
So if you bid me good riddance, send me packing if you wish I was as dead as a doornail, if you think I'm an I saw a laughing sock the devil in can need to stony how to feel bloody minded or bleak in idiot, then by Jove, Oh Lord, for goodness sake, what the Dickens, Dickens meaning devil.

00:47:03.000 --> 00:47:09.000
But me no buts and y'all, Shake, the Poeting Shakespeare.

00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:25.000
All those saying, from Shakespeare and these are some of the looking stock pound of flesh all that glistens is not gold there's liquid habit and to be all and then all.

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:39.000
So there's a lot of these. Sayings from Shakespeare.

00:47:39.000 --> 00:47:46.000
We'll have some sort of, honorable mentions. And before we go to a close.

00:47:46.000 --> 00:47:58.000
You get so much short shrift when it's coming up to Shrove Tuesday. And to Shri, meant to compress your sins, henchrive or shrews Tuesday, is that so people invest their sins before lent?

00:47:58.000 --> 00:48:02.000
So if you're given short shrift, you were given only a minimal time to confession since before.

00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:20.000
Oh, it's a little bit, but, one before you were executed. Freelancer, or to freelance in the Middle Ages, some nights were mercenaries and they'll hire out their services in the carry lances, therefore they arranged their old terms, hence there were 3 lancers.

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:33.000
Again, this comes from Paul Ketemology, whereby people might think that bear comes were originally sort of a mockerous shape than that and their mothers literally licked them into shape.

00:48:33.000 --> 00:48:38.000
And so, yes.

00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:45.000
I'll, draw this to a close nap because we come into the, near the end, sometimes some questions.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:53.000
So iti's can enrich a language, so given this imaginative, sometimes mysterious ways to refer to concepts and practices.

00:48:53.000 --> 00:49:00.000
And they need they do. We often use idioms when we don't. Even know that we're using Lydians.

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:21.000
But, like, languages for, full of metaphor. And they also reflect practices and beliefs that may not be part of the modern world, just to give us important insights into all the customs and traditions and they might even preserve all the words operators or show how they changed because as the word changes so does the meaning as well.

00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:33.000
So, in idioms can give us really good insights into the changes in our languages. In our language and the change in in our society as well.

00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:44.000
So I let. Leave time call. Any questions or if you want to share some mediums that we'd like to discuss that would be be brilliant?

00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:45.000
Yeah.

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:47.000
Yeah, thank you very much for that, Janet. We've had lots of action going on in the chat here.

00:49:47.000 --> 00:50:02.000
So I know there's lots of thoughts from you at everyone out there about the different meanings of some of these expressions and where they come from.

00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:03.000
Yeah.

00:50:03.000 --> 00:50:07.000
So what we'll do, Janet is I'll gather them together for you. I don't think we've got time to look at them all in the community session today but we'll pass them all on to because I'm sure you'll be interested to read those.

00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:08.000
And yeah.

00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:26.000
I certainly will. And, I think we're seeing the discussion as well that, opt in the event one source or the, it sometimes the source is unclear and it I'd be really I'd really report to seeing other other explanations for the for the Adams as well.

00:50:26.000 --> 00:50:30.000
Absolutely. Okay, and Janet, I wonder if you want to just take your presentation down just now and then we'll do a few questions.

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:32.000
Yeah, absolutely.

00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:41.000
I'll do my best to get through as many of them as I can, folks, but anything that we don't get to will certainly take a look at after the lecture.

00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:49.000
I'm gonna kick off with a question from Helen. She's asking, do you think some idioms become refracted in time?

00:50:49.000 --> 00:50:57.000
For example, the pop calling the kettle black seems to have been replaced by the words hot kettle and black spring to mind.

00:50:57.000 --> 00:51:07.000
I tend to say personally myself just pots and kettles. She thinks that that one is going to set out as an attempt at humor but ends up a bit more trite than the original.

00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:08.000
But yes.

00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:19.000
Yes, I've heard this where where people will reduce the idiom and they'll just say pot Heckle or whatever, but and and yes, they do reduce the idiom.

00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:42.000
And when you think about it, it's, it, if personal time when we used to hang these pieces of sort of utensils over the pyre and both the petal and the pot would be black because we blackened by the coal and so it's not a practice we do we use anymore but I do think that language changes and idioms although we do they said we're getting their quite set grazers they will alter with

00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:47.000
that. Yeah, so I think you're absolutely right. Some of them do have we do start they and refracted.

00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:48.000
You're absolutely right.

00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:54.000
Hmm. I'm kind of related to that a little bit. There's a question here from Sue.

00:51:54.000 --> 00:51:56.000
Is there a generational aspect to all of this? She wasn't aware that, for example, taken aback was an idiom.

00:51:56.000 --> 00:52:16.000
And she does use that phrase. She doesn't use raining cats and dogs but her parents did so you know, is there sort of like a, sorry, general, generational aspect to that?

00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:23.000
That's the certainly is. And certainly when I was a child, we there were lots of idioms to do with theme.

00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:29.000
You know, it's called seen a head, you know, for Augustine school, whatever or you've got to get up steam or whatever.

00:52:29.000 --> 00:52:34.000
And now we don't hear those. And because obviously the steam age is quite a long time away.

00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:47.000
So, so ago. So I think they do change over time as well. I'm trying to think if some idiots that my parents would say my parents were from the you know they're born in the twenties and yeah there were certainly things that they would say they're idiomatic in their day.

00:52:47.000 --> 00:52:57.000
And are not anymore. We are hardly used anymore. But yeah, there there's a generational thing, I'm certain.

00:52:57.000 --> 00:53:06.000
Okay, thank you. And a question from Stuart, you were talking about knowing your onions.

00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:07.000
Yeah.

00:53:07.000 --> 00:53:13.000
And Stuart saying he always thought that idiom was to do with knowing the contents of CT onions and dictionary of entomology.

00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:28.000
And but thinks that must be wrong since his dictionary only dates back to 1966. When did dictionaries begin to include idioms and their entomology in a comprehensive manner?

00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:29.000
That's a quick question.

00:53:29.000 --> 00:53:43.000
Oh, right. Well, I'm, I'm going back to Samuel Johnson's dish in me and I don't know that you've actually still, I think he's was just, I think he's, to Samuel Johnson's dictionary and I don't know that you've actually still, I think his was just words, he used to make up some wonderful meanings but for some of the words as well

00:53:43.000 --> 00:53:49.000
definitions I think there's a one for OH which I won't say because it's quite quite offensive to anybody from Scotland.

00:53:49.000 --> 00:53:58.000
It's quite quite offensive to anybody from Scotland. But at the, yeah, there's the don't know exactly when the idioms were included in dictionaries.

00:53:58.000 --> 00:54:00.000
Dictionaries did start as just a recording. There were parts of the way of standardizing the language.

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:11.000
You needed a, you know, a definition and a way of spelling a particular word, the, and printing was coming out.

00:54:11.000 --> 00:54:20.000
Idios would have come later, but I don't know exactly when they would have been included. It'd be something, it's something to look up and come to research as well.

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:21.000
Yeah.

00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:23.000
Okay, there you go. There's a bit of work for you then. Let's turn it.

00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:25.000
Yeah.

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:36.000
And a question from Steve here actually. Are idioms like these still arising? If so, where do they come from these days?

00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:37.000
I guess they must be still arising.

00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:46.000
They they are yes and oh I I'm absolutely used as it's thinking on the spot, but they are.

00:54:46.000 --> 00:55:04.000
They, they all things to do with language dynamic. And there'll be idioms coming out now that have to do with, you know, generation Z or whatever that our new idioms to do with new technologies to do it social media to do with new celebrities and this sort of thing.

00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:11.000
And yes, they're still there. It's surprising really that some mediums are very, very old and are still used.

00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:18.000
But the vast, and that are really, really modern, whether they not really new ones stay is a different matter.

00:55:18.000 --> 00:55:23.000
Some of them can be idiomatic for time, but they don't actually pay the day out into a bit.

00:55:23.000 --> 00:55:25.000
So yeah.

00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:26.000
Okay.

00:55:26.000 --> 00:55:28.000
Right, yes, I've just seen somebody here come, yeah, yes.

00:55:28.000 --> 00:55:34.000
Okay, yeah, I thought we could maybe spend a few minutes maybe looking at some of the idioms that people have come up with to see what your thoughts are on them.

00:55:34.000 --> 00:55:36.000
Yes.

00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:41.000
I've got a few here. We won't get through them all everybody. We will try to do that afterwards.

00:55:41.000 --> 00:55:49.000
No, let me scroll back all the bits of talk. From Miranda. Have you heard of the French idiom?

00:55:49.000 --> 00:56:00.000
Climbing the trees. I'm going to say this and if the French for this and I hope I pronounce it properly.

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:01.000
Hmm.

00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:04.000
Hi happens to know what's it mean? I mean what does it what does it mean.

00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:05.000
Don't know.

00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:26.000
I haven't heard of that. But i'm i'm learning French at the moment again i mean i and that is a school at school but i'm going back different and simply yeah the idioms again you know fascinating idioms there but haven't had a time in the trees I wondered what I'm going to put it I'm rashing on the, I'll have a look at

00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:27.000
them.

00:56:27.000 --> 00:56:32.000
Okay, right. We talked about Tommy Atkins.

00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:33.000
Yes.

00:56:33.000 --> 00:56:37.000
So related to that. Do we know who Joe Bloggs and John DOE were? That's from Ruth and Jane respectively.

00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:47.000
Okay. We don't know. Joe, I think just means every month. It's like every month, you know, how you have been in shape with this.

00:56:47.000 --> 00:56:51.000
And it makes you, you know, how you have been in shape with this. And it means you're your common person.

00:56:51.000 --> 00:56:58.000
Your common name blogs common name. Whether there was a direct recurrent to Joe Block, they're taking a Joe Bloggs who was just like a normal blow.

00:56:58.000 --> 00:57:07.000
I don't know. John DOE and Jane DOE that that meaning somebody without a name, and often, yeah.

00:57:07.000 --> 00:57:13.000
They, I'm not quite sure where they, where that comes from. I know how it's used, but I'm not quite sure where the dough bit comes from.

00:57:13.000 --> 00:57:20.000
I'd like to think that it's a there may be some sort of acronym. But yeah, I don't know where the dough comes from.

00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:25.000
I'm sorry about that.

00:57:25.000 --> 00:57:37.000
Okay. No, this one from Kate, now let me just find it. Just go scrolling through these comments.

00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:39.000
I've got lots of them for you Janet.

00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:45.000
Okay.

00:57:45.000 --> 00:57:46.000
Thank you.

00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:52.000
It was to do with, It's all my I and Betty Markham or Betty Martin as Judith said.

00:57:52.000 --> 00:57:55.000
It's in relation to weather, I think.

00:57:55.000 --> 00:57:56.000
All right, yes.

00:57:56.000 --> 00:58:00.000
Well, I'm not sure. I might be wrong in that actually. I might be thinking of something else.

00:58:00.000 --> 00:58:05.000
And have you heard of that one? So, I am Betty Markham or Martin.

00:58:05.000 --> 00:58:09.000
Oh, I have in a quick question, I've forgotten its origins, but, but yes, yes, I don't know where that comes from.

00:58:09.000 --> 00:58:26.000
It sounds like it's a, it's. I believe it comes from. It's a more modern one than some of the most to be looking at.

00:58:26.000 --> 00:58:27.000
Hello?

00:58:27.000 --> 00:58:34.000
But yeah, so, Jill, I think has just said that DOE, DOE, means dead on a ride on examination, which which I thought it was an acronym of some sort, but yeah, brilliant.

00:58:34.000 --> 00:58:35.000
Thank you.

00:58:35.000 --> 00:58:40.000
Right, I've got another one here from Judith, which actually is, I think, once do the weather.

00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:43.000
It's looking black over Bill's mother's.

00:58:43.000 --> 00:58:45.000
Oh!

00:58:45.000 --> 00:58:46.000
I've never heard that one, have to say.

00:58:46.000 --> 00:58:55.000
Bye. I haven't, it's just a local one, I mean, but some of these are, that you can get, it, at a local to an area.

00:58:55.000 --> 00:59:12.000
And so that may be maybe a local one. This one about, going, you know, Go down to the back door or something or going up the stairs or something that's, it's quite a look at our area meaning he was really surprised by something.

00:59:12.000 --> 00:59:13.000
Yeah, yeah.

00:59:13.000 --> 00:59:14.000
Okay, I've got a couple more and then I think we'll need to start wrapping up folks.

00:59:14.000 --> 00:59:27.000
Now this is from Kita.

00:59:27.000 --> 00:59:28.000
Yeah. Yes.

00:59:28.000 --> 00:59:41.000
Freezing the bowls of a breast monkey, we've all heard that one. He's heard that this is linked to the brass balls on the end of an iron bedframe or that a monkey was a type of tree used to hold cannonballs next to the cannon on ships.

00:59:41.000 --> 00:59:42.000
Yes.

00:59:42.000 --> 00:59:44.000
The latter might link to powder monkeys a term to describe the young boys who used to claim over the ship's cannons.

00:59:44.000 --> 00:59:45.000
What do you think?

00:59:45.000 --> 00:59:51.000
Yes. I think that's very, very likely. Same as having a loose cannon if you're a loose cannon, you can't be relied on.

00:59:51.000 --> 01:00:11.000
It goes back to the days when old warships and if you did have a canon that wasn't tethered down or tied down it was very dangerous to go up anywhere so yeah in the powder monkeys and the brass monk as well yeah Yes, so yes, there's a lot of things to do with monkeys attached to do with monkeys themselves both to do with people of a certain set of

01:00:11.000 --> 01:00:14.000
trades or other things as well.

01:00:14.000 --> 01:00:24.000
Hmm, okay. And another one from Mike. Er, early twentieth century McCannell was sold in 2 versions.

01:00:24.000 --> 01:00:33.000
Box standard and boxer locks which are alleged to have given rise to 2 common expressions today. True or dubious.

01:00:33.000 --> 01:00:34.000
What do you think?

01:00:34.000 --> 01:00:37.000
Right, so, so, early, makad, could you just repeat that one? Yeah.

01:00:37.000 --> 01:00:42.000
We can, oh, 2 versions box standard and box deluxe.

01:00:42.000 --> 01:00:50.000
Right, now this is really good. This is something that I might call, what they called an egg call.

01:00:50.000 --> 01:00:56.000
Now, a egg cone is something that people misunderstand. It's here, but it makes sense.

01:00:56.000 --> 01:01:04.000
So in Acorn, becomes Natecong, because it So I've always thought box standard was bog.

01:01:04.000 --> 01:01:07.000
Bog standard. But, yeah, both standard. Yeah, it could actually refer to that.

01:01:07.000 --> 01:01:23.000
They probably does have that could be one of the origins for it, they probably does have that that could be one of the origins for it but I've always thought the box done and meant, you know, down to earth, you know, normal, sort of, but that could be what I call the nick on as well.

01:01:23.000 --> 01:01:30.000
Hmm. Okay. And I think we might have to leave it there. And Linda, you had asked about having this slide with the references on.

01:01:30.000 --> 01:01:35.000
And what I will do is post lecture, I will post up the details of the references and adopt the the lecture recording on the members area of the website when it is ready.

01:01:35.000 --> 01:01:47.000
But Janet, I don't know if you just want to quickly put that up onto the website when it is ready.

01:01:47.000 --> 01:01:48.000
Yes, of course, yes, no problem at all.

01:01:48.000 --> 01:01:53.000
And but, Janet, I don't know if you just want to quickly put that up onto the screen again just for, minutes, it will make it available to you afterwards as well on the members area of the website.

01:01:53.000 --> 01:01:57.000
So.

01:01:57.000 --> 01:02:02.000
That would be great.

01:02:02.000 --> 01:02:05.000
So these are some beautiful books. Got Hartwell. Matthews Taggart there.

01:02:05.000 --> 01:02:14.000
There's a useful but send some you, you, there's some websites as well that I've got there.

01:02:14.000 --> 01:02:15.000
But yet.

01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:20.000
Okay, so I hope, that gives you a little bit of time just to drop that down, Linda.

01:02:20.000 --> 01:02:28.000
Okay, so I think that's, that's us. And thanks again, Janet.

01:02:28.000 --> 01:02:29.000
Thank you.

01:02:29.000 --> 01:02:34.000
And it was really fascinating and really interesting to hear the back story to many of the things. That we save without really thinking that hard about it.

01:02:34.000 --> 01:02:40.000
So I hope everybody enjoyed that out there and I don't know if you want to just take that slide down again.

01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:41.000
Okay.

01:02:41.000 --> 01:02:47.000
That would be great. And as I say, we'll make that available to everybody afterwards. So thanks again, Janet.

01:02:47.000 --> 01:02:52.000
Thank you. Thank you.

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:11.000
And open doors for all future black American artists. Across all branches of the arts. Including jazz and the blues were their immeasurable influence on global modern music.

00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:20.000
The civil rights movement, and the negative movements in France, which had of course one great challenges to colonial rule.

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Given it is such an influential movements. This lecture, however, can only. Operate within very confined focus and limits.

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In considering the Home Renaissance, we are of course mainly glancing across. A hugely wide range of movements covering all the art and I can only recommend the reading list at the end of the lecture for starting points, the other branches of the arts with my apologies.

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At best, this lecture can only be described as introductory remarks. We're skimming a stone across a huge surface.

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And, whilst all aspects of arts and intellectual activity flourished during this period, this lecture's main focus, it was sole focus is on literature.

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It focuses more on the following elements of the Homer Renaissance literature. It's purpose.

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Some of the questions of representation that rose around it. And some of the debates which rose around it.

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I should also mention my limits. There are many. However, one I'm particularly conscious of is that I'm a white British woman giving a talk about a black American cultural movement.

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And I must acknowledge the conversations that come with that.

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The question of terminology should be addressed because it is rightly such a sensitive one. It is problematized because terms used by key figures and publications at the time of the Harlem Renaissance.

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Would now sound offensive but were not felt then to be so, In fact, the term Harlem Renaissance was not universally adopted for this movement.

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I don't need becoming used in academic studies in around the 19 seventies. It was known in its time amongst other terms such as the new Negro Renaissance, which would raise questions today.

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So they're having suggestions that it should be reclaimed. There were a number of such renaissance movements in black communities other than Harlem, Washington DC, Chicago, New York, Mexico City, Havana, Berlin, Paris, Kingston also experienced flourishing presidency to name just a few.

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And the number of terms are used today of course by modern day black Americans to describe themselves, for example, black, African-american and person of color.

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And there is a lot of discussion about this. But for the purposes of this lecture, I have chosen black or black Americans.

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Well, I was considering the problems of bread that, brings. My rationale is that black is the same frequently used by writers from the Harlem Renaissance area.

00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:17.000
And that's the problems of others, at the other, frequently used within the movement, which is So that's take ourselves along to a timeline.

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Giving some key historical political backgrounds here. Around the time in America. We have a 1,909 the National Association for the Advancements of covered people NAACP being set up, a civil rights organization seeking to advance justice for black Americans.

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1,914 to 18, of course, World War One. Around 1916 That was what has been termed the great migration of black Americans from the rural South to the urban West.

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North and it commences around this point and Harlem in New York. Becomes established as a new center for black Americans residentially culturally.

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And in terms of employment. 1917 Yeah, NACP and church leaders organized a silent process parade down Fifth Avenue.

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Protesting against violence against black Americans. In 1919 there was what was termed the red summer where race riots broke out with hundreds of deaths, mainly those of black Americans.

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In 1920 the international conventions Negro peoples the world at Madison Square Gardens was attended by 25,000 people.

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1,900, and 23, horrifyingly, an anti-mention bill is defeated.

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In the House of Representatives. There will of course be a huge range of other key events and and all further cans in contributions as to them.

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In the history of the Harlem Renaissance, we gladly received at the end of the lecture.

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So,'s name.

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What I've written out for you here, I just some. Hey authors and publications from this great artistic movement.

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As you can see, the list of journals, essays, poets, playwrights, and prose fiction, this goes on for 2 slides.

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Is extensive and not just male, I have given you these lists. Firstly to indicate the immense amount of creative activity generated at this period.

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And so can they, to give you points of reference for you to follow up further. As I understand this presentation will be online for members to re visit.

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I want particularly to draw your attention to the journals section. As firstly, these were vital means through which black new writing could be published.

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Secondly, we're particularly considering the questions of artistic purpose. Representation and debate within the HR.

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And it was in journals that these discussions were particularly aired. So akin publication. Was the crisis.

00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:07.000
Found in 1,910 and the Journal of the NAACP. It was to combat racism in multiple forms.

00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:21.000
Including lynching, discrimination in federal agencies in the workplace, including the military. In the immigration rules and the misrepresentation of black people.

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And in 1926 at 7 issue symposium was actually run in the crisis called the Negro in art.

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How shall he be portrayed? Which demonstrates how central the question of how black people in the arts have been presented was.

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And how they should be presenting. Oh, opportunity edited by Charles Spurgeon Johnson, but also later Gwenton and Bennet.

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It's another important journalist pick up on him. It's worth noting that's a key event in the All Renaissance was the 1924 party hosted by opportunity.

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One was this a key event because it bought both. Black voices and white publishers together. Hello, fire, a quarterly devoted to younger Negro artists was launched in 1926.

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I'm afraid only ran to one edition. But it has a very powerful and quite radical agenda, a challenging one as the central ideas.

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Around this movement of racial uplift. Of which more later and of portraying much wider aspects of black, back and life.

00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:40.000
And as you can see, I've covered essays and going on to poets. And then we go on to our lay rights, tons of them, prose fiction.

00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:48.000
Just to name just a few. Of the authors and rice is flourishing at this period or racing at this period.

00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:54.000
So that's counter off. Just Angelina Welds.

00:07:54.000 --> 00:08:05.000
Women writers were not always as recognized as they should have been within the Harlem Renaissance, but their presence as authors commentators, editors and essays was powerful.

00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:12.000
I research is increasingly showing the number of female playwrights, especially producing work within the HR.

00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:19.000
I'm grim case particularly early and powerful example. As you can see, she was a teacher.

00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:32.000
Including at Dunbar High School, which is school for blank students. With a particularly strong reputation for high academic accidents and she herself attended classes at Harvard.

00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:40.000
And, was prolific. We got 7,073 pounds here, which 31 were published.

00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:59.000
And say short stories and claims. Much of her work was not published though a number of writings were in the crisis and opportunity and her work was much anthologized in the whole Renaissance collections and publications.

00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:11.000
And the tax we're going to be, particularly, is section from Rachel. Now this was one of the earliest planes to protest against lynching and racial violence.

00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:19.000
It was also one of the first plays to be staged by a black writer and performed by an all-black cast.

00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:29.000
It presents the direct challenge to grotesque and offensive misrepresentation of black people in literature and on stage.

00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:39.000
Time out of mind. Black people have been portrayed as idiotic. Or savage or inarticulate or Uncle Tom's or laughable.

00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:48.000
Minstrel see for example had a long and shameful tradition of such cool trails. Rachel seeks to do something different.

00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:59.000
So let's read together very simply pass the stage direction from the beginning of the play. Describing the rhythm for the.

00:09:59.000 --> 00:10:06.000
In the center of the left wall is the fireplace with a grace in it for colds. And this is a wooden mantle painted once.

00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:14.000
In the center is a small clock. A pair of vases, green and white and powering, one at each end complete the ornaments.

00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:22.000
Over the mantle, it's in their own. Okay, hanging on the wall, Burn Jones's golden stair simply framed.

00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:27.000
Against the front end of the left wall is an upright piano with a stall in front of it.

00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:34.000
On top is music neatly piled. Honey, over the piano is Rafael Sistine Madonna.

00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:44.000
And the center of the floor is green run and in the center of this a rectangular dining room table alongside facing This is covered with the green tablecloth.

00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:48.000
You have to see some line in that.

00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:57.000
One of the first points that I want to draw your attention to is that the protagonists ring shows a taste for high if we like in both, culture.

00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:02.000
2 of the props are Burn James Golden Stands and Rafael Sistine Madonna.

00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:09.000
Grimke is making the point that black characters are not to be seen as gonage, c's and or uncouth.

00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:22.000
But are informed about and appreciative of high ass and culture. Moreover, they are aspirational. Goal in the stairs is a portrayal of female creativity.

00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:30.000
And aesthetic participation. The Sistine Madonna is of course an image of piety and threatened motherhood.

00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:41.000
As I'm sure you know, a fearful Virgin Mary and child look anxiously, much as black motherhood is under terrible threat in the plane.

00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:54.000
It's just both. Suggests personal privacy. And have black suffering is to be seen as integral. To the spiritual suffering which is central to Orthodox Christianity.

00:11:54.000 --> 00:12:01.000
Another T show, I want briefly to draw your attention to, is the upright piano with the stall in front of it.

00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:08.000
On top of his music neatly piled. It is important to note that this is an orderly environment.

00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:18.000
Off to the relentless misrepresentation of black people, dirty or squalid. This stage direction offers a direct challenge.

00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:25.000
All of which points of representation that black people were to be seen as participating in the appreciation of high culture.

00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:34.000
Were pints were high-minded and his suffering was fully part of the most orthodox aesthetic and religious protein portrayals.

00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:46.000
Would have been absolutely upheld by a key thinker of the Helen Renaissance. WAB, and it is to voiced by the way he insisted on that pronunciation.

00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:55.000
As you can see, he was an academic, an enormously influential figure, now in Renaissance, and Black American history.

00:12:55.000 --> 00:13:01.000
You held degrees from Fisk and Harvard University becoming in 1,895 the first black American.

00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:12.000
To go in a PhD from Harvard. You argued vehemently that black people should despise the highest academic standards.

00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:25.000
To explain this point, you notice I've put CF. Rocketley Washington there. Okay, Washington was also a renowned black education writer who had argued strongly for black education's been enlarged.

00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:36.000
But with an emphasis on the industrial and vocational. And this was increasingly seen by Du Bois as an ugly compromise to a peace white prejudice.

00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:47.000
He argued vehemently. Good black education to encompass. A full academic curriculum and he was a fervent supporter of the concept of racial uplift.

00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:59.000
A racial uplift, is a term within black communities that was motivating, to be responsible in the lifting of their race.

00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:08.000
And the concept actually goes back to the 18 hundreds about black and what was introduced by like, such as, the voice in Washington.

00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:21.000
And it seems a means of assisting Bucks. To raise themselves to reach new heights in life.

00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:27.000
You was hugely involved with number of years for the NAACP as you can see in the crisis.

00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:34.000
He was made in 1910. The director of publicity and research being an AOCP. And became editor of the crisis.

00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:45.000
And he's also a vocal figure in establishing sociological studies of the misrepresentation of black people and sociology, sociology is a discipline as a whole.

00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:54.000
So just one example I understand is the highly influential study the Philadelphia Negro. The first case study of black community in the US.

00:14:54.000 --> 00:15:04.000
And his history of black Africans in Negro was hugely influential in challenging representations of Africans in history.

00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:11.000
His writing was by no means any nonfiction. He was also a novelist, a poet, and essayist with very clear views.

00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:17.000
On the purpose of the arts.

00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:25.000
Okay. So let's not consider the Following quotation from De Boyce's essay.

00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:37.000
A hugely important book called Criteria, Negro Art. 1926. Thus he says it is the bounden duty of black Americans who begin this great work.

00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:47.000
Of the creation of beauty, of the preservation of beauty. Of the realization of and we must use in this work all the methods that men have used before.

00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:53.000
And what have been the tools of the artist in times gone by? First of all, use the truth.

00:15:53.000 --> 00:16:02.000
Not for the sake of truth, not as a scientist seeking truth, but as one upon whom truth eternally thrust itself.

00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:14.000
That's the highest hand made of imagination as the one great vehicle of universal understanding. Again, IS in all its aspects of justice, goodness in all its aspects of justice, honor and rights.

00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:23.000
Not for the sake of an ethical sanction. This is the one true method of gaining simply and human interest.

00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:32.000
The point for me here is that art is to be seen as morally uploading. This is to be seen as the creation of beauty.

00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:43.000
There is perhaps an echo of the Also as a means to increase goodness in all its aspects. Of them has a moral role.

00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:56.000
In increasing sympathy. It's just seen in elevated terms more of this later. So we have this drive towards excellent and beautiful art by black individuals and communities.

00:16:56.000 --> 00:17:08.000
As part of this role in inspiring interest in sympathy. I'm reading Simpson, by the way, and its broadest sense rather than simply pity which, would have scorn.

00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:21.000
We also have consider what you boys had to say about the representation. Of black individuals and communities. So back against criteria of Negro art.

00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:33.000
Deposits a question. Suppose the only Negro who survived some quite centuries hence. The NICCO painted by the white Americans in the novels and thes, they have.

00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:40.000
What would be quite a hundred years, Now, to that, suppose you were to run to the story.

00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:48.000
I'm person it the kinds of people know and like and imagine. You might get it published and you might not.

00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:55.000
And the Mount North is still more bigger than the Mounts. The white publishers catering to white frog.

00:17:55.000 --> 00:18:00.000
Would say it is not interesting. To white folk, naturally not. They want Uncle Tom's topsy.

00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:17.000
Good darkees and clowns. Let me, there are 2 key points in. Firstly, that the portrayal of black people, in the voice describes as the kind of people you know and like and imagine.

00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:32.000
Was not necessarily likely to be published. Realism have no place in white propagation. What? Because once again, grotesque misrepresentation of black peoples would be more likely to sell books.

00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:44.000
They will want Uncle Thomas, Topsy's Good Darkies clowns. So with this in mind, Du Bois and others set up a fish company with the difference.

00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:56.000
And it was called Craig where short form crisis guild of writers and artists. And this guild was founded by Devoise and they set up together as they accompany the Cyber Players.

00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:09.000
And in turn. It's wanted a competition for playwriting in 1925. And in the crisis The boys set out the following.

00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:18.000
The place of the Negro system must be one about us. That's, they must have plots which reveal Negro life as it is.

00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:25.000
2 by us. That is, they must be written by NPO authors who understand from birth.

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:41.000
And continue to association. Just what it means to be a Sorry, for us. That says the theismus case of plimerilis and ego ordinances, ambes supported and sustained by their entertainment and approval.

00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:45.000
Cool. Mirrors. This must be in the Negro neighborhood in the mass of ordinary Negro people.

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:55.000
And Du Bois went on to say, it true be sincere, be thorough and do a beautiful John.

00:19:55.000 --> 00:20:05.000
So, we say it to, and insistence on black writers who understood and were part of black experience.

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:12.000
A long ones, and accessible venue in a non-threatening black neighborhood. At demand for high quality art.

00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:17.000
It was a huge success and I note with pleasure there's a number of black women worried that this were winners.

00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:22.000
For example, the Black Rights for Teacher and Actress, Ulani Spence.

00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:28.000
Again, I would kind of, that huge list of authors, I gave you any of them more names.

00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:40.000
I'm, because this particular genre represents a number of the debates. Around a lot and representation within the Harlem Renaissance.

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.000
And it's worth looking at these a little.

00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:52.000
Firstly, the purpose of this new drama was widely debated. Should it be a call for social action?

00:20:52.000 --> 00:21:03.000
Should it be so nice? Should it be to entertain? And it was actually suggested that the traumas emerging at this time fell into 2 broad categories.

00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:12.000
Rachel propaganda praise. Dealing with racial oppression and aiming to create social change as promoted by primary.

00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:24.000
Particularly to boys. Or folk plays which focus more on education and entertainment. And much just like.

00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:35.000
Another debate concerns the question of how black people should be represented in these dramas. How much should they got people in the role models?

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:44.000
Aging racial uplift. Jessie Redmond forces, there's a blank, writer, educator and editor of the crisis.

00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:52.000
Okay, for what she called the representation of quote, the better class of colored people, unquote.

00:21:52.000 --> 00:22:00.000
And this is wholly understandable in terms of challenging the grotesqueness representations of black people in God's population.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:09.000
But it was a problematic standpoint. That's a class in huge terms. What about representations of black people?

00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:16.000
Which were more wandering, demonstrating a wider sweep.

00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:26.000
Additional approaches also came to discussion about representation and at this point we come to the discussion of exploiting the fashion.

00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:36.000
For the exotic. And this leads us to rather controversial figures, but it, Marley, and Carl Van Heckton, who was a white writer, photographer.

00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:50.000
And patron of the home renaissance. And he argued that black writers writers Should exploit white interest in novelty and in being sort of, which was then in bow.

00:22:50.000 --> 00:23:05.000
Premises and primitivism had recently been infection. I, the, which, sort, of idealized primitive experience and so primitively cause inherent in more noble and civilized people, heavy closer and primitive.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:10.000
And then, NATIONS, the case in point.

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:18.000
The message is reinforcing that black people are somehow connected with the primitive or the savage certainly didn't affect the men's dangerous.

00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:23.000
That that's an argue for the black.

00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:33.000
One of the other big debates here, which never really fully resolved. Was the integration versus black autonomous identity.

00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:42.000
Discussion. As we've seen. Do bosses initial criteria for cricket was to make it by for until.

00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:49.000
But this writes the inevitable question of when these dramas should also be presented on white as it were stages.

00:23:49.000 --> 00:24:00.000
Was any kind of integration within the White House and which were the dominant and thoroughly prejudice culture. Mean the diminishment of black achievement.

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:13.000
Sure black artists only create for black audiences something loust and hues of any more later. Was sometimes directly told It was not a debate that was ever fully resolved.

00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:24.000
Though in fact, blacks are digging towards Broadway posters. Depression. Under the auspices of the workspace of administration.

00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:32.000
And the question of inspiration could not be more relevant. To our next key author, Gene Team.

00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:39.000
And he's great, 1923 novel. Okay, Gene and this is pronounced that way.

00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:46.000
Pain himself from a very mixed background and he attended both segregated black schools and or white schools.

00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:53.000
And he attended numerous colleges and universities, studying a range of disciplines but he never completed a degree.

00:24:53.000 --> 00:25:03.000
But the formative experience for him. Was when he became principal as an industrial and agricultural school for black students in Georgia for a short time.

00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:10.000
I'm witnessing the oppressions of the black people there change was changing for him.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:18.000
And he's the author of the modernist and now, a mentally influential novel, it was.

00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:28.000
Well, the seat, at the sign of its publication. But was not widely read. And now, however, it has come to be recognized as some of this masterpiece.

00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:37.000
Hello, you can see said of it. I love it passionately. I could not possibly and could not possibly exist without it.

00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:44.000
But simply, cane is a series of portraits, vignettes, arguably short stories.

00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:53.000
About a range of Black Americans in the United States. And here is one such, that let's read it together.

00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:58.000
When does in the can come along. Hanging, swaying, rusty, vetoed.

00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:03.000
Scratching choruses above the guinea squawk. Winges in the can.

00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:05.000
Come along.

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:12.000
Karma in overalls and strong as any man stands behind your brown mule driving the wagon home.

00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:19.000
Bumps and rings and shakes as it crosses the railroad track. Gene, riding it easy.

00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:26.000
I need the men around the stove to follow her with my eyes down the red dust road. Fixy pipe is what they call it.

00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:36.000
Maybe she feels my games, perhaps she expects it. There's some which has been slanting over his shoulder.

00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:54.000
Cheats primitive rockets into her mangrove blooms. Yeah, the as in the other This passage raises a number of points for Firstly, there is a combination in genres.

00:26:54.000 --> 00:27:03.000
We start with the song, Windows in the Can, come along. Before moving into pros. So, and to praise.

00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:14.000
This collision is a typical modernist technique. I'm, has been identified as particular. Fractured structure.

00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:23.000
Which could reflect the fragmented nature of black history. And the fluidity and shift of modernist art.

00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:36.000
Also spoke to the Harlem Renaissance movement. Because it provided a cancer poise to the fixed white ideals concerning black people and the portrayal of black people.

00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:40.000
Comma and I'm for all as strong as any man is also important. We see a black woman.

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:48.000
Briefly. Not as feminized, not as corrupt, not as weakened. But powerful.

00:27:48.000 --> 00:28:01.000
There's a suggestion of equality as strong as any man. Moreover, she has agency. Riding it easy is suggested of control, relaxation, power.

00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:10.000
Moreover, tumour shows a shrewd awareness of the question of the male gaze, which was for centuries a source of threat to black women.

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:19.000
Maybe she feels my gaze, perhaps. She expects it. Oh my, here, Karma seems magnificently untaunted and turns.

00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:26.000
Where the fears are fearlessly towards. Or just, away from our protagonists is not clear.

00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:33.000
I'm also particularly struck by this beautiful image at the end, which is more than almost the point of surreal.

00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:39.000
One can almost see a modernist painting with its incongruous juxtaposing imagery of rockets.

00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:45.000
Mango of trees and shrubs, the flower of Karma's face.

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:53.000
What then was Tumor's view in writing Kane? Of the purpose of the arts. Off the text composition.

00:28:53.000 --> 00:29:02.000
He said, I realized with deep regret. That the spirituals meeting ridicule would be certain to die out.

00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:11.000
The Negroes also the trend was towards the small town and then towards the city and industry in commerce and machines.

00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:20.000
The folk spirit was walking in to die in the modern desert. That's been so beautiful. His death was so troubled.

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:28.000
Just this seems to some life. And this was the feeling I put into K. Okay, was a swan song.

00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:32.000
It was the song of an end.

00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:41.000
So Kane is as much as anything a record, an active record of a postant art form, the spiritual.

00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:52.000
Most than 100 Renaissance rise there. Made the point that spirituals along with jazz Could be, to be the only truly vernacular American art forms.

00:29:52.000 --> 00:30:04.000
Fine not from European rates. Is trying to act as a witness and make a record of this extraordinary awful before he fed it with Diane.

00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:11.000
You're also commenting. I heard folk songs come. From the lips of Negro presence.

00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:18.000
I saw the rich dusk beauty that I had heard many false accents about. And of which till then.

00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:29.000
I was somewhat skeptical. And a deep part of my nature about this I had repressed. Spring suddenly so long and responded to them.

00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:39.000
Here, firstly, tumor names, false accents, referencing, the perhaps, the patronizing portrayals of black rural culture.

00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:46.000
Secondly, it seems that this needs the spirituals. Tuma had a deepening self-awareness.

00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:55.000
There is both record here and personal discovery. And once again, the question is the representation of black individuals and communities.

00:30:55.000 --> 00:31:06.000
We need to consider one final quotation which is of interest considering Tumor's views on black and white culture.

00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:18.000
One marketing came. Schumer forbade his publishers mentioned his race. My racial composition and my position in the world are realities which by alone may determine.

00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:29.000
Nor would he allow his work to be included in black anthologies, insisting he was part of a Emergent race, simply called American.

00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:36.000
And here we see a debate that was very much the 4 in Harlem Renaissance discussions of identity.

00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:46.000
How much should black communities choose to be seen as separate from the dominant white culture? Or how much should black and white cultures communities come together?

00:31:46.000 --> 00:32:02.000
And mix together to form this new emergent race. Simply It has to be born in mind that tumor on government documents alternated between identifying as Negro I don't find his wife.

00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:08.000
It also has to be pointed out that genes, as we've seen, was from a Mitch race background himself.

00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:19.000
His father had been born in slowly and afraid. 2 marriages, both white women. Nice which cause controversy.

00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:28.000
So we hear, but see here perhaps a paradigm since you know. You are, you strongly for the new emergent rice simply called American.

00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:41.000
He was also clearly Awfully determined. To record unique helmets, black experience and art. And he's used to some and spiritual in pain.

00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:50.000
Tuma was by no means the only author insistent on the idea that black culture has something distinctive and specific to offer.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:56.000
I mentioned earlier the questions of spiritual and jazz as truly, in that you know, American art forms.

00:32:56.000 --> 00:33:11.000
And this leads us to another great writer. Langston Hughes. As you can see. He was an award-winning racist, deeply engaged in the debate surrounding the function of art in relation to black communities.

00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:28.000
He was the first Black American to earn his living through writings and lecturing. And he believes intensely in the abilities of black artists and communities to generate a distinctively black ismetic.

00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:41.000
He was immensely popular as a writer, among ordinary as it were, black communities. In large part because the accessibility and the outward looking nature of his and I put their CF.

00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:45.000
Moderns Movements influence.

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:51.000
The reason was that one of the criticisms of some of the Harlem Renaissance is creative output.

00:33:51.000 --> 00:34:00.000
Was it was too engaged with modernism. And one of the criticisms of modernism in general and not just from within the whole Renaissance.

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:14.000
Was that modernism was esoteric. And the That's a debate for another time. But the point is that fair ones make and we'll return to it shortly.

00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:21.000
In the meantime, Langston, here is Langston Hughes performing one of his especially well-known poems, The Weary Blues.

00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:35.000
In 1958. I'm gonna have to stop sharing briefly while I set up this

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:59.000
Hughes has his own account, his own introduction.

00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:13.000
You

00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:20.000
The sun's a satin. This is what I'm gonna sing. Sons of 7.

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:34.000
This is what I'm gonna sing. I feel the blues are coming. I wonder what the blue will bring.

00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:44.000
You

00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:49.000
You

00:35:49.000 --> 00:35:58.000
A in a drowsy, syncopated tune. Rocking back and forth to a mellow cruise.

00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:04.000
I heard a Negro delay.

00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:14.000
No, no, Nelix Avenue the other night. By the pale, dull, pallor of a one, He did a lazy sway.

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:24.000
He did a lazy sway to the tune of those weary blues.

00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:30.000
With his company hands on each ivory key. He made that poor piano moaned with melody.

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:52.000
Oh blue. Swaying to and fro on his wiggy stool he played that sad ragy tune like a musical fool Sweet blues coming from a black man's soul Oh, blue.

00:36:52.000 --> 00:36:56.000
Oh

00:36:56.000 --> 00:37:07.000
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone I heard that Negro see that old Tiana moan Ain't got nobody in all this world.

00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:17.000
Ain't got nobody but myself. Unground equit my prowling and put my troubles on the shell.

00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:24.000
Dump, dump, when he's put on the floor. He played a few cards and he signed some more.

00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:40.000
I got the weary blues. I can't be satisfied. The weary blues. Happy no more and I wish that I had died.

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:48.000
Far into the night, groom that tune. The stars went out and so did the moon.

00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:52.000
The singer stopped playing and went to bed.

00:37:52.000 --> 00:38:01.000
While the weary blues, echoed through his head. He slept like a rock. Or a man that's dead.

00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:11.000
Oh

00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:28.000
Okay, I just get a safe moment to. Get back to our PowerPoint.

00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:40.000
Okay. So that was Langston Hughes, his 1,925, poem, The Weary Blues, in a 1,958 performance.

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:48.000
And I'm struck by a number of points in this beautiful and moving poem. Personally, I notice this is an act of self portraiture.

00:38:48.000 --> 00:39:00.000
A black crisis describing a black artist. Writers in the Harlem Renaissance such as Alan Locke were emphatic about the importance of black artists and communities.

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:11.000
Moving away from white portrayals of them. And this self-corch show is part of the insistence on self-expression and self-determination.

00:39:11.000 --> 00:39:15.000
I also know the line that he made that pure piano, What we have here is a black artist in a position of agency.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:26.000
This is not a passive figure. But an artist making music happen.

00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:33.000
The lines, sweet blues, coming from a black man's soul and I was going to quit my framing and put my troubles on the show.

00:39:33.000 --> 00:39:49.000
Are also particular important. They are especially struggling as critics have pointed out that the centuries Black individuals and communities have been portrayed from the outside.

00:39:49.000 --> 00:39:58.000
Rather than observed from within, observed rather than from within their experience, their internal life. Parents hearing honestly.

00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:11.000
Here in this song, we have the black artist's personal expression. Coming from his soul. I feel also that there's a distinct echo of the spirituals here put my troubles on the shelf.

00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:21.000
Isn't that code for me of laying down my Perhaps one art form is paying tributes to another here.

00:40:21.000 --> 00:40:30.000
Just as long as and Hughes in this poem is paying tribute to the Blues. Finally, the last verse contains the line.

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:37.000
You slept like a rook or a man that stared. We are offered no easy consolation from this piece.

00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:42.000
The black process has expression. But no comfort.

00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:49.000
Kings was admirably clear-headed about the problems of representation and the purpose of the arts.

00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:56.000
That's a hundred Renaissance, said he was. You said it was the period when the Negro was in.

00:40:56.000 --> 00:41:02.000
Being used at the Harlem Renaissance could also easily be a fad, a fashion.

00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:11.000
I reminded once again of the dangers of Carl Van Pften's encouragement of blank artists to take advantage of the interest in the exotic.

00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:16.000
We also see in Hughes a clear understanding of the limits of the Harlem Renaissance.

00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:28.000
As he commented in his autobiography, the Big C. You ordinary NGOs hadn't heard of the Renaissance and they had it haven't raised their wages any.

00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:35.000
There was the problem of this being a movement which only affected a small elite. Hughes was in fluxing.

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:44.000
That the artistic work of black communities can go so much further than that. That's the quotation, the lowest tells us from.

00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:53.000
You just wanted to tell the stories of his people in the ways that reflected their actual culture. Including their love of music, laughter and language itself.

00:41:53.000 --> 00:42:04.000
Alongside their supperings. In this, he links with writers like SORRY, or HERSON, who also acknowledged both the distinctiveness of black cultures.

00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:12.000
Was protesting against yachts only being concerned. With what was termed the race problem.

00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:22.000
So Hughes was emphatic in his vital, 1926 essay. The Negro assist in the racial mountain that without going outside his race.

00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:31.000
And even among the better classes with their whites culture and conscious American manners. But still need grow enough to be different.

00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:37.000
There is sufficient set masses of furniture black artist with a lifetime of creative work.

00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:47.000
He saw it as essential. And here he links in that black houses have more than enough material and media from their own experience.

00:42:47.000 --> 00:42:54.000
And a distinctive is better. And this is part of what the WAY, of course, is celebrating.

00:42:54.000 --> 00:43:01.000
But not everyone agree with him. And this leads us to the figure, George Schuyler.

00:43:01.000 --> 00:43:11.000
And he's a fascinating. Unlike, he came from a less middle class and educated background and spending as you can see, time in the army.

00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:17.000
Where he was wrongfully present after a racist instance. And he was a prolific master and journalist.

00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:26.000
And as longside, you know, this, short stories, essays, novels, pamphlets.

00:43:26.000 --> 00:43:33.000
One is novels is the utterly scathing satau, a black home ball. I've recommended it.

00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:39.000
I'm on the earliest slides. And this piece of satire is extraordinary. It's a.

00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:50.000
Whereby a medication could be devised. Whereby black people could turn themselves into white people. It is a hilarious biting and thought-provoking read.

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:56.000
And no one white people, black people, figures from holler a raisins, emerges unscathed.

00:43:56.000 --> 00:44:01.000
I believe he refers to Dubois as Dr. Shakespeare Agamemnon bed.

00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:06.000
As you can see, he was published widely.

00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:14.000
But although he was business manager, He was actually in MEDSY Skeptical about the High Renaissance.

00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:18.000
And the claims it made about itself as an artistic movement.

00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:27.000
He was emphatic that to separate us into Negro lecture or black literature was intensely dangerous.

00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:34.000
It should be seen as art that stood by its and merits. To present since his necreliction.

00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:43.000
Would still be a form of discrimination. And that would mainly mean that it would be seen as separate. And therefore taking this seriously.

00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:47.000
As we can see in the following

00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:56.000
All of this hullabaloo about the Negro Renaissance in art and literature did stimulate the writing of some literature of importance, which will live.

00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:08.000
The amount however is very small but such as it is it is meritorious because it is literature and not legal in This is just by literary and not by racial standards.

00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:11.000
Which is as it should be.

00:45:11.000 --> 00:45:21.000
On questions of representation, however, Skynet was in agreement. With some of the standpoint central to the Harmonissance thought of Ames.

00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:33.000
And his 1926 essay the Nico arts hope him He absolutely agreed. That black individuals and communities have been grotesquely and offensively misrepresented.

00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:37.000
The may mention of the word Negro, he said, conjures up in the average white Americans mind a composite stereotype and Burke Williams aren't your minor Uncle Tom.

00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:50.000
Jack Johnson for flooring slackly. And the various monstrosities. Scrolled by the cartoons.

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:59.000
However, he did plan the idea of a black distinctive black aesthetic dangerous. And for him, such distinctness.

00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:14.000
Mainly fed white prejudice that black people were different and therefore in failure. As he commented. On this baseless premise, so flattering to the white mob that the blackmore is inferior and fundamentally indifferent.

00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:23.000
Is direct to the postulate that he needs must be peculiar. And when he attempts to portray life through the meeting of art, it must have necessity.

00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:26.000
Be a peculiar art.

00:46:26.000 --> 00:46:33.000
So as we can see, the ideas, questions and debates in the Han Renaissance were many and were rich.

00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:44.000
Oh, touched upon them today. Let's summarize this brief overview and starting point. So, purposes of art and key debates.

00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:54.000
There was the proof that black people could despise the highest achievements alongside white people as a means to racial uplift and a positive representation of black people.

00:46:54.000 --> 00:47:06.000
As a form of self-expression created by and distinctive to black people. As a means by which back people can find a black person can find voice and speak for him or herself.

00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:17.000
That's a means to enter the interior as opposed to observed experience for black person people. As a form to read recorded purely on its own merits, irrespective of grace.

00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:26.000
As we integrate it or not. Into the predominantly white world of the arts. Or was this a transplant exploiting?

00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:32.000
And, some, some, some, some, of, the questions of representation. The Universal Agreement.

00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:39.000
Was that portrayals of black equaling arts up until this time. The degrading and brochesque.

00:47:39.000 --> 00:47:52.000
Who was to be represented in hell was greatly debated. And the dangers of seeing art from black individuals and communities is distinctive, risk that their art will be seen separate in the park.

00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:55.000
And place white prejudice.

00:47:55.000 --> 00:48:07.000
I'll give you some I recommend harsley these as starting points and the great advantage of course is them is unlike today's lecture they will tell you about all the art forms.

00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:15.000
That were being developed and flourishing at this time. So I harshly recommend them to you. And thank you very much for listening.

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:20.000
I'm going to stop sharing that.

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:26.000
Thank you so much Claire. That was really great. Just, quickly to say that we're going to, because of the, the screen share in size, we're going to pop a PDF.

00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:39.000
Of the slides up in the members area of the website alongside the recording so you can see all of the reading lists.

00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:51.000
From today as well. And we always fascinating. Thank you so much Claire. And I think we'll, and we'll jump straight into some, questions if that's okay.

00:48:51.000 --> 00:49:10.000
So, First one, I've got one that it's not on the chat because it came straight through to me, but it's from Steve and Steve says the development and influence of jazz and blues music has been huge and Claire do you think that those forms share the same dates as literature?

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.000
As part of the Harlem Renaissance. 1919 to 1939.

00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:23.000
It's. It's half reset because I'm a literature bud. But if we look, let me take out my time line.

00:49:23.000 --> 00:49:31.000
Go, what you've got going on. For example, is in 1921. You had shuffle along.

00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:37.000
Written by UB Blake and they will see see opening on Broadway. That was one of the key works as I understand it.

00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:43.000
I'm not some musicologist. The began signified beginnings at the jazz age.

00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:51.000
You got, Louis Armstrong moving to New York City in 1,924 and the big band movement really developing there.

00:49:51.000 --> 00:50:00.000
You know, so you have got some really huge things going on. Do you, to know, in the club in 1927?

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:10.000
So as far as I can answer that Steve, it looks like it. As I say, I'm not a music, but that's, a few, that they help.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:19.000
Thank you. And I've got another question now from Maureen who asks, do you consider James Baldwin a later member of this group?

00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:27.000
That's a really interesting question because I looked up James Baldwin. He was actually born, I think, in 1924, 1,927.

00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:35.000
So he's definitely a second wave. If he's part of this at all. You've got the second world war.

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:50.000
Piling in. Beyond that, I wouldn't like to really comment.

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:51.000
Yes.

00:50:51.000 --> 00:50:55.000
Okay, And just want to, there's a comment there from, Kate. And when we were like watching the Weary Blues video, a comment that the music, the musicians all seemed to be white ironically.

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:56.000
Oh, didn't they?

00:50:56.000 --> 00:51:01.000
Yeah, yeah, which I spotted too, yeah.

00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:02.000
Yep.

00:51:02.000 --> 00:51:05.000
Yes, how very tedious. Yeah.

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:18.000
Great. So thank you again, Claire. I think if we're, If we're done for questions we'll wrap it up there but yeah just to say thank you very very much for tonight

00:51:18.000 --> 00:51:28.000
Thank you. Thank you very much for coming in. Thank you very much for that having me along. Really appreciated.

00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:04.000
And there we go. So Ali, it's over to you.

00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:13.000
Okay. Perhaps I should also say a little bit that, one of the other things that I, have been involved in, I also direct a great deal.

00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:22.000
So a lot of what I'm going to be talking about tonight is kind of drawn from person experience to thinking about design and elements of that.

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And, we're just gonna start off with a little sort of potted history of theater design and then I'm gonna look at some of the basic principles that a designer might apply.

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Hope you're gonna find it as fascinating as I do. Okay, so. Let's start at the very beginning as they say because that is always a good place to start.

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And, we're just gonna just deal with. A little bit of history to start with.

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Now a lot of you will know that the tradition of theatre starts with the ancient Greeks and the ancient Greeks did not like, we weren't interested in scenery, they used very little by way of props and costume.

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They did use masks. They also used platform boots to make their actors look taller so that in the massive auditoriums if any of you have been to Greece you'll know how large these auditorium that were being used by the Greeks are.

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So they would use masks and, with little funnels in to amplify the voice.

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They would also have, you know, platform shoes but in terms of a set design or a costume design very little was done.

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It wasn't until the Romans came on that came along and they decided to increase the level of spectacle that was being produced.

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That they came up with this. This is, the Roman, theater in Orange in France and you can see what they've done what they've done is they've created a backdrop for spectacle to take place in front of it and you've got So the 2 layers, one at the top there, can you see there's also, there's a, a statue

00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:19.000
there which is dedicated to Bacchus who was the god of theater for the Romans and these 3 entrant spaces and this particular kind of design.

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It's something that stays with us through the long period that follows that involves basically theater being open to the air.

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So, this is the reproduction of the globe and the onsite on the, in South work, I can't talk to, in, in, which some of you may actually have seen and you can see the connection to the To the Roman theatre that I've just shown you, you've got your 3 entrances along the front.

00:02:48.000 --> 00:03:08.000
You've got an upper area here which of course is used extensively by shakespeare in a number of his plays where people see things from windows and of course it is the the origin of the balcony scene as it's often thought of in Romeo and Judith by the way.

00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:13.000
No way in Shakespeare does it say she's in the balcony. It simply says she's above.

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We have decided that it's a balcony scene. It's one of those, those useful trivia facts that you can put a gene next pub quiz.

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But this this this model is what happened. For the next kind of few centuries from the Romans moving forward, it was in the open air, this is what they were looking for was a some kind of area which had 3 entrances so people could come in and out and we could have an upper area that would be good.

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So a lot of travelling data happened in in yards, which they basically followed the same model. And it wasn't until theatre started to become interior.

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That things started to change. And, for us in in the person who really started to move that on was a man called Inigo Jones who was both an architect and a theatre designer.

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And he was doing a lot of work for the early Jacobian kings, particularly Charles the First. And he had been influenced by the ideas of perspective that were being brought in from Italy by people like Palladio.

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So what you've got here on the right is an example of a backdrop that has been drawn by Enigo Jones for a courtly mask.

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Now you can see that it's got some of the same kind of shapes that are going on, but this is a flat piece of canvas on which this has been applied and he has given it perspective to get it look like you know it's a street moving away and the performers would have worked in front of it.

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And for the first time we start to see something that is specific design for theatrical purposes.

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You know, Jones was very much employed in the court to do court masks and these masks are There often, allegorical in context and therefore they're not really telling a story they're they're kind of telling a loose kind of connection of ideas that are put together.

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And the other element of what they were doing was creating amazing and complicated theatrical costume design and this is on the left here is it one of Indigo Jones's designs for costume.

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For a mask which was about fire. It was a very lucrative business being involved in a courtly mask.

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Milton wrote one about weddings about about marital fidelity called comus that some of you may have heard of.

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And they were extremely popular and it was the English of war that kind of brought these things to an end.

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But when the theatres reopened after the interregnum, it was this kind of look, this backdrop.

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With fantastic costumes that started to dominate what was going on in theater and it remained the norm for quite some considerable time.

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To the point that we got to a case of the huge elaboration of these, these incredibly complicated backdrops.

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That the Victorians came to love and they kind of reached their zenith with Henry Bourbon Tree and he got so carried away that he decided he wanted to have real things on stage.

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So he produced a famous version of Midsummer Night's Dream in which there were real rabbits on stage.

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And it is recorded that the rabbits during the course of the run bread and that there were many many more rabbits than they ended up with that when they started he tried to put real trees on the stage which of course had difficulties with With heat, they died very quickly because they weren't really fit to fit for it.

00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:11.000
But the, the, Victorians were all about spectacle on the stage. If you go on the really fascinating backstage tour at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

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They will show you part of the mechanism which was for a horse race. They actually have live horse races on the stage because it was all about the spectacle.

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It was all about making the visual look as amazing as they possibly could. And then comes along Henry Irving.

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Henry Irving is much more interested in creating theatre as an art form. He wants to go back to kind of traditional ideas.

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And that the focus should be on the performance and on the actor. And one of the first things that he did was he insisted he was the person who decided that lights would come down in the auditorium.

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So that when you go into the theater now or to the cinema for that matter and you sit there and the lights go down it's Henry Irving you can thank for that particular invention and whether or not you decide that it's a nice time to struggle down, have a snooze may depend on the play or the film.

00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:10.000
But alongside that, of course. During Henry Irving's time, they were improvements in stage lighting.

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Gas lighting had come in. And it meant that the the stage could be lit in ways to create mood.

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And mood is one of those important things when you're thinking about design and it meant that you could focus the light in certain parts.

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And one of the elements to stage design is that you are trying to focus on the audience's attention where you want it to go.

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If you're creating a film It's editing that does this. You know, you can edit something so that it focuses on this person's face or on the glass falling over.

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In the theater you can't guarantee where the audience is going to look. So what you do is you try and use techniques to try and focus the audience where you want them to keep their attention.

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And lighting was one of the ways that it could be done. Henry Irving was particularly fond of, lighting the focused on him.

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He was probably the first person to figure out that standing in spotlight was a really good idea. And, he was very known for his attitude towards his own talent.

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Then she after that, we come along with the Mary Vestris. And Mary Vestris was French, and she created the idea of a set that was like a room.

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What we call a box set. So if you imagine something like a, doll's house with the front taken off that's exactly what it is that she's creating is that the idea of a room that looks like a real room that's just had one wall taken off it so we the audience can peer inside it.

00:09:54.000 --> 00:10:01.000
It's probably the most common. Set design you will see. No, because it's the way that we think.

00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:09.000
And that's been emphasized by the work of Constantine Now, Stanislasky wasn't the designer.

00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:11.000
That he was partnered with some of the most important figures of the late nineteenth, early twentieth century theater.

00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:34.000
And he was the for of naturalistic acting. And he believed that actors should be reproducing real life as much as was humanly possible on the stage for the audience to see.

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As far as he was concerned that meant that you had to have a reproduction of the room.

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Add to which that he then said, well, there were other things you needed to add. If there was a fire in the room, it had to be real fire.

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If the actors were going to eat on stage it had to be real food. You know they had to actually be eating what and what's now referred to as a practical practical meal.

00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:19.000
And along with that, he took the book set one stage further. In that he said the actors should try and remember that as far as they're concerned the audience isn't there and that the the missing wall, the fourth wall as as he referred to it, was something that the actors could I know.

00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:22.000
That they could pretend you audience wasn't there. And, there were moments in his early career as an actor and director where he had actors actually turn their back to the audience.

00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:35.000
Because realistically, that's not what they would do. And it caused a sensation.

00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:45.000
Yeah, that you might not focus. On your, she might not watch the theatre, what in the theater we call cheap front so that you're always facing towards the audience.

00:11:45.000 --> 00:12:05.000
The idea that you shouldn't be doing that. And came from Stanislasky. And it changed the idea of the to design completely because at that point we started to see electricity so we could light things in a different way and we were reproducing in actual detail.

00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:17.000
Minute detail in fact the rooms that these characters were existing in. If you've ever seen a fully developed Shauno case, you say something like, you know, in the paycock.

00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:38.000
That's exactly what happens there and you get people cooking on stage, you get people, Actually trying to reproduce their their kind of own lives ignoring the fact the audience is there and it's something that touches upon a great deal of of modern theater.

00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:50.000
One of the things of course that is starting to change that is cinema. And why although we've creating a real room with real fires and real food and real light coming through.

00:12:50.000 --> 00:13:13.000
Real Windows when you can do that in cinema. So as we move through the late 20 first century and into the 20 first century start seeing much more abstract ideas for the 20 first century you start seeing much more abstract ideas for theater design simply because We don't need to produce, and it naturalism, we can go to the television or to the cinema for that.

00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:23.000
So if you want something different, then you will go to theatre to see something that's a little bit more, in keeping with the play.

00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:30.000
And that is, that is derived from this man. This chat actually deserves to talk all to himself.

00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:37.000
This is Edward Gordon Craig. And Henry Gordon Craig was amongst other things. He was the son of Ellen Terry.

00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:42.000
And probably the world's one of the world's first superstar actresses. He was the husband of his Adora Duncan.

00:13:42.000 --> 00:14:08.000
The famous contemporary dancer, and was also, a theater designer. He decided that what theatre should have instead of going towards this new naturalism, that it should reflect the mood and the themes of the piece and that it should be much more abstracting its tones.

00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:15.000
And he wrote several books, the most significant of which is towards a new theater which he produced in 1,913.

00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:26.000
He also had a very, familiar magazine which went out, which was kind of the first theater magazine that people were reading.

00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:37.000
And he was influenced and influenced. Myaholt working in Russia and Piscuital working in Germany to try and look towards this kind of more abstract design.

00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:46.000
And just to give you some idea of the difference. So let me just remind you, this is what the Victorian stage was starting to look like.

00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:55.000
And this is what Craig was recommending. This is a design that he did for Hamlet.

00:14:55.000 --> 00:15:20.000
And you can see the complete difference here. We come from elaborate and complicated to geometric shapes that are set on their ends and they you can see the size of the actors within it this is how we envisage it the world should be something that has a thematic and overwhelming feeling to it.

00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:44.000
And. This idea of the design. Set design and costume design reflecting mood and structure is something that has influenced modern theater design since the early 90, since the early twentieth century and you will see examples of the impact of Craig, Craig's work.

00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:58.000
You know at all sorts of points in modern theater and particularly during the 19 sixties you know, particularly during the 19 sixties, you know, famous versions of plays that kind of, you know, famous versions of plays that kind of, now iconic like Peter Brooks.

00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:22.000
Famous, Midsummer Night's Dream, the, the, the, that brought Paul Schofield to to stardom all have this this Craigian feel behind them that is the intention that they should have they should be about mood and structure rather than trying to reproduce this place in the world.

00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:26.000
Which takes me on to thinking about this idea of modern theater design and I'm just going to talk about 3, about 5 particular principles that you will see in action.

00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:42.000
When you're talking about design. I'm going to focus on set design because obviously visually I can give you a lot of pictures to talk you through some of these.

00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:52.000
But it does also apply particularly dilapidation and cleanliness and scale, balance and size to costume design as well.

00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:59.000
Angles, multiple pattern and color can be applied through lighting too, but for the purposes of the exercise and the amount of time we have this evening I'm going to focus on.

00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:13.000
On images set design to give you some idea into that. You will find when she, when she will know these, that when you look at a set that you'll be able to identify them quite easily.

00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:20.000
And most set designs now will contain at least one of these examples. Having 3 of these things in it.

00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:31.000
Is fairly standard. And having 5, all 5 of them is just working too hard. And so it's things to look out for.

00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:36.000
When you go to the theater yourself is what I'm going to going to point you towards I guess.

00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:40.000
So you start by considering color. Calories are cheap and effective way of creating contrast and also focusing on the audience's attention.

00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:56.000
If you remember me saying earlier that in theater we can't always give the audience to look where we want them to look.

00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:13.000
So playing with color can do that. For example I think one of the most familiar ways of doing it is the example that I always use when I'm explaining this is if you've seen Stingless lists, Chindler's List is a film that is shot in black and white.

00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:18.000
And at 1 point, Steven Spielberg introduces the figure of a small girl. In a red coat.

00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:26.000
Whilst the Nazis are rounding up Jewish people and putting them on trains and this little girl in the red coat because this red is the only color on screen.

00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:37.000
You can't take your eyes off it, it makes you follow it. It is that kind of use of color.

00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:55.000
You often get sets where there are very specific color. Combinations. To do with the color, and you will also find situations where color has been, a certain color has been removed from the set and then will be reintroduced to create impact.

00:18:55.000 --> 00:19:05.000
Most commonly that's with red and white. So you have a set that is mostly blues and browns and then you introduce somebody wearing a red coat.

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:21.000
You can't not look at that person. The same would apply to somebody wearing white. In the same circumstances.

00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:28.000
And you get a lot of these combinations. One of the challenges we working with, Col, if you are a theater designer, is you need to take for lighting designers opinion into account.

00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:37.000
For reasons that are to do with the scientific elements of of the way that color is created.

00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:55.000
And certain colors are really hard to light on stage. Green is notoriously so. And so a lighting designer might well veto the idea of having too much of particular greens on stage.

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:57.000
They particularly don't like green floor cloths. Because they are difficult to light the night is absorbed by it.

00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:05.000
So very often a designer will come up with an idea and then the lighting design will go, no, we can't use that.

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:13.000
So that's a kind of recommendation. And again, something else to look out for. So let's start with a simple one.

00:20:13.000 --> 00:20:23.000
This I know this is from the film, this is from Aberly and in this particular case the focus of the color is red and green.

00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:34.000
I said it was very very rarely seen but in every scene in this film there is an element of red and green and you can see how it's being used here.

00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:47.000
To create focus on certain parts. The top, the left hand corner there, you can see how, Amelie appearing in the red dress really makes her ping out against the natural background.

00:20:47.000 --> 00:20:58.000
And it creates this particular effect. It draws a line to it. It creates a particular sort of approach that you owes something to painting to be honest.

00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:12.000
But you can see how this limitation of color is almost no blue in these pictures. This, no shade of brand to speak of.

00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:26.000
Just not that much white. And because they've all been taken out just to focus on this red and green colorway and it has a particular effect on our way that we look.

00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:32.000
This is another example. This is from the National Theatre's Adaption of the Lorax for Children.

00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:39.000
And what's what's interesting about this is that because it's for children the the set is very brightly colored.

00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:50.000
Can you see that the set designer has used brushes from a car wash? To create the the rather strange woods in which the lorax lives.

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.000
So the lorax, the puppet, is very brightly coloured. Partly because he is in the book, but also partly because he's about drawing the eye.

00:21:54.000 --> 00:22:16.000
And the puppeteers are, as is very common now in modern puppeteering, are dressed in Modern closest there is less in enthusiasm for having the the puppeteers all dressed in black so we can pretend they're not there.

00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:17.000
But they are dressed in neutral colours. They're dressed in this in this set of gray colors.

00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:36.000
So that once again, the central character, the lorax itself, pops out. So our eyes drawn to the puppet and not to the puppeteers.

00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:45.000
This is from, that face. A recent success and again we've got a great deal in red in this case used because the one of the characters here is extremely sensual and sensuous.

00:22:45.000 --> 00:23:01.000
And you can see as well choices of the posters that are on the wall, add to that a general impression of, of sensuality.

00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:12.000
We've got broken up light from the lighting. And they're using Govo's which create, which, stencils that you push light through and that creates particular effects but in this case the costume design has made a decision about one of the actors.

00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:24.000
And that is to dress him all in black. Which means he stands out. It's the reason why Hamlet is dressing black.

00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:36.000
You will see designs for Hamlet where the rest of the stage is stripped of all sign of black except for the central figure of Hamlet who has to be dressed in black because Shakespeare says so.

00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:49.000
Given that much information. But in this particular case this actor stands out against this sea of red and the moment that he moves you will be following him because he is differently colored the rest of it.

00:23:49.000 --> 00:24:03.000
And of course it says something about his mood, it says something about his character. In the same way as the rest of the sector, something about the mood and character of the other people in it.

00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:09.000
And this is from, F, a recent National Theatre Music or Success.

00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:22.000
I think you can get a national theater online. I couldn't recommend it more highly. And the story is of all the girls who that win the Z-Fi fories and they have this annual reunion.

00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:36.000
So all of these women are linked by their connection to the follies and what the costume designer has done here is give them G that represent their different periods of their time.

00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:43.000
But that they are all within the same color way. They'd be all meat on the color wheel together.

00:24:43.000 --> 00:25:00.000
So lots of lilacs and blues and they transfer from one to the other. So you can clearly see that there is a connection between these characters.

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:17.000
Now we're going to get into, multiple pattern and repeated pattern. This is a really interesting one because this is this is a psychological thing and it's a very strange thing but it is absolutely true that if you put a lot of things in front of a human, the human eye.

00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:27.000
There's certain points at which the human eye will come, we'll try and count them. You'll brain will go, And then there's a point at which you can put too many things on the stage and they will it will stop working.

00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:37.000
Your brain will just go and that's rather lovely. I like that. It's kind of like the difference between the wood and the trees, I suppose.

00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:46.000
And our brain just kind of set back and goes, okay, yeah, I quite like that. I quite like I'm quite interested in that and stops trying to count it and just takes it all in.

00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:55.000
So you get design effects like this. This is a really simple design. And again, you can see the power of the lighting.

00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:04.000
The lighting designer has chosen to spend more time lighting the balloons and lighting the actors at this particular point.

00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:17.000
But all this is is just a whole bunch of balloons. In the space and it just creates this rather lovely, ethereal effect of these 2 lovers.

00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:25.000
In this, in this scene and, without really putting too much effort in. You know, this isn't complicated.

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:31.000
There's not a lot, not a lot of detail here. But your brain just looks, well, that's rather charming.

00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:39.000
Also, you'll notice the color has come into play here. There are no colors on this stage except for blue and white and gray.

00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:47.000
So again, think about the impact if some of the color came in a stronger color. Something like red.

00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:56.000
Or a black coming into this space would change its appearance completely. But the pattern thing is really important. And this is a really famous set.

00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:00.000
This is the set for Matilda. The musical which some of you might have seen and you can see that they're multiple pattern effect has gone completely mad.

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:14.000
Every single one of these is a block with a letter on it, and some of them light up. To spell out certain words.

00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:21.000
It starts off with the letters from Tilda being flown in from the, this is from the opening to the play.

00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:28.000
And Every time I've taken people to see it, what they do is they try and figure out what the letters are spelling.

00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:43.000
And then after they kind of give up and just go, that's really rather lovely. And it is because you've got so much multiple pattern going on there that you'll brain just enjoy as it is.

00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:50.000
And it works if you're doing something much more cheaply. This is a touring production from the Edinburgh Fringe.

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:59.000
And the, as you can see, there's no design really to speak of because the whole idea is that they don't know what they're going to get in terms of backdrop.

00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:06.000
Can't afford it. So what they've done is they've created a backdrop by creating multiple pattern.

00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:13.000
Along a portable wardrobe, rail kind of thing you can you can buy from Ikea.

00:28:13.000 --> 00:28:21.000
And then using color. Along the rain. To create their backdrop.

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:29.000
Some of the, things that we hang up here are used as costume during the course of the show.

00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:38.000
But most of it is there just to create this rather rather lovely rainbow effect. It is a play about, a gay love affair.

00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:47.000
To create this rainbow effect, very simply. It also creates backdrop you can just about see that there is there's a bed behind it the hospital bed in fact.

00:28:47.000 --> 00:29:04.000
That is part of the play. And all of this caused tax data very nicely into that familiar white band that anybody who's been working on fringe shows or small-scale touring shows will be very familiar.

00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:16.000
In my time I have spent spent a long time sitting in little white vans. I'm full of stuff that you didn't expect to be anywhere near.

00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:22.000
And we're going to talk about, ation and cleanliness. Now.

00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:23.000
There's very clean things, very dirty things. Have an impact on the way that we think about them.

00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:32.000
Particularly when we're talking about character and costume. It's a lot of fun to do.

00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:46.000
One of the happiest couple of hours I spent was working on a projection of Oliver. We the bunch of young people and they'd all brought along their clothes to be worn.

00:29:46.000 --> 00:30:10.000
As part of the, gang or part of the street scenes and we we distressed the clothes and what you do is you set about the clothes that you've got with cheese graters and sand paper and you rub them with all kinds of things and you use the face packs to make the muddy.

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:15.000
And they had a glorious time get messing these things around but it's also about the way that it looks.

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:28.000
We have a response to certain things. Let me give you an example. This is the model box for, the National Theatre's production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.

00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:37.000
The central figure, Christopher, is severely autistic. And his brain works along very mathematical lines.

00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:49.000
And this is intended to represent the interior of. Christopher's brain. So because it works a little mathematical lines, the designer has gone for very, very clean straight lines.

00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:52.000
You've got your, you see the 3 entrances again, like, you, back to the Romans that we talked about right at the beginning.

00:30:52.000 --> 00:31:02.000
But it is very clean back to the Romans that we talked about right at the beginning. But it is very clean, it's very pristine.

00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:10.000
It doesn't, it doesn't give any concession to any kind of softness or edges because that's the way that Christopher break Christopher's brain works.

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:15.000
This particular set. He's also packed. Absolutely packed with all kinds of gadgetry.

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:24.000
So things are projected on it, things are projected along the floor. Each one of those lines you can see contains LED light so it can spell out certain things, it can make certain shapes.

00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:31.000
So very technical set. On the other end of the scale, you can have things where there's genuine dilapidation.

00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:46.000
And this is a design for and a student production of an opera that I've now just forgotten the name of.

00:31:46.000 --> 00:32:08.000
And you can see what's gone on here is again we've got the color issue they've ripped out all the color except for black and white, but also we can see the damp that's being done to the to the building so this is the construction of this we can see what's underneath it you can see the filthiness of the dull, the plasters come away from the columns.

00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:11.000
We can see that this is a world where there is poverty. Where there is not so much wealth going on.

00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:26.000
And it kind of strips it away so that we can see it and we have a very different impression of what this, what this world might be like.

00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:35.000
Angles angles on really important if you go to see if your fortunate stuff to go to see a play that is being produced in the range.

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:47.000
So where the audience sits all around the outside of the performers. Then angles become vitally important because everything there has to happen on the diagonal so the audience can see.

00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:56.000
But even on a standard proscenium arch stage, the kind of ones we used to in the framework around the outside, you will see messing around with angles.

00:32:56.000 --> 00:33:07.000
To create different constructions and also really importantly to focus the audience's eye where you want to see.

00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:18.000
Just in the same way as painters do. You can see this is this is just a landscape painting, but the your eye is drawn along the path and out of distant hills.

00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:26.000
You might then go back and look at these trees in more detail, but your first response. It's like, And it's the very similar thing that set designers used in order to try and create that.

00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:35.000
And this is an example.

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:45.000
Of one where. The design and also the direction of this play has focused everything to this central figure.

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:57.000
Even the lighting is focused on this. Central figure. He's very, very well lit, the characters to the one side, and you can see where the base here, where there's the lighting has been.

00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:13.000
They've been really focused on the centre. So this figure we know that this figure is the most important figure.

00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:30.000
This is an image from the end scenes of, Stephen. Delaying's, famous, a version of in spectacles, a revival of, and at the end of the play.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:38.000
And the doll's house to where the dining room is where the Burling family have been meeting and being faced with the inspector.

00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:51.000
Has collapses. And all of the China falls out of it. And you can see that the angles here are deriving this house and it's it's it's dilapidation down into the floor.

00:34:51.000 --> 00:35:00.000
You can also see that the design has a curve on it. That it looks like that the ground is curved, it's not.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.000
It's just, it's the way that the designer has created this set of cobblestones.

00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:13.000
And, focused our attention on that. So here you've got a combination of using the angles.

00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:25.000
See the angle that's going on here. But also that idea of multiple pattern again with the with the with the clouds behind the clouds are projected.

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:32.000
This is a lighting exercise rather than using Gogos. And again, we've got the limitations of color.

00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:42.000
Remember I said that good design contains at least 3 of the examples that I've used. This is exactly what I need.

00:35:42.000 --> 00:36:01.000
And find a lighting used as angles. This is a version of 12 Angry Men. And you can see that the lighting has been used to create these very rigid angles to match up with the windows around the outside so the whole idea of morality and the discussions that are going on to do with justice.

00:36:01.000 --> 00:36:16.000
Are all embedded in what we can visually see. You might not realize it at the time. But this is having an impact on the way you respond to the play.

00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:27.000
Size scale and balance, which is another one of these things that we can use. And it's to do with the fact that we like Small things, we think they're cute.

00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:32.000
And we like big things. Big things can also be quite frightening. And designers will play with this idea.

00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:44.000
And it's particularly a common thing in costume design where you get costume designs that don't fit.

00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:50.000
If anybody has seen, James Corden's one man 2 governors. And that was such a hit for the National Theatre.

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:56.000
His suit is deliberately made a little bit too small. So it makes him look a fatter than he actually is.

00:36:56.000 --> 00:37:08.000
And it's one of those things that's quite funny. You can do it with, with different scales.

00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:13.000
This is National Theatres, Christmas play of a few years back of Pinocchio.

00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:24.000
So the puppets being the characters we're most interested in. So the, the old reactors are all, all the normal, like to size.

00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:31.000
So the humans in this scene are represented by giant puppets. So the scale of this has been played with.

00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:44.000
So what we would expect that this human figure should be normal size isn't because it means that these characters are again put in perspective.

00:37:44.000 --> 00:38:00.000
And again, a method of making a character looking in a particular way. So, this is, a character who is being isolated, who is out of his depth and who just doesn't know how to cope in his world because his world is just got out of hand.

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:09.000
And this idea of large pieces of furniture is one way of using it. And this idea of large pieces of furniture, it's one way of using it.

00:38:09.000 --> 00:38:13.000
There was a very famous, revival of a play called Maca now. I tried to look for pictures of it, couldn't find any.

00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:20.000
And with Fiona Shaw in the title role and one of the things that they gave her was an armchair.

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:31.000
The big cozy armchair. That was just too big for her and it looked like it was swallowing her up and the theme of Makani is the idea that this woman is in a world where everything is too big and she can't control it.

00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:52.000
It's a very strong piece of feminist theater. And the set design reflected it. There wes very strongly and again you can see here we stripped out the color we've got the the angles you can see how this leans back to the Edward Craig that we were talking about earlier on.

00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:57.000
You can kind of see all the connections that are going on here.

00:38:57.000 --> 00:39:04.000
And finally, I just wanted to draw your attention to, this, this is quite a good year to be doing this talk.

00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:10.000
Every 2 years there is what's called the Limbrik price for stage design.

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:18.000
And it deals with set and costume and lighting. And the the prize winners are all gathered together.

00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:35.000
And they have an exhibition, a free exhibition at the National Theatre. It's usually up on the first floor in Little Lange and it is currently running now and will be running until the thirtieth of March.

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:40.000
So if you are in London and you've got half an hour to spare, you might want to go along and have a look.

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:47.000
These are some of the award winning designs from this year.

00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:54.000
So this is the central costume design here. This is a design for, the Alzheimer's, in, in Dr.

00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:59.000
Faustus.

00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:06.000
Did you sign on the bottom right hand side is for 1984. And I have immediately forgotten what the design on the top there.

00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:29.000
And so you, if you go to the, you'll be able to see the full range of, of model boxes and designs and sketches and all of the things that go into making up theater design and you'll be able to see how these young designers have applied some of the things that we have been talking about this evening.

00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:35.000
And. That's it. Thank you very much. And I can see there's lots of stuff coming to the chat.

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:41.000
So I'm sure there's lots of questions. And I look forward to helping you answer them.

00:40:41.000 --> 00:40:49.000
Thanks very much, Ellie. Great. Now we have got a couple of questions here. So if anybody has any more questions, send them in through the chat.

00:40:49.000 --> 00:41:05.000
And okay, so let's kick off. And this is a question from Susie right at the start you talked about sort of Irving Vistress and Stan's love scheme Can you tell us a bit more about when exactly they brought their ideas into the theatre?

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:06.000
Thank you.

00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:10.000
Okay, so. Henry, Henry Irving is kind of kicks in around, 1880.

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:23.000
Mary Vistress is slightly after that, around about 1890 and Stalaski really starts his work into the beginning of the twentieth century.

00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:26.000
Stalislasky was partnered with Anton Chekhov. And this whole kind of idea of the new naturalism.

00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:45.000
Is a way of both Stanislasky trying to deal with the idea that. Theatre should be reproducing human life, but also he got these very,

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:55.000
Not naturalistic plays with real psychology behind them. There's no there's no.

00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:04.000
It's no kind of accident that at the same time as we start to see this, we start seeing, things like, you know, signaling for you to come into the center.

00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:23.000
We also have Epson going on in Norway. All of these kind of psychological things and these psychological plays required a real background to set them into because the idea is that they can We can see the real world reproduced in that way.

00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:30.000
Thanks very much. I hope that answers your question, Susie. No, hold on second.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:36.000
Let me just find this in the chat. And this is a question from Elizabeth. This is quite an interesting one.

00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:44.000
Does the director of plays that are designed for a theatre audience and also for filming, say National Theatre Live?

00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:51.000
Have to consider how the stage design will have to be adapted so it makes sense for both. And testing question.

00:42:51.000 --> 00:43:05.000
No, no, because when you talk about something like National Theatre Live, and any streaming of performance is that what it is is that they are that it's a recording of a performance.

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:14.000
So the designer will just, It's not for the director or the designer to have to think about.

00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:19.000
What it will look like on the on the on a cinema screen or on a television screen.

00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:30.000
That is for the video and media team to deal with because not everything that is produced say at the national ever makes it to national theater live.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:43.000
Some of them obviously lend themselves much better to it, but that's not the purpose. They don't, nobody ever sits down that point and goes, you know what, you can't have that because it's not going to fit on the screen.

00:43:43.000 --> 00:43:53.000
Really good example. There is a production of, It's, it's like a national feature online, Treasure Island.

00:43:53.000 --> 00:44:01.000
Which features is it in the Olivier? It features on the huge drum revolve that is one of the national theaters both treasures and paint in the neck.

00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:12.000
A full pirate ship and it comes out of the ground. And I've seen, I saw it live.

00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:17.000
And I've also seen it online. You can't really get an impression of the size of this thing online because they can only shoot it from so many angles.

00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:26.000
But when it came up on the stage, I mean the audience applauded. Because it is massive.

00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:30.000
It's actual 3 stories of a full mastage NN Nelson period ship. It's astonishing.

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:39.000
But you can't get it over. It's not about that. You very rarely have to think about that.

00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:50.000
Okay, interesting, right. No. This is another interesting one actually and quite current I suppose.

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:56.000
From Margaret. Has AI impacted stage design yet?

00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:13.000
No, the thing about AI is that you have to remember that AI is currently working on on words. The AI operates by you feeding in lots and lots of information of either people speaking or people's writing.

00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:20.000
And design depends on the visual. I'm not saying we won't get there at some point.

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:33.000
But it will require it will require an awful lot of data and of course images take up more data than words do in order for that to happen.

00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:42.000
I think AI is more dangerous to those people that write plays than it is to design us at this moment in time.

00:45:42.000 --> 00:45:43.000
Ask me again in 20 years.

00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:50.000
Okay. Okay. We might just do that. And okay, here's another question from Stuart.

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:59.000
You referred to googles a couple of times. What are they? Do you extend?

00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:00.000
Right, there we go.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.000
And not, not Go Go Go Go Go Go, Yeah. So, they're all.

00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:14.000
2 types of stage lantern. Alright, she gotta be, if you're going to be proper theatrical, you never talk about lights, you talk about lanterns.

00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:21.000
And one set of them. The kind of things when you think about flood lights. And they're very unsettled.

00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:35.000
And you could put color in front of you, you can't do anything else. The other ones are what we call, Fresnel's and Fresnel's have a lens in them that is a series of concentric circles and if you actually see one in profile they're kind of like steps.

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:42.000
It's exactly the same lens that is used in lighthouses. And it's created by Frenchman called Funnell.

00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:54.000
And, what they do is that they can, dissipate light. And if you've got a Fresnel lantern, what you can do is you can put into them a stencil which is about so big.

00:46:54.000 --> 00:47:00.000
With different patterns and designs on it. And the light goes through it and it makes that diffused effect.

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:09.000
Let me see if I can just. Pull that back up for you.

00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:16.000
She asked, Shiva can show you. I mean in a bit more. Take it to me.

00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:20.000
With one of the designs that I've got here.

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:23.000
Okay

00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:30.000
Probably that one. So. Let me just share and screen with you.

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:37.000
So can you see how the with this particular one? Can you see how the light is diffused?

00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:48.000
It's all dappled. What that is, that will be like that he has been pushed through a go, to make it look like, sunlight through trees.

00:47:48.000 --> 00:48:02.000
You can get gobos that, kind of spell out things, but most of them are what we call diffusers so that they you know they look like light through trees or light through stained glass windows or you can get window gobos.

00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:14.000
They're a very cheap way if you are in involved in in theater in some way they're a very cheap way of creating a particular location.

00:48:14.000 --> 00:48:30.000
You can put a gobo up with a window in it and fish bash bush you are in in a prison or in a Victorian garden or whatever without having to build lots of stuff.

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:45.000
And you can add colors to them as well. So really useful tool. And if you are really interested, you go on the Roscoe, that's our OSK, CEO website and they will show you the full list of of ones that are available.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:59.000
And some of them are named after shows. There's what they call the Lemme, Z, are, of, of, g, which are, if you've seen the show, they, they have a lot of prison grids that are squares and they are used in that show and they're now available for everybody to buy.

00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:13.000
They're monstrous cheap, they're usually about 6 to 7 pounds. So that's much cheaper than building a whole set, which is why they're much beloved if people like me who don't have big budget for the shows that we do.

00:49:13.000 --> 00:49:21.000
Okay, interesting. I hope that answers your question. And question from Stella with all these kind of principles and practice in mind.

00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:27.000
She asks, what of gimmicks such as a helicopter on stage in a Shakespeare comedy?

00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:35.000
At the National a few years ago and earlier Midsummer Night's Dream with full costumes done with the actors traipsing about in water.

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.000
What do you reckon to that in terms of

00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:41.000
What we've been talking about today.

00:49:41.000 --> 00:49:48.000
One of the issues of course with you kind of hit the nail on the head there with the Shakespeare reference.

00:49:48.000 --> 00:49:58.000
One of the challenges that I think both directors and designers get faced with and they get hung up on it a bit is that there are certain plays and certain playwrights and Shakespeare is the big daddy of them all.

00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:09.000
That what you've got to do is try and make, you know, there is a belief that you've got to make it better, different, more interesting.

00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:13.000
And if you're the national feature and you've got lots of money to throw at it, then you might well do that.

00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:22.000
I mean, I've seen mid-sized dreams that have been set on a bed, a ginormous bed and the actors all wore pajamas.

00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:36.000
I have seen I simply horrific as far as the act is concerned version of the tempest where they covered the stage in sand and they had to provide the actually the chiropractor because it was that it was so hard to work on for the amount of time they were.

00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:44.000
And it's all about trying to make it look different and interesting. Where is I think there is an argument for saying

00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:47.000
The word should speak for themselves, the place should speak for itself. That's not to say that I don't like a little bit, little bit of gadgetry.

00:50:47.000 --> 00:50:59.000
I recently went to see the Davey tenant, Macbeth at the Donmar warehouse with the binary headphones and it was fabulous.

00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:01.000
Very, very, very simple set. Incredibly simple set. And I think that's the thing that you need to do.

00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:11.000
If you're going to do something flashy. Do it in one area only and leave it there.

00:51:11.000 --> 00:51:17.000
You know, have amazing costumes but leave the set simple. Have an amazing set but leave the costume simple.

00:51:17.000 --> 00:51:25.000
That's when it works best. And of course there are shows where spectacle is what it's all about.

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:30.000
You go to see a big musical, you spent a lot of money on going to see a big musical.

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:39.000
And you do actually want to see your money on the stage and sometimes that does involve some of these more flashy effects.

00:51:39.000 --> 00:51:46.000
And, and when they work, they are amazing. And the trick is to try and balance it out.

00:51:46.000 --> 00:51:55.000
One of the problems is if the thing is bad is the set is the set you remember and not the show then you've got a slightly difficult problem.

00:51:55.000 --> 00:52:01.000
In a lot of people who went to see, see Miss like on in its heyday will go, oh well, I remember the helicopter.

00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:10.000
But can you remember the performances? And if the set is taking a set, all that is the state costume design or something like that is overtaking the actual content of the piece or what the apps are doing.

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:19.000
It's probably not doing a very good job. Well.

00:52:19.000 --> 00:52:23.000
Excellent. Thank you very much. Really interesting.

00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:31.000
So I've got a question here from Elizabeth, which kind of links, it falls on from a question I asked earlier actually.

00:52:31.000 --> 00:52:42.000
She's asking who has the final say in the style of the dis, the design costumes lighting kind of the whole thing and are there often disagreements about these things?

00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:57.000
Directors get wedded to certain designers. They like to work with the same designers. And it's usually the director that will say, I'm, we're going to do a version of.

00:52:57.000 --> 00:53:03.000
Let's stick with the Shakespeare. I want to do a merchant of Venice and we're going to set it in Las Vegas.

00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:15.000
And then it's up to the designer to go away and and and make that work. And to come back with lots of ideas and lots of sketches and they will start and that process will start.

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:24.000
At least 2 months before anybody's even thought about casting it. In the end, it will come down to 3 things.

00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:31.000
The director will have the final say. But the other person who will come in and make an impact on it will be the various heads of department who have got to make these things.

00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:46.000
And of course, the person who's got got their hand on the budget. It's all very well for somebody to say, you know what, I'd really like to have a working fountain in the middle of the stage.

00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:56.000
And. There for the own the theatre produced to get, can't do it, you haven't got enough money.

00:53:56.000 --> 00:54:05.000
Well, you can have that, but you can't have, 2 extras. To do that, seeing that you really want to do, you're gonna have to make choice, you make choices.

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:11.000
And that's what it is. It's Very much the director's final say.

00:54:11.000 --> 00:54:23.000
Because it's his or her vision. That is going on the stage but it will be modified by somebody from the wardrobe saying You can't do that.

00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:37.000
We can't afford to put that character in. In bruteade or you're asking this actor to to where PVC but you also want them to do a massive long dance sequence.

00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:46.000
That's not fair, that's not kind or you want me to do the same way they're going to get covered in blood which means we're gonna have to wash the clothes every day.

00:54:46.000 --> 00:54:52.000
You know, there will be modifications made because practicality and cost will come into it.

00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:56.000
Yeah. Fantastic. Okay. No.

00:54:56.000 --> 00:55:08.000
Question from Jerry. You talked about the lungberry prize. I'm saying, do you know if it's available to see on line or virtually for people that in London.

00:55:08.000 --> 00:55:11.000
Sadly, sadly no, it's not. I mean, there are, you can hunt it down, you can find lots of illustrations of it.

00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:23.000
But, to actually see it, you're gonna have to be in town. I mean, you've got a couple of months.

00:55:23.000 --> 00:55:38.000
And it comes around every couple of years. You know look at and look out for it they I will say that if you are if you do go to the national the backstage tour is fabulous but they've also got a section around the back if you're going through the core education department where you can go and see.

00:55:38.000 --> 00:55:51.000
The, the scenic design unit and everything from the gallery above so you can see people working on things and it's absolutely free.

00:55:51.000 --> 00:55:57.000
And the littleton gallery is usually got some kind of design display on it whenever you go.

00:55:57.000 --> 00:56:03.000
The Limp Prize is great, but I shall be going to have a look at it myself.

00:56:03.000 --> 00:56:09.000
But there's always something with looking at. There if you if you happen to be in the area.

00:56:09.000 --> 00:56:11.000
Okay, good. Okay, now just a couple of final questions that I'm going to roll together actually.

00:56:11.000 --> 00:56:27.000
And from Margaret and Jane respectively. Do you have any particular sort of set designers that you look out for?

00:56:27.000 --> 00:56:33.000
And what productions have you recently been working on? People are interested to know.

00:56:33.000 --> 00:56:47.000
Okay. So. I don't have particularly designers that I look out for. I do know the kind of design I like.

00:56:47.000 --> 00:56:54.000
And the kind of design I aspire I aspire to when I do my own work. I do quite quite like a stripped down stage.

00:56:54.000 --> 00:56:58.000
I'm forever telling people that I can do it with 2 chairs in the table. It's great.

00:56:58.000 --> 00:57:09.000
I like good lighting design. More than I like. That more than I worry about, SETH, is, is an American called Ray Gordon whose work is just amazing.

00:57:09.000 --> 00:57:28.000
Did lots of the lighting for Linking. With Julie, and, If you've seen the, the opening with the sunrise, just so beautifully lit.

00:57:28.000 --> 00:57:38.000
So I kind of like that for me, I recently done a production of dye and vivon Rose which is a three-handed playback.

00:57:38.000 --> 00:57:49.000
And we mean growing up, they meet at university and it's about the the friendship that they have for the rest of their lives.

00:57:49.000 --> 00:58:05.000
I'm currently about to go into rehearsal for my writers groups. Live evening and I will be directing a if Noel Stratfield ballet shoes that I've written myself.

00:58:05.000 --> 00:58:14.000
That's going to be coming up. Probably early next year, we haven't finalized the dates yet.

00:58:14.000 --> 00:58:25.000
But that's an opportunity for us to bring the adults and my youth theater together. Cause obviously we need young people to be in that shape.

00:58:25.000 --> 00:58:30.000
Yeah, well good luck with that. Good luck with that. Thank you so much for that, Ali.

00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:40.000
That was really fascinating and I think everybody out there has very much enjoyed it and all that color combination stuff took me right back to my art classes.

00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:41.000
Yeah.

00:58:41.000 --> 00:58:53.000
Oh, the color wheel. But I hope everybody out there. I think I hope that you kind of go away with a bit more insight for the next time you go to a live theatre performance and it gives you a little bit of food for a thought for what you're looking at so

00:58:53.000 --> 00:58:59.000
It works for film as well. You've occurred for some of these shapes in film. You'll see exactly the same.

00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:00.000
Yeah, okay, bye.

00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:06.000
Can you see the coloration of, Phil's by West Anderson, for example? He loves, he loves the pastel.

00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:08.000
Lives a pastel colour.

00:59:08.000 --> 00:59:09.000
Thank you very much, Ally.

00:59:09.000 --> 00:59:13.000
Thank you

00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:08.000
Hello, hello everybody! Welcome to 2024. We'll see what that has to offer and of course my way of dealing with it is immediately to dive straight back into history where there's a whole different of it is immediately to dive straight back into history where there's a whole different set of weird things going on from the modern world.

00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:31.000
So yeah, today I want to tell you a bit about wigs. I mean, they've been wigs out a lot earlier, the Egyptians war wigs, there's a lovely one made of whoop of moss out found out out on Hadrian's Wall not that long ago, rather special.

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But we're going to talk about the wig of the Seventeenth, eighteenth centuries, how that came about.

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The problems of wearing them. And why it sort of fell from grace afterwards. So what about the word wig?

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Where does that even come from? Well, People in the seventeenth century would have talked not about a wig but about a periwig, generally speaking.

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And they would also have used the word perug. And Perry Wig is a kind of corruption of Peru in the first place because Baruch is the French word for for it.

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For a while we could even sort of half cross the 2 and call them a per, she's a ugly word.

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And Peru actually nobody knows where it comes from. There are suggestions. Latin for hair is pointless.

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I think the best one is that it might come from parakeeto, which is a parakeet.

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So it might be that all these people are wearing a very distant cousin of a parakeet on their heads, which is pretty much what some people were trying to do anyway.

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So Where it starts, it all starts with royalty. It all starts specifically with Louis the thirteenth of France.

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This is because at the time baldness starts having negative connotations and it's going to have those because It's associated with this newfangled problem of syphilis and indeed of mercury treatment for syphilis both of which can make you go bald.

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So people are not going to want to appear like the hair is thinning. So Louis the thirteenth had lost his hair in his teens.

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Through some sort of illness. He does not want it to look like he's gone bald. So he wears this wig.

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In public. This is in the 16 twenties, 16 thirties. Basically 3 hairpieces just sort of stitched together to to give him some sense of body there And of course if a king's doing it, then it's going to become a status symbol right away.

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You know, we're not that far from the era where the king has an annual fistial or an everyone wants one, I kid you not.

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You start getting Crofts, craftsman really involved it becomes a more skilled trade because everyone wants to make for the king of course Soon after his death you get the first guild of barbers and and wig makers working together.

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They revolutionized the design the way it's made as well, tying little tiny bundles of real hair together.

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Onto these little narrow bands with silk thread. And suddenly in France it becomes fashionable to have a wig.

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And of course what happens then is the court of England or what is left of it after during and after the civil war.

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They will go over to France and they start picking up a taste for things French. Which is actually the start of a sort of 150 year conflict between English people who want to look kind of French and those who don't but that's a much bigger story.

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So the nobles have gone over and when they come back they've picked up these ideas in the restoration court 16 sixtys everything French is fashionable and that includes Charles the Second coming back.

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Now initially he has his own hair but but it's sort of styled very similarly to that of the French wigs.

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It is initially very much a thing of the court. It's a bit of an affectation along with wearing sort of heavy French perfume.

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But, 1663? Charles is starting to turn gray. And he and his brother who's the future James the Second Both start wearing wigs.

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At which point everyone in the court in England starts looking around and then you always is that the fashion? Is that something we should be doing as well?

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Peeps records I to whitehall to see the duke where he first put on a periwig today now that the duke is the future James II.

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He first put on a periwig. Methought his hair cut short in order there too did look very prettily of itself before he put on the periwig.

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So he actually preferred the buzz cut that was going on underneath. But having seen that his bosses are doing it, Peeps, who is the most awful follower of fashion on all occasions he's got to be cutting edge everything.

00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:09.000
Has to do it himself. So in 1,660 he has his own hair long and curled but he says it's a lot of effort.

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1,663, some of the nobles start doing it and he sort of follows suit reluctantly.

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He's afraid he's going to be laughed at for wearing one, but he wants to be in the trend anyway.

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And he actually writes his kind of uncertainty about this. He says, I did try 2 or 3 borders and periwigs meaning to wear one.

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Yet I have no stomach for it, but the pains of keeping my hair clean is great. But my mind is almost altered from my first purpose for the trouble which I foresee in wearing them also.

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He can't make his mind up. Particularly when he sees one that's made a very sort of greasy greying hair and he thinks I don't want to look like that.

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So in the end his first wig is one that he has made by cutting off and then having turned into a wig.

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His own hair. So at least it looks exactly like his own hair because it is his own hair. It's just, it might be easier to look after when you can just take it off and give it to a servant to wash.

00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:22.000
Instead of having to be on his head all the time. But you can see over time. You know this this hair here looks Pretty much, like it's just, his own hair, because it probably is.

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This is 20 years later. It's definitely a bit less natural, it's a bit more sort of beuphant on top, isn't it?

00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:38.000
It's, yeah, but much, much larger and more unnatural looking and that's the trend that happened over that time.

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There were still people you claimed. Oh no, it's all my own. As William Prin puts it, men who wear false hair and periwigs do commonly affirm and swear them to be their own and would all men deem them for their natural heir.

00:06:55.000 --> 00:07:01.000
But very clearly you're looking at something that's not your natural hair.

00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:13.000
Meanwhile in France? We get our next king. Louis XIV. And he, unlike his father, does not go bald in his teens.

00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:26.000
But even so, he tends as a younger man to sort of wear wedges in the back. So this, this is his natural hair but there's sort of bits, hair pieces in the back to fluff it up a bit.

00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:32.000
By the time you get to 1684 is it is 30, s his own hair is is thinning a lot.

00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:39.000
And he starts wearing these again huge wigs and you start to see the style there that's going to come in later with the kind of I don't know what you'd call it.

00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:48.000
The sort of dip in the middle. And that's the wig with his own hair poking through gaps whenever possible.

00:07:48.000 --> 00:08:00.000
So he's using both at the same time. And later he goes all artificial. There is a style that is created by his own personal barber.

00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:09.000
Which is very long, very full bottomed and very tight curls. It's rumoured that he had 48 wig makers.

00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:24.000
It's also rumored that a single wig took the hair of 50 women to achieve. And they all had to be country lasses with hair of 25 inches long who hadn't been hadn't worn bonnets regularly because that would have weakened their hair.

00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:33.000
It was also said he was presented with a choice of 5 wigs every morning for what style he wanted.

00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:42.000
Of course initially some people criticized this. The clergy initially say that there's there's a hundreds of years old ruling.

00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:48.000
That men shouldn't have long hair. They said it's going going against the work of God.

00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:57.000
You shouldn't alter your appearance. But then one of the Abbots does it and all the young canons, you know, it's much like when the king does it, the nobles do it.

00:08:57.000 --> 00:09:01.000
The same thing happens in the clergy. It just takes one person if it's the right person.

00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:13.000
And then it filters all the way down. But it's it's not universal in the seventeenth century particularly amongst the older generation who have grown up without it.

00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:19.000
So, Daniel Fleming writes to his son, George, who is 25. In 1,692.

00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:30.000
Saying, I am sorry to hear of you wearing a periwig since it will be inconvenient both to you and me and I think that there was no great need thereof.

00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:40.000
So he's a bit of a holdout at this point. They are becoming quite standard and if his son is moving in fashionable circles then he'll believe that he needs one.

00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:48.000
But the older generation. Still not quite convinced.

00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:51.000
So as we see here

00:09:51.000 --> 00:10:07.000
We've got this from having your long hair, long natural hair, and then suddenly you have Yeah, that one's probably natural that one's probably not and then you get very soon into the, yeah, clearly, clearly that is not natural there.

00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:16.000
And to skim ahead to where we'll be a bit later. It stays at that silly height for a while.

00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:21.000
Calms down a bit, but it's still a wig. In the middle of the century.

00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:28.000
And then you reach a point where actually it's quite hard to tell because you style your hair to look like a wig and style your wig to look like a hair.

00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:33.000
A hair, several hairs in the middle.

00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:49.000
So. Weeks are made out of human hair. And whereas a, King of France might have 50 going on, a normal person might still use up to 10 head fulls per wig.

00:10:49.000 --> 00:11:01.000
There's gonna be a lot of very short-haired women going around in the countryside. Which is not normally factored into one's vision of these things that Yeah, they'll all be selling their hair.

00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:04.000
And that this is the work of specialists and there is a huge that the trade of collecting wigs is boom.

00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:22.000
Sorry, collecting hair to make the wigs is booming. It has to be there are collectors who go round from village to village in Flanders and in Holland and in Spain.

00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:31.000
To collect this hair. Off any peasant girl willing to sell it. And of course some sorts are worth considerably more than others.

00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:38.000
We don't sell hair in this country so much, we do sell made wigs to other people.

00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:49.000
And it's big, big business. In, 1,756, John Brooks of, of Holbein records Selling parcels of French hair.

00:11:49.000 --> 00:12:00.000
Worth 90,000 pounds and in today's money you're talking 6 or 7 million. So in his trade he's got a, yeah, turnover of 6 or 7 million in.

00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:11.000
French hair alone. There are people leaving fortunes which people who are millionaires by if they were around now.

00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:30.000
But the other end of the spectrum you get sort of itinerant Chapman who who've got the hair from one village and they're selling it in the next village to someone who can just stitch something together because all of these things as is usually the way are available right across the social spectrum at every price point imaginable.

00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:40.000
There are adverts in the paper saying if you have good hair to sell come to this particular pub And there you shall have at least as much ready money as anyone else will give.

00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:51.000
So it's, so it's quick cash if you need it. We're not quite at the, desperate stakes of poor fontine in Les Miz, but that is towards the end of this.

00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:56.000
This period a little beyond it and yeah hair is valuable.

00:12:56.000 --> 00:13:08.000
Then that hair has to be picked through to sort into different qualities. Different colors, a wound up on rollers to curl it for those lovely curled.

00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:20.000
Looks. Quite often actually the the wig makers had a deal going with bakers. And they would give the hair to the bakers on rollers.

00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:37.000
To roll to bake them overnight when the oven would otherwise not be getting any use. And nobody seems until the late century to have worried particularly about the hygiene of the fact that lots of human hair has just been cooked in the thing that you're then about to cook.

00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:44.000
Your bread rolls for the day in.

00:13:44.000 --> 00:14:02.000
Blonde hair is in most demand and silver gray if it's long and silver grey can also be in in demand because of course if you want a blonde wig you'd better have a natural one because if you bleach it it won't have quite the same, hold curled and it'll be thinner and break more easily.

00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:09.000
And in France is actually a bit of a scandal because some people are selling bleached hair claiming that it's natural blonde hair.

00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:18.000
So, you know, people saying the natural blonde, it's not even about what's on the head, about what they put their bought from the shop.

00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:31.000
There are alternatives to human hair. You could use goat hair and horsehair which has a very different effect if you think course areas what judges use their wigs now.

00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:49.000
And yeah, these generally are, you know, obviously different. Again, there is an issue, there is a tax proposed for use of animal hair that is passed off as human hair.

00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:56.000
Cow and cough tails, mohair, horse, goat, and camel are all under suspicion.

00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:05.000
Yuck care. And there is a picture on the internet somewhere someone who's made a modern wig in this style just using yak hair.

00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:16.000
It seems plausible. But the evidence isn't brilliant on it, similarly. There are some wigs known as feather tops.

00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:28.000
Which possibly involve actual feathers? One seller advertises wigs for sporting mode made of mallard's tails.

00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:36.000
Now is he literally talking Mallard's tales there? There's no pictures of that anywhere, but Is that what a feather top is?

00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:46.000
We don't know. Similarly, there are, I think, precisely 2 references that have been found to the wearing of iron wigs.

00:15:46.000 --> 00:16:00.000
Walpole writes about Lady Mary W, Wly Montague. That her son is flouncing around in a iron wig that he has bought from Paris.

00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:07.000
You would not know it from hair. I would have thought it was actually made of iron. You very much would know it from hair.

00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:20.000
But who knows, it's very odd. Another wig maker says that he's selling iron wigs that can withstand rain, wind and hail without causing any discomfort.

00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:37.000
That I doubt. So yeah making it is a complicated process particularly since you have to do deals with the bakers and particularly since you have to know how to make it in lots of different styles.

00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:52.000
The side from the fact that you know for a long time they all have this this very neat center parting there are many many options and they all have names you know you can you can be wearing the tie the brigadier the rameles, the feather top.

00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:57.000
The necklace, the lavant, the valency, the long tail, the foxtail, the cut wig.

00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:08.000
And some of them are very odd. We can only imagine that the rhinoceros is what it says on the tin and quite what that would look like on a person, I don't know.

00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:17.000
The she dragon the wild boars back and so on These are often literal translations of French.

00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:24.000
Names and some of them are very, very elaborate.

00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:38.000
Sure you these So This is a sort of set as produced by a barber for what a peruke seller for the different types you could potentially be buying.

00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:51.000
This is a little different. This is a hogarth etching. And he was inspired to do it because at the coronation of George III which is 1761.

00:17:51.000 --> 00:18:00.000
The wigs are so elaborate and there's so many different ones because everyone is wearing their poshest thing of course they are for a coronation.

00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:10.000
That he's inspired to write this which is 5 orders of periwigs and it is a parody of the 5 orders of classical architecture.

00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:20.000
Doric, Ionia and Corinthian and so on. And so he sort of done done a wig equivalent of that from the fairly simple episcopal for the clergy to wear.

00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:31.000
Through the Lexonic for lawyers and so on all the way up to the Querinthian which is of course like the Corinthian extremely fancy over the top.

00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:35.000
Curly style.

00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:51.000
BY, 1764, about the same time as that, the Purukiya Encyclopedia is published with 115 types all all sort of mapped out and all given their own name.

00:18:51.000 --> 00:19:02.000
And as Hogarth says, and as he's visible in his artwork, actually, You can very often tell what professions somebody has by what style of wig they are wearing.

00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:09.000
Physicians ought to wear cauliflower wigs, for instance.

00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:21.000
There are a few types which are particularly notable we see particularly a lot One of those is the Ramalles.

00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:28.000
Which is the one you think of perhaps when you think of sailors, very hornblower sort of style.

00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:39.000
And this happened of course because military officers and, naval officers found of course that full periwigs get in the way.

00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:49.000
When you're fighting or you're on board ship and so they start wearing things tied back. And after the Battle of Ramelys, 1706.

00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:59.000
It becomes sort of standard informal where for them and a general wear for them from the 1730. It's also called a tie back.

00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:11.000
Relatively casual. Lord Bolingbroke. Popularizes it in England. But he creates a great scandal because he has hastily summoned to see the Queen.

00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:19.000
He's a leader of the Tory party. And he appears in front of the Queen. In a tie wig, not in a proper full formal wig.

00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:26.000
And apparently the Queen remarked that she supposed next time Lord Brawling, Bollingbrook would come in his nightcap.

00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:29.000
That's how informal it is.

00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:40.000
And the they're also useful for telling rank if you are looking at the military. The the rank and file are more likely to tar their queue down, their pigtail down.

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:51.000
Officers will use black ribbon at the top and bottom as you see there. And sometimes stiffen it with wire so that it could curl upward at the back.

00:20:51.000 --> 00:21:01.000
Then we have. Bagwigs. Again, as you see there is some neatly put inside this nice black satin.

00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:09.000
Bad, literally. Oh, black silk bag. And the ribbons from it quite often actually go round to the front.

00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:15.000
And tied a bow under your neck, which I think we would think of as being very comical indeed.

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:32.000
But it's it's fashionable in France and therefore it becomes fashionable here as well. Although when it first comes to England people are afraid that they don't want to look like a French servant.

00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:39.000
And to say lots of other ones, a postonic wig, a bab, a bob wig which is a bit shorter.

00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:54.000
The Tyburn top which is a sort of half a wig that you put in with your own hair which people associate with criminals so it's people who are being hanged in Tyburn are the people that need a Tyburn wig.

00:21:54.000 --> 00:22:04.000
The the scratch wig that's often sort of a bit scruffier all these different types.

00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:16.000
And you would pay for this. Perhaps 25 shillings. For a sort of normal one but obviously if you push the boat out you can be paying

00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:27.000
Up to hundreds of shillings, 500. 600. Shillings. Therefore a big wig really is anyone who can afford to buy a big wig.

00:22:27.000 --> 00:22:40.000
Or if you wanted to make yourself look like you were very rich one easy way to do that is to just make your hair make your wig as big as possible to make yourself a big wig whether it's true or not.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:47.000
And of course there are attendant costs on that. These wigs do not look after themselves.

00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:56.000
You still have to, you don't have to shave, cut your hair anymore. But you still do have costs attached.

00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:04.000
Because status is sort of inferred when you look at someone's wig, people fake it.

00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:10.000
Marquee of Mirabeau says, everyone in Paris has become a mussia.

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:15.000
On Sunday, a man came up to me wearing black silk, silk clothes and a well-powdered wig.

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:22.000
And as I fell over myself offering him compliments, he introduced himself as the oldest son of my blacksmith.

00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:28.000
Looks can be deceiving, you see.

00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:42.000
But all the way down the social scale people are trying to wear some sort of wig. Farm servants, day laborers, servants, servants of any one of any status, then that person would pay for their wigs for them.

00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:53.000
Quite a long way down the scale. And that's possible of course because there's a lot of quality variation and also because you can buy them second, third, fourth hand.

00:23:53.000 --> 00:24:02.000
If you're a farm worker, you're earning 8 shillings a week, you're not spending your entire months wages on one of these, you're wearing one that's been handed down.

00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:20.000
By a servant who was given it by the local squire. Lot of journey and apprentices are within their apprenticeship documents they are to be provided with one wig per year.

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:26.000
If you're a little bit better off, you might have 2, one for Sunday best.

00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:35.000
And, well, if this starts quite young, there will be ten-year-olds, 12 year olds going around with wigs as well.

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:40.000
If you are very poor, well, certainly if you're in London and you're very poor, there is a solution.

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:48.000
You can go to the as described in the proceedings of the Old Bailey the Thripony Whig shop in middle row.

00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:54.000
Or the old widow wig shops of rag fair. A lot of these would have been stolen.

00:24:54.000 --> 00:25:04.000
Property these wigs. And the other thing you could do in in Holborn, there was a dip and some people have speculated this is the world's first lucky dip.

00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:12.000
For that threatens at the Threatening Wig Shop, what you did was stick your hand in a box full of wigs and pick one out.

00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:13.000
If it was awful, you could try a second time for one and a half pennies.

00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:32.000
If that was awful, you were stuck. You couldn't keep going and going but Of course the problem with that is if one of those wigs has nits before you know it they all do.

00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:42.000
But appearances can be deceiving. There's one MP who's a notorious miser who, possible inspiration for Scrooge, they reckon.

00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:49.000
Friend wrote he wore a wig for above a fortnight which I saw him pick out of a rut in the lane where we were riding.

00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:56.000
This was the last extremity of laudable economy for to all appearance. It was the cast off wig of some beggar.

00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:02.000
So, yeah, you can get it wrong in that direction as well.

00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:11.000
There's a lot of practicalities. You have to have your head. Cut short as shaved regularly maybe once a week.

00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:17.000
You have to add pomatum to the wig. You don't wash it because that will damage it.

00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:29.000
You put on pomatum, then you powder it and brush it. And actually people have tried doing this with their own hair and it can genuinely work as a hair care regime rather than washing.

00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:37.000
That permatum is during an animal fat. And can be sheep, tallow, big tallow.

00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:48.000
If you again are relatively well off and live in an urban centre, you might prefer the fashionable equivalent of this is to put bare grease in your hair rather in your wig.

00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:58.000
Bear fat is the ideal parade. Add one miser in 1,776 notes that rather than go to the barber or use Permaid.

00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:10.000
He had a servant to do the shave and used butter instead on the hair. So this wig is real hair covered in butter.

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:19.000
You're then going to need to powder it. Now, most people aren't going to power their hair, their wig every day just on special occasions.

00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:27.000
Your nobles are going to do it. Every day or certainly very frequently and it would be a fine ground starch.

00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:38.000
But the problem is getting it on. You're going to start needing one of these bellows which look very similar to fire Bellows actually but they are they are weak bellows.

00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:48.000
And generally flower sometimes some clay or ground up bones or plaster of Paris, maybe Horace root for the scent.

00:27:48.000 --> 00:28:01.000
Most commonly white or grey, but there are occasional records of people using blue or pink. Giving themselves a sort of blue rinse effect.

00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:09.000
With it, but again the people doing that are going to be the same people who have lace and perfume everywhere.

00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:20.000
All of that fat plus all of that powder can add 2 whole pounds of weight to the weight of your wig.

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:26.000
And doing it is of course a bit tricky because you don't want to get that really fine powder absolutely everywhere.

00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:32.000
So there are, you might just have a servant who can do it for you. But you don't really want them to get it everywhere either.

00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:43.000
So there there are suggestions you can do it as this chap here is you put a cape and a mask or a cone on and dash the powder in your direction like that.

00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:57.000
Gentleman is doing. Cool. This is an early powder room. Because it's the place where the powdering happens.

00:28:57.000 --> 00:29:06.000
And you sit back and rest your head back and and put your wig. Through that hole. And that's where it gets powdered.

00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:12.000
And then you just stick your head back back out from us and you're ready to go without getting any on your shoulders.

00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:27.000
There are, there's room for invention here. So there are, as an advert for just come from Paris an engine curiously contrive for powdering periwigs and ladies hair.

00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:37.000
By throwing only the finest of powder and dispersing it perfectly equally. There there is a demand for easier ways of doing this because it's not an easy thing to do.

00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:50.000
You have to deal with cleaning it. Generally you would hope to have a happy relationship with your wig maker because then they can tend it for you on a regular basis.

00:29:50.000 --> 00:30:01.000
Some men have an annual contract going with their wig maker. For shaving and maintaining of wigs.

00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:08.000
And they need to be regularly reshaped to reset because they tend to lose their curl if you let them get wet.

00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:15.000
Lord Lovett was executed for treason. He sent his wig to the barber the previous day because he wanted to look as good as possible.

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:20.000
With his, during his execution.

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:25.000
Suppose it's one way to spend your money in that last bit of time.

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:37.000
And of course, wigs are great for nits. Brilliant. They can hang on to that nice structure of it and then dive through the mesh onto a real head whenever they want.

00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:45.000
Plus of course you've got all that beard fat or butter or whatever all over your head. Which is going to smell.

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:54.000
And and it might make the nits happy as well. It's widely thought that a knit picker is therefore someone who is going door to door.

00:30:54.000 --> 00:31:01.000
Doing that, getting rid of nets for you. That doesn't seem to be true, sadly.

00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:11.000
I can't find any original references to that. The word nitpicking first appears in 1956 and it's in reference to pedantry But clearly there was a need for people to do it.

00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:21.000
There are references, you know, in Chaucer of people picking nits out of their husband's hair.

00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:27.000
And we know that it would be a servant's job to to pick them out of the man of the house's wig.

00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:36.000
But it sadly doesn't seem to be a job as such. Another thing you could do is put a little flea trap into your wig.

00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:49.000
Just took a little flea trap in which would be a little container with tiny holes in it that you try and leer the fleet into with something tasty and then there'd be something sticky inside.

00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:56.000
Trying to kill them that way. I'm something that, Fortunately we don't generally do these days.

00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:21.000
There are rumors of mice. That more seems to associate with women who women tend not to wear whole wigs they tend to use their own hair but in lots and lots of extra padding and extra beats and extra accoutrements to build it up and up and up but their own hair is in there because otherwise they'd have to shave and that wouldn't be good.

00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:34.000
So they're are rumors of mice but they are few and far between usually played for laughs, but it's perfectly believable I think that mice were occasionally tempted in.

00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:44.000
There is a fear of disease. Could you get catch something from the previous owner of this pair? When it was their hair.

00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:51.000
Of course, in the 16 sixties, there's that huge fear of plague that coincides with the first wave of wigs.

00:32:51.000 --> 00:32:57.000
It's another thing that Peeps was worried about. He says up and put on my new periwig.

00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:03.000
Bought a good while since but does not wear it because the plague was in Westminster when I bought it.

00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:13.000
And it is a wonder what will be in fashion after the plague is done as to periwigs, for nobody will dare buy any hair for fear of the infection that's been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague.

00:33:13.000 --> 00:33:19.000
Because of course when you've got all these bodies lying around. There's got to be a genuine temptation to take that.

00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:24.000
Free hair, hasn't there? And Nits. Maybe could carry it, same as fleas.

00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:34.000
So it's a fairly reasonable worry.

00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:43.000
In the eighteenth century there are people volunteering, asking to get the job of being the person who checks against that.

00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:50.000
Particularly hair that comes in from his majesty's dominions. Foreign hair could be carrying anything, right?

00:33:50.000 --> 00:34:05.000
And there's also a moral contagion element. In a comedy sketch in 1,690 somebody asks how many bad women do you think have laid their heads together to complete that main of yours?

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:13.000
I could something of that. Could you be wearing the hair that once belonged to a prostitute?

00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:32.000
It's not particularly comfortable. People claim a new fancy best ever most comfortable ever has the softness of velvet you had to kind of move it aside if you were bowing or it got in your way it could get very hot.

00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:44.000
And very, I'm King Louis the fourteenth developed a boil on the back of his neck because of the constant rubbing from the greasy edge of his wig on the back of his head.

00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:55.000
Lord Sandwich used to say that his tie wig actually made him slightly deaf. The hare.

00:34:55.000 --> 00:35:16.000
Like that, actually muffled sound. And there was a fire risk. Peeps once set his own wig a light I suppose much like people in the eighties with the with the high hairspray you know lean over a candle at the wrong time and the next thing you know lots and lots of reasons why you wouldn't do this and yet everyone is doing this.

00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:24.000
The final reason that is perhaps not as common as

00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:29.000
Oh, so I've lost my window as as it was claimed to be, but did sometimes happen.

00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:38.000
Is week theft. Either on its own or while also selling also stealing other things as well.

00:35:38.000 --> 00:35:46.000
You might just wait in a narrow road where a Hackney coach is going by with a posh gentleman driving quite slowly and just grab the wig and

00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:50.000
And so to interrupt you, I think we're seeing your notes kind of overlaid on top of your slides.

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:56.000
Okay, I have done something. Okay, I thought I pressed a strange button there and something had gone wrong. Right?

00:35:56.000 --> 00:35:58.000
Okay.

00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:04.000
Fix that. Stop for a moment now what did I press

00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:09.000
Back to there. Share screen

00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:13.000
Is that better?

00:36:13.000 --> 00:36:14.000
Yes.

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:22.000
Okay, there we go. Sorry about that. Yes, you could just be anywhere where there was a traffic jam.

00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:33.000
Someone could reach and grab. There were stories that boys would be carried along in a basket and then sort of grab the wig from someone's head.

00:36:33.000 --> 00:36:50.000
The gentleman's magazine said that hair raising is often literal. Terrible, terrible, you know, one genuine victim of highway robbery says, I was going along the strand and felt my periwig gone from my head.

00:36:50.000 --> 00:37:02.000
People just grabbing them and running. There are tails. And again, how accurate these are hard to say of.

00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:09.000
Monkeys being trained to do it, someone just distracting while someone grabs it at the back there.

00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:17.000
This chap is a macaroni which means he is in the most ludicrous of high fashion of the 17 sixtys, 17 seventys.

00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:28.000
Whether anyone ever quite looked like that is unclear. Yeah, trained monkey or trained dog, it and run off with it, you're never going to get it back, huh?

00:37:28.000 --> 00:37:33.000
It's not like they're sort of fixed on particularly strongly.

00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:46.000
So there are negative voices. Surprisingly few actually. It just becomes what you do. Until about the 17 sixties.

00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:55.000
When Well, the coronation, the same coronation where Hogarth does those pictures of all the different wigs.

00:37:55.000 --> 00:38:02.000
George the Third? Where's his own hair? Admittedly, he dresses it to look like a wig.

00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:06.000
But it's his hair and it's his wife that put it like that, not a professional.

00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:12.000
When all these other people have turned up in their best fanciest wigs you can imagine that was definitely a topic for gossip.

00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:20.000
5 years after that, professional wig makers are asking the government to make wigs compulsory for adult men.

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:21.000
They have, you know, they know which way the wind is blowing and it's not towards them.

00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:31.000
They say there's been a universal decline of the trade and it's caused distress for us and our dependents.

00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:40.000
Because there's a present mode of men of all stations wearing their own hair. How dare they?

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:45.000
And yeah, young men are just styling their own hair to look a bit like a wig.

00:38:45.000 --> 00:39:00.000
And the macaroni does not help. The macaroni style tends to involve this sort of crazy, tricorn and then either as we saw in That picture, the huge huge huge hair.

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:06.000
Or the hair, the wig. In both cases the wig just kind of tied up like that.

00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:13.000
It's all a bit bizarre. It's what's called a club of hair at the back.

00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:22.000
And as the situation in France gets more and more chaotic, that is starting to look old-fashioned and associated with the sort of aristocratic style that we didn't really want to go down.

00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:42.000
So that's one factor of what happens as why these things start to go away. And, where people are still wearing it, it's usually ones with just sort of little side buckles, little rolls at the side of their head.

00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:53.000
In, 1, 86 the government starts taxing wigs. It's interesting the only really taxing them after they've stopped being this kind of huge universal deal.

00:39:53.000 --> 00:40:18.000
But that's what happens. Actually the weak tax is a quite useful source of evidence. For this era if you are doing family history because it's sort of when the census is run out but if your relative was important gentry or a lawyer or a clergyman or a servant for one of those people, they might show up in one of these lists.

00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:24.000
Because those are the kind of people in older people. Other kinds of people who are still increasingly wearing them.

00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:39.000
And after, 1,795, household head of anyone who used hair powder in England had to buy a certificate from the local JP.

00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:46.000
Annually. William Pitt, the younger it imposed this annual tax. And the tax was one guinea.

00:40:46.000 --> 00:41:00.000
And that leads to So here is a one guinea certificate. And Because of that these people become known as guinea pigs as in that particular cartoon there.

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:10.000
So a guinea pig, guinea pigs are around as pets at the time and that is a guinea pig right there.

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:18.000
Why this was done? Well The 17 nineties is an era of famine. Red prices are going up.

00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:26.000
There are riots on the streets to do with bread. And they're looking over the channel and seeing the riots in France and how that is, you know.

00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:35.000
There are people being guillotined in France by this point. And suddenly it seems a bit.

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:44.000
Tasteless to be putting tons and putting pounds of flour in your hair every day when people are starving for lack of bread.

00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:58.000
And several people make this point clergymen and politicians start to make this point and say, you know, suppose every individual wearing this ornament instead of wearing it were to distribute its real value to the hungry poor.

00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:06.000
And that becomes harder to argue with. It does continue a bit because some people are exempt from the tax.

00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:19.000
For instance, clergymen with a low income are exempt from the tax. Jane Austen's father continues to wear one into the nineteenth century, but he doesn't have to pay for his, so he's sort of showing his status by still doing it.

00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:34.000
In the military they still were allowed to do it so Yeah, during the flower famine a lot of flower went into the military and some of the older people of course just thought that it was It was their style, their fashion.

00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:40.000
And just normal.

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:50.000
But they were very often on the Tory side of things and the Whigs began calling them guinea pigs and that became normal.

00:42:50.000 --> 00:43:04.000
And the sort of the counterbalance of that is that the Tories started calling the Whigs the crop club because they've got still got very short hair because they haven't grown back yet from when they were wearing wigs.

00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:09.000
And,

00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:16.000
Not long after that. Whigs just become. The sort of arcane sign of a specialized profession.

00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:22.000
You're the servant of a noble, you're clergy or you're in the legal system.

00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:30.000
One consequence of that is that it left a whole load of wigs in circulation. That had previously been worth a lot.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:37.000
And I can't find a lot of evidence about what happened to all of them, but I did find one reference.

00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:49.000
That in the mid nineteenth century you could buy a probably 50 year old wig. The sixpence from a street stall to use it as a dust model.

00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:58.000
So that indeed is the rice and fall of the wig. Thank you very much. Okay.

00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:07.000
Thank you very much, Jo. Let's go to to some questions. How fascinating and strange. Okay.

00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:08.000
Oh.

00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:12.000
We're going to start with a question, and from Iris, now let me just find it.

00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:25.000
Where are we? Yeah, she talked about the sort of different styles of wings and Iis was asking, did different classes.

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:35.000
So social classes we have different kinds of wigs. Don't know if you could talk a little bit more about that.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:36.000
Hmm.

00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:43.000
Yes, in as much as some of them mark a profession out. So if you if you are a clergyman or a judge, you wear a particular kind.

00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:51.000
But that clergy burden is still going to be passing that wig on to someone in his village who he thinks needs a wig.

00:44:51.000 --> 00:45:02.000
So not really because if everything ends up getting passed down. So, you know, I suppose the absolute fanciest of wigs.

00:45:02.000 --> 00:45:14.000
I'm not going to be, by the time you've passed them down once or twice, they're by the time you passed them down once or twice, they're never going to make it to the lower classes are they because they will have already been through too many other hands.

00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:29.000
Before they get there. But the the mark of your status is not the style of the Whig. Except in as much as if can you afford to powder it every day?

00:45:29.000 --> 00:45:35.000
Can you afford to keep the curls crisp? All the time. Can you afford to keep the whole thing smooth?

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:42.000
It's those things that will be the marker of how much money you've got, not the actual original shape of the wig, if you see what I mean.

00:45:42.000 --> 00:45:53.000
Hmm. Interesting. Well, that answers your question, And another one from Anne. Probably quite an important question actually.

00:45:53.000 --> 00:45:57.000
How did they attach them to their heads?

00:45:57.000 --> 00:45:58.000
Yeah. Yeah.

00:45:58.000 --> 00:46:08.000
Well, not terribly well if you can just reach out from behind and grab one. That They are mostly just sort of.

00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:20.000
Always drawstring tied around on a band or on a series of bands. For some of them we're not going to have a picture with some of that.

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:30.000
You know, we know that an announcement might be that I've invented this new elastic skin that grips the wig onto the head.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:38.000
But we know it's not made of elastic, so quite what is this elastic skin? It's hard to say.

00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:40.000
I think the weight of the wig is going to help. It's just going to position itself down.

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:43.000
Hmm.

00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:52.000
But in the absence of any elastic material, I think it's just a mix of the texture and the, the sort of griffiness of the fabric itself.

00:46:52.000 --> 00:47:01.000
We know that sometimes people did bend over in their wig fell off. So I think the answer is not particularly well generally.

00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:05.000
That's why you jam your head, your hat on top of it and hope that it stays.

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:10.000
Hmm. And sort of following on from that, there's a question from, Sue, I think it was.

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:18.000
What is it that was actually used to make the base of the wig? So actually the hair was attached to something before going on your head.

00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:27.000
If you have a good one then probably silk. A framework of silk ribbons.

00:47:27.000 --> 00:47:34.000
Running crisscross. And then maybe some other sort of finer thread running between those silk ribbons.

00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:44.000
But yes, your your cap as it were will be threaded onto ribbons again. We know that the nice ones are silk.

00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:48.000
I would assume that the less nice ones are just cotton. Sort of shaped.

00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:56.000
Hmm. Okay. Not answers your question, Sue. And a question here from Chris.

00:47:56.000 --> 00:47:59.000
You talked about the hair going into the oven. To be beat. What was the purpose of that?

00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:07.000
Surely it couldn't have been in there for for very long.

00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:08.000
Hmm.

00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:13.000
It's sort of very low heat, but you, you, keep it for a while at a low heat to set the curly in in exactly the same way so you get wet first.

00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:16.000
Hmm.

00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:22.000
You're on here on your own head.

00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:23.000
Yeah.

00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:38.000
So in exactly the same way that you would set the curl into your own. Yeah, yeah, and you know that if you're heated up with curlers it will set the curl better because if you look at those styles they're pretty much all curly either all over or in creating those sort of ring Bring us by the ears there so being able to set real hair into curls is important.

00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:54.000
No, a question here from Stuart. He talks about a famous cartoon of Marie Antoinette having a wig puts in place by assistants using ladders.

00:48:54.000 --> 00:48:55.000
Yes.

00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:02.000
Is that simply a cartoonist exaggeration or could they or would they have been as high as that?

00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:11.000
Maybe not as high as that, but it's an exaggeration rather than a complete fiction. They would have wigs of maybe a couple of feet tall.

00:49:11.000 --> 00:49:12.000
Okay.

00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:26.000
That is a real thing. We know that it genuinely did happen sometimes that women would struggle to get into a coach for instance and would have to sit in the floor of the coach or sit in the coach sort of holding them like that because it was too high.

00:49:26.000 --> 00:49:35.000
For the roof of the coach. So yes, there are. Obviously Marie Antoinette's an easy target at this point everyone's taking a pop at her but Yeah, something that's 18 inches tall.

00:49:35.000 --> 00:50:01.000
It absolutely was happening. And with as many weird ornaments in as they could think of you know there's been a naval battle, let's put ships in our hair and if we're good at it we'll get someone to make a ship that is an exact replica of our friendship that just won a victory and or you know I'm fond of gardening so I'm going to create a

00:50:01.000 --> 00:50:09.000
complete stepped garden. With different things going on on the different levels. They have these S, styles, ala mode or ala, I can't remember the word.

00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:24.000
There's word for mood, so particular hairstyle is supposed to evoke a mood, a particular hairstyle is supposed to evoke a mood or a celebration or they're particular hairstyle is supposed to evoke a mood or a celebration or they very much treat it as a canvas.

00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:31.000
And it will include their own hair. Their own hair will be kind of in in at the start of it.

00:50:31.000 --> 00:50:32.000
Hmm.

00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:38.000
So that's how it's different from man's wig. But obviously when you look at something that big it is still mostly artificial.

00:50:38.000 --> 00:50:39.000
Yeah.

00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:44.000
You kind of start with a beehive and then add to it. And yeah, it's a canvas to say anything and the bigger you make that the better.

00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:45.000
Hmm.

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:53.000
The weirdest cartoon on that score is one who actually There's a cartoon where a woman is actually carrying a man.

00:50:53.000 --> 00:51:05.000
In, a full-grown man in instead of it just being a celebration of his victory.

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:06.000
Okay.

00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:09.000
She's actually carrying the man himself around in her wig. That clearly doesn't happen. But yeah, there are some good evidences of some very weird ones, very tall.

00:51:09.000 --> 00:51:17.000
Okay. Well, there we go. Right, okay. And a question from Sylvia.

00:51:17.000 --> 00:51:25.000
Did the quickers in the 17 hundreds wear wigs as they believed in plain dress?

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:26.000
And test the question.

00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:50.000
I, I believe they did wear wigs but they wore very sort of the soberest end, the simplest end of the wig, because you sort of had to get what I have wanted to get by in polite society, but you would then go for the Yes, as plain and straightforward a wig as you could and those would have been available along with the very fancy ones.

00:51:50.000 --> 00:52:14.000
Yeah, yeah, okay. Right. And we have another question here from Margaret. She's asking why do members of the legal profession still use This suppose that's really the only sort of situation that you see them these days, isn't it really?

00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:15.000
Yes.

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:28.000
It is, yes, pretty much. And the House of Lords, it's just an old-fashioned thing they never stopped doing it I think at some point it was in the regulation that they would have to do it and that regulation never was taken away.

00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:37.000
You know, this is the same profession that at the same time that they're wearing wigs in this until the seventh mid eighteenth century they're also doing some of their business in Latin.

00:52:37.000 --> 00:52:46.000
Writing down legal documents in Latin at a time when everyone else has stopped using Latin. Hundreds and hundreds of years earlier.

00:52:46.000 --> 00:52:55.000
So I think it is just a measure of the hide-bound nature of the profession. That they they end up as a holdout or run.

00:52:55.000 --> 00:53:00.000
And of course these days it's, you know, probably point of pride, isn't it?

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:01.000
Hmm.

00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:12.000
Like. Standing out and looking different and showing authority and being, I'm speculating, I guess when People stopped wearing them.

00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:17.000
It was the youth that stopped wearing them while the older people were still wearing them and therefore they perhaps carried a sense of authority in the older generation and the older richer.

00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:34.000
And those are the people. That would be the judges and the justices of the peace. And it kind of follows on from there but I'm not sure that's that's me kind of

00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:35.000
Did you sleep?

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:42.000
Hmm. Okay. The question from Bridget. Now, could you, for you to remind us of something?

00:53:42.000 --> 00:53:49.000
She's asking if you could remind us what you said wigs were being used for in the mid nineteenth century.

00:53:49.000 --> 00:53:51.000
Oh, towards the end. Dishcloth. Just rags. It's a lump of hair, you can use it for cleaning things.

00:53:51.000 --> 00:54:03.000
Hmm. Yeah, for something that was so expensive at a period in time. Hmm.

00:54:03.000 --> 00:54:07.000
Yes. The man hours that went into making it.

00:54:07.000 --> 00:54:11.000
Yeah, yeah. Also, could you remind us, I know you talked a little bit about this and this is from Ian.

00:54:11.000 --> 00:54:18.000
And about the the liberals that were called Why was that? Can you just remind us of that? So we touched on that a little bit.

00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:27.000
So. Oh, well, the, the, was being called wigs is nothing to do with the wearing of wigs.

00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:28.000
Right.

00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:48.000
In fact, confusingly it's the the wigs who lead the not wearing of wigs campaign the the hair pieces are generally being worn by people like barristers and physicians who tend to be the Tories.

00:54:48.000 --> 00:55:02.000
And The wigs start calling the Tories guinea pigs. And So all the week newspapers are saying how how you bunch of guinea pigs at the Tories.

00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:09.000
The Tories obviously need to kick back against that. So the Tory newspapers are saying, ha ha, you've got no hair at all.

00:55:09.000 --> 00:55:22.000
Yeah, you're just wandering around with your bald head. You are you are the close cropped people and they end up having because this is the eighteenth century is the era of political satire and political inviting and it's just another topic.

00:55:22.000 --> 00:55:33.000
For doing that with really. So yes, nothing to do with the actual, so the wig does not come from the wearing of wigs.

00:55:33.000 --> 00:55:43.000
Okay, right folks, I think we're just about out of time and I was just gonna finish on a little comment from Judith, which is Fashion has a lot to answer for, hasn't it?

00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:44.000
Yeah.

00:55:44.000 --> 00:56:04.000
Oh yeah, absolutely. I've been researching the the macaroni's and their successes the dandies.

00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:05.000
Yeah.

00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:09.000
And the rest of their outfits in the last few weeks and Yeah, there's there's a lot going on and people will well people go through any amount of discomfort for fashion and we can't consider ourselves immune to that you know nothing that they did then does not have a parallel now in terms of Yeah, the different ways we do our looks.

00:56:09.000 --> 00:56:21.000
Yeah, they those guys were padding out their calves and they're It's no different from women having a padded bra now.

00:56:21.000 --> 00:56:22.000
You know.

00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:28.000
Very true, very true. Right, well thanks again, Joe. That was absolutely fascinating. Very weird as well.

00:56:28.000 --> 00:56:29.000
Yes. What I do.

00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:37.000
Knew there was such a a history behind all of this. And really I have to say I've been sort of chuckling behind the scenes here a little bit.

00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:47.000
I'm sure everybody else has as well. Okay, so thanks very much for that, Jo.

00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:03.000
Good, good, good. Yeah, so, hi everyone. I'm going to do, first of all.

00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:18.000
Is just introduce a little of the history of christmas before I begin to, talk about the, reinvention of Christmas.

00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:31.000
During the Victorian period So as the winter deepens and the course of the sun, gets nearer to the southern horizon.

00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:51.000
Until it seems to stand still for a few days before slowly rising again to usher in the spring. The Romans from their words for sun and standing still called it salsicium.

00:01:51.000 --> 00:02:10.000
And that is of course the source of our word, solstice. Now according to the Julian calendar established under Julius Caesar The winter solstice was dated to the 20 fifth of December.

00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:27.000
And around AD 336. The early church adopted the solstice. And the feast of was created for Christ's birth.

00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:54.000
Now other pre-Christian. Cults, and practices. In influenced the dating of Christmas for example the Roman god he was actually prezoroastron often worshipped by soldiers, often worshiped by soldiers, the Roman, God, he was actually pre, often worshipped by soldiers, Mithras.

00:02:54.000 --> 00:03:01.000
His birthday was on the 20 fifth of December. Also of course you have the Roman festival of Saturnalia.

00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:24.000
And you also have the fringes of the Roman Empire, the northern boundary. The festival which is now called You in Old Norse it's called And many of the elements associated with these, particular festivals.

00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:35.000
We still associate with Christmas today. All 3 festivals, Mythras, Saturnalia, Yol.

00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:44.000
Were accompanied with banquets. Saturnalia involved the giving of wax dolls to children.

00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:58.000
And all featured lights. And buildings were generally decorated with evergreens. Now the word Christmas itself is from the middle English for Christ's mass.

00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:10.000
I think everyone can work that out. And what we know is, existed by around 500 AD.

00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:24.000
The feast of Saint Nicholas, which fell within had a lively career of its own.

00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:36.000
But had very little to do with Christmas until the Reformation. When Protestants were pruning Catholics saints days.

00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:51.000
But wanted to keep St. Nicholas and so attached him to Christmas. Since Stephen was also, retained on the 20 sixth of December.

00:04:51.000 --> 00:05:07.000
And by the dark ages, by the medieval period, Christmas was established as a 12 day festival culminating at Epiphany which was the most important feast day.

00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:19.000
Not the 20 fifth. And if you read Tudor antiquarian such as John Stowe.

00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:35.000
He said every man's house and his parish church. Was decked with hot old ivy bays and whatsoever the season of the year afforded to be.

00:05:35.000 --> 00:06:01.000
So many of our Christmas traditions have a long, history. And throughout the reins of Henry the Seventh, Henry the Eighth, these persisted alongside the celebration of Christmas as an important Catholic, liturgical feast and service.

00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:18.000
After the Reformation. Certain Tagan ascribed traditions were discouraged or were banned as a result of the development of puritanism.

00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:28.000
And this culminated. In what are known as the wars over Christmas during the Civil War period.

00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:37.000
And the interregnum between the death of Charles I. And the restoration of Charles II.

00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:54.000
And many of the traditions of Christmas went underground. For about 10 years. Because parliament, practiced, the enforcement of a ban.

00:06:54.000 --> 00:07:02.000
During the protectorate when Cromwell's government ordered a complete cessation of the holiday.

00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:16.000
Even going so far. As to order soldiers to seize any special meals that were prepared for the 20 fifth.

00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:31.000
And people you may have heard of such as John Evelyn, a diarist. Was in fact arrested for celebrating Christmas in 1657.

00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:45.000
So you can see on the slide. Just a public notice. Which says that Christmas was effectively, banned.

00:07:45.000 --> 00:08:02.000
At that point. Now. What then suddenly revived? Or reinvented Christmas in the Victorian age.

00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:10.000
Now during the Georgian period Christmas celebrations had been relatively muted. Despite a range of cartoons.

00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:24.000
Showing half clothed women and men. In drunken revels beneath boughs of mistletoe.

00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:36.000
But it began to gather towards a reinvention. During the reign of Victoria. And this rediscovery.

00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:52.000
Or reinvention. Christmas is due to a coincidence of several elements. Firstly, the revival of faith in the nineteenth century.

00:08:52.000 --> 00:09:13.000
The rise of consumerism. The literary reinvention. Of the feast of Christmas. Now the Anglican Church had been subject to revivals throughout the eighteenth century.

00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:24.000
Most notably Methodism, inspired of course by Wesley. Who's Carol Hart the the herald angels sing?

00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:35.000
Continues to be performed. And son today. Now, undoubtedly, the Victorian age was a religious.

00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:54.000
Age despite the pressures of the French Revolution and the skepticism and rationalism of the Indeed, these pressures led to an attempted renewal.

00:09:54.000 --> 00:10:06.000
The Christian faith in Britain. As often as not sponsored by the state. And the historian A. J.

00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:18.000
Freud. Expressed a widely held view. When he declared that an established religion Give authority to the command.

00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:30.000
Creates a fear of doing wrong. And a sense of responsibility for doing it. To raise a doubt about a creed.

00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:44.000
Established by general except acceptance is a direct injury. To general welfare. Now correspondingly. Any decline.

00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:57.000
In religious belief. Among the newly industrialized working classes. Was seen as being fraught with grievous danger.

00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:15.000
To the prop to property and to the state. And it was widely believed. That the skepticism of the enlightenment had led directly to the horrors of the French Revolution.

00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:25.000
Now when the first national census revealed in 1851. That no fewer than 5 million people.

00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:49.000
Had not attended church the previous Sunday. There was much shaking of heads among the pious. But church and chapel attendance did not fall markedly between 1,851 and 1881 and in absolute terms it grew until 1906.

00:11:49.000 --> 00:12:03.000
And religion was to be found everywhere. Chained bibles were common on station platforms. Sermons were regularly printed and sometimes even became best sellers.

00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:17.000
And highly popular efforts were made to bring Christianity to the heathen, especially if they lived in the British Empire.

00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:29.000
So in this environment. The revival of Christmas began. And much of this revival relates to the rediscovery.

00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:42.000
Of communal singing and ritual and folk practice. And these often proceed from a opposed origin.

00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:49.000
Within Methodism and the other.

00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:59.000
Authentic sex. There was a certain muscularity. To be found in advancing the writing of hymns and carols.

00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:08.000
But this is probably less important. Than the fact that Anglicanism and particularly the Oxford movement as one runs through the Victorian period.

00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:21.000
Rediscovered. The liturgy. And all things medieval, the Gothic revival.

00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:30.000
Which resulted in the discovery of numerous medieval carols in uncollected manuscripts.

00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:52.000
And the collection and collation of folk carols preserved in the oral tradition across Britain. Now this Rediscovery of manuscripts is very much part of the antiquarian movement in this period.

00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:59.000
And the singing of carols is a very ancient practice. Carols weren't originally associated with Christmas which may surprise people.

00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:29.000
Carols were religious songs to accompany the major festivals of the liturgical year. But a man called John Audley in 1425 mentions groups of Wassales, processing through the streets of towns and villages, going from house to house, singing carols.

00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:48.000
And this was very much revived and by the 1850 Carol singing was again popular and was sailing was reinvigorated.

00:14:48.000 --> 00:15:02.000
One of the reasons for this is incredibly prosaic and that was due to the fact that pianos and portable all organs were becoming much more affordable.

00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:12.000
And could be loaded onto the back of cards and taken through the streets to a company the caroling.

00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:22.000
So that is the sort of religious fear. In which Christmas was being rediscovered.

00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:35.000
Repackaged. And spruce up. By the re-importation of folk practices during the Victorian age.

00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:48.000
And often something that comes through in the Victorian age is a is the cultivation of a belief. In the sort of naivety.

00:15:48.000 --> 00:16:16.000
Of Christmas beliefs and practices. And folktale association folktale belief. And one sees this in Thomas Hardy's poem which was in fact published in 1915 but written probably 40 or 50 years previously.

00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:26.000
And in that, he talks about how as a child He had been exposed to the idea.

00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:46.000
That on Christmas Eve the beasts in the stable in Bethlehem. Had knelt. To give homage to the Christ child and that If one was lucky, one could see the beasts of the field.

00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:57.000
Kneeling each Christmas Eve. And he says Christmas Eve and 12 of the clock.

00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:08.000
Now they are all on their knees. An elder said as we sat in a flock. By the embers in half side ease.

00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:20.000
We pictured the mild creatures where they dwelt in their straw pen. No, did it occur to one of us there?

00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:28.000
To doubt they were kneeling there. So fair a fancy few would weave in these years.

00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:39.000
Yeah, I feel if someone said on Christmas Eve, come see the oxen Neil. In the lonely.

00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:54.000
By our childhood used to know. I should go with him. In the glue. Hoping it might be so.

00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:04.000
Now. Quite erroneousously. It is believed. That the traditional Christmas tree.

00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:20.000
Was introduced during the Victorian age. By Victoria's consort Albert. Now the matter of the Christmas tree is complex.

00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:36.000
Late medieval Germany. New a Christmas pyramid. Which was a construction of evergreens with a star on top.

00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:47.000
And a medieval Christmas play called Adam and Eve. Featured a fur. As what is called a paradise.

00:18:47.000 --> 00:19:10.000
Tree hung with apples and lights. And there is in fact a copper in graving by Lucas Cranach, the Elder, from 15, 9 which shows that by then something like a Christmas tree had emerged.

00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:22.000
And there are further examples of the sixteenth century and in fact John Snow, the chap that I mentioned earlier.

00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:33.000
Rights, a standard of tree being set up in the midst of the pavement in cornhill, London.

00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:43.000
Fast in the ground. Nailed full of home and ivy. For the sport of Christmas to the people.

00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:57.000
And by the early nineteenth century. Christmas trees could be found. Displayed in homes across northern Europe.

00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:17.000
Although at first such. Examples were restricted to the elite. And was spread across the European courts, in large aristocratic, houses.

00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:33.000
In Britain, the custom of decorating churches had been practiced for centuries. But it was the German born wife of George the Third.

00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:48.000
Who displayed the first tree in Britain. And she was, of course, Charlotte of Mecklenburg, and in 1,800 She held a party.

00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:59.000
Where the tree was the centre of the festivities. And when Queen Victoria married her cousin, Albert.

00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:18.000
The tradition continued. And in 1,848 a drawing was published which you can see of the Queen's Christmas Tree at Windsor Castle in the illustrated London News.

00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:32.000
And this illustration. Was a crucial factor in spreading the popularity. Of the tree throughout the country.

00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:45.000
And the idea of the Christmas tree was soon embraced by the wealthier upper middle class families across Britain.

00:21:45.000 --> 00:22:02.000
Dickens, for example, described the Christmas tree as a pretty German also making a reappearance of around this time.

00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:15.000
From the Georgian period onwards was the bringing of mistletoe into the hoe. And the idea of mistletoe as what was called a kissing.

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:36.000
Seems to come originally. From the Norse tradition of you. And it fell out of favor. During the civil war period as I said earlier But Dickens mentions the kissing bow, the mistletoe.

00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:47.000
In the Pickwick papers and he calls it the kissing ball. Because such boughs were typically spherical.

00:22:47.000 --> 00:23:05.000
And they included IV, poly, berries. Miss auto and ribbons. Sometimes with a miniature activity in the very heart of the ball.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:10.000
Now.

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:33.000
Okay, let me see. Now the commercialization. Of Christmas and what we now understand. Christmas is probably the Victorian ages greatest claim towards the term the re-invention of Christmas.

00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:48.000
Within a span of around 50 years. During the first industrialized and industrial revolution. Up to around the 1870, s, 1880.

00:23:48.000 --> 00:24:00.000
You see very rapid economic changes. And one consequence was the sudden. And swift availability of products.

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:15.000
So, supported by a burgeoning advertising market. And this fall of advertising. Through the print medium.

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:32.000
Through shop displays and even the emergence of the first father Christmas grottoes in large stores encouraged consumers to participate in the season.

00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:51.000
Of course all was naturally marketed as celebration. Now probably. The best example. Of this is the development and the sending of Christmas cards.

00:24:51.000 --> 00:25:06.000
And this only occurs or is able to occur. Because of the introduction of a secure postal service. The uniform penny post.

00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:17.000
And the penny post moved the cost to the sender. And brought in a flat chart. Of one penny.

00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:29.000
A tense or less, than earlier. Prices. And just 3 years later. Henry Cole.

00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:40.000
Who was an eminent civil servant. An inventor and a prime mover in the new postal system.

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:52.000
Had at his own expense. A 1,000 cards printed showing a family Christmas dinner and you can see the original.

00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:57.000
Card on the screen.

00:25:57.000 --> 00:26:10.000
These were priced at a shilling. Piece and there was no great demand. It's only in the 1880.

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:24.000
When printing technology improved. And prices drop. That Christmas cards became a standard part of the season. And this was.

00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:37.000
Aided by the invention of chromolithographic printing. And by 1870 the iconography of Christmas cards.

00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:52.000
Had resolved itself. Into something resembling the imagery on Christmas cards that we see today. Christmas trees, holly religious themes.

00:26:52.000 --> 00:27:04.000
And illustrations by the famous Victorian illustrator and cartoonist Crook Shank.

00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:20.000
Were particularly popular. Though as you will see on the next, slides. Some of these. Christmas cards were by our standards.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:31.000
McCabe. There are Christmas cards which show frogs murdering other frogs, for example.

00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:41.000
And dead robins were particularly popular and as you can see on the screen You have a dead robin with the.

00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:59.000
With the strap line may yours be a joyful Christmas. It's very difficult to know exactly what the Victorians understood by these cards.

00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:21.000
Robbins, it's been speculated, were featured as dead. As a reminder of, what might befall the poor in the streets during the cold, December's of the Victorian period.

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:31.000
But it's far harder. To explain the presence of insects. For example, dancing.

00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:44.000
With frogs or an insect. Addressed in some manner as a Victorian, gentleman.

00:28:44.000 --> 00:29:02.000
And in fact so competitive was the trade. That Alfred Lord Tennyson was given a thousand guineas to write a Christmas card poet.

00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:09.000
I haven't included the poem that he wrote for you. Because with all due respect to Tennyson, it's scarcely better.

00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:25.000
The patience, strong. Now another factor of commercialization. Was.

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:39.000
And emerging toy. Market. And The emerging toy market was a means by which the Victorian middle classes.

00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:54.000
Were able to recognize their own purchasing. Power, the ability to expend income. On their children or on Christmas entertainments.

00:29:54.000 --> 00:30:02.000
Such as the pantomime. Which begins to gather pace in the 1880.

00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:13.000
And by the 18 eighties specific Christmas marketing emerged across. The print mediums of periodicals.

00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:31.000
And catalogues designed for the period of the season. Alone. So by the conclusion of Victoria's ray, Christmas had become the focal point of the selling world.

00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:51.000
And conspicuous consumption was now the norm. And this translated into seasonal produce too. And Ergo, we see the standardization of Christmas food stuffs.

00:30:51.000 --> 00:31:05.000
In 1845 Elizabeth Okay. Became the first cookery writer to publish a recipe for Christmas pudding.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:20.000
In modern cookery for private families. Though in actual fact recipes for plum pudding or plum potage originate in the medieval period.

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:44.000
And buying Christmas food was a means to include oneself. In the consumerism of the time and it is Mrs. Beaton who writes a Christmas dinner with the middle classes of this empire would scarcely be a Christmas dinner without its turkey.

00:31:44.000 --> 00:32:07.000
All these elements are means of buying into an idealized. And marketed vision of the season. Now, I've given you, Hello, Eliza Acton's Christmas pudding recipe and, I must admit.

00:32:07.000 --> 00:32:30.000
That the inclusion of a quarter pound of mashed potatoes seems slightly strange to me but if you've got the ability to do a screenshot and you want to make Mrs. Acton's genuine Victorian Christmas pudding.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:46.000
You're welcome to it. Now. Finally, in terms of the consumer boo. Of things we know associate with Christmas.

00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:58.000
A man called Tom Smith. Who was a struggling confectioner. In the 18 forties. He began to insert.

00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:12.000
Love messages. Into sweet wrappers. And then he evolved that. Into what becomes the first Christmas cracker.

00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:27.000
Apparently after being after being inspired by the shape of the logs on his fireplace. And the earliest Christmas crackers date from 1847.

00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:40.000
They were first advertised as a Cossack. Cossack but the term cracker quickly became the more popular.

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:58.000
And Tom Smith's son, Walter Smith. Was later to introduce elements including jokes, paper crowns and small toys into the crackers themselves.

00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:11.000
Now, The the other thing that I want to mention now turning to the sort of literary. Invention of Christmas.

00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:21.000
I've said that there is the rediscovery. Of carols and indeed there is an explosion.

00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:34.000
Of the writing of new ones in the Victorian age. And 2 men. Are responsible. For reinvigorating.

00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:44.000
The Carol. And they are William Sandes. And Davis Gilbert. Who went around Britain.

00:34:44.000 --> 00:35:10.000
Collecting the music from the villages. And then bringing after having transcribed the tombs of the words they then began publishing these rediscovered carols you can see, The singing of Carol's mentioned in Thomas Hardy's novel.

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:28.000
Under the greenwood tree in 1872. So they bring back into. The public domain. Carols such as God Rescue Merry Gentle.

00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:35.000
Well, the first nowhere. And I saw 3 ships.

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:45.000
Go to rest, you marry gentle is of course mentioned in Dickens's work, a Christmas Carol.

00:35:45.000 --> 00:36:00.000
Where you read the owner of what one's scant young nose naught and mumble. By the hungry cold does Bones are gnawed by dogs.

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:08.000
Stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole. To regale him. With a Christmas Carol.

00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:23.000
Go bless you merry gentleman Let nothing you dismay. Unfortunately of course Scrooge slams the door upon him.

00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:47.000
No, the singing of Carol's in church, as nobody's quite sure when this began. But anecdotal evidence suggests that Church carol services were instituted in 1,880 in Truro Cathedral.

00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:56.000
And were created by Edward White Benson. Who was then. The Bishop of Truro.

00:36:56.000 --> 00:37:09.000
He was later to become the archbishop of Canterbury. And he apparently was so fed up with Carol's being sung.

00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:21.000
Raucously, in the Hostelaries in Truro that he literally went into competition with them.

00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:30.000
There is no real evidence for that but it's it's abusing enough.

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:50.000
Probably a pop crucial. No, you've probably heard at some point. That. It is Dickens who reinvented Christmas.

00:37:50.000 --> 00:38:04.000
He didn't. But in large part what he did do. Was create our nostalgic awareness of what Christmas might be.

00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:18.000
And in 1850. Dickens wrote a Christmas tree. Which is the nostalgic reminiscences of an old man.

00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:32.000
Considering Christmases passed. And between the boughs of the Christmas tree. Which mysteriously appears, he glimpses, scenes from his past.

00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:50.000
And he concludes. Encircled by the social thoughts of Christmas time. Still let the benign figure of my childhood spanned the And this begins.

00:38:50.000 --> 00:39:01.000
The sanctification of the child at Christmas. Exploited. Forcially through the selling of toys.

00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:11.000
And certainly exploited as a theme in a Christmas carol. By Dickens.

00:39:11.000 --> 00:39:26.000
And Dickens of course. Published a Christmas Carol in 1843. Illustrated by John Leech.

00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:41.000
And it was immensely and instantly successful. Published on the nineteenth of December. The first edition had sold that completely by Christmas Eve.

00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:50.000
And by the following year. 13 editions had been published.

00:39:50.000 --> 00:40:09.000
And as the quintessential narrative of a miser's redemption. It is curious how how monetary issues also attached themselves to the publishing history of Christmas Carol.

00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:30.000
For example, Dickens took legal should against publishers who enlicately copied and pirated editions of a Christmas carol and in actual fact to reduce them to bankruptcy.

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:40.000
And stage productions of the Christmas Carol rapidly followed and by 1849 Dickens was touring the country.

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:54.000
Giving reading of a Christmas carol during the month of December. Now Dickens is work. As I'm sure you know, was generally marked.

00:40:54.000 --> 00:41:15.000
By a concern with the social conditions. Of his age. And Dickens had been moved. By his own experiences of semi poverty as a child by the conditions of workers.

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:35.000
And particularly child workers. And the condition of foundlings in London. And these things feed into his, creation of the cratchit family.

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:45.000
And one thing that should be noted is that the cratchits are a family of the deserving poor.

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:58.000
And a very strong distinction was made in the Victorian period. Between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor.

00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:11.000
If you were on the deserving poor, That is, those that work. But were hamstrung by low wages you were deserving.

00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:25.000
If you were seen as being feckless, then you were pretty much still abound. To the parish and the poor laws at the time.

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:37.000
So the redemption of the crashes and the conversion of poor and the salvation of tiny tin.

00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:53.000
As an example. Of the emerging trend of collapse. And charity which are watch words. For the Victorian social.

00:42:53.000 --> 00:43:11.000
And middle class foranthropy crops out not only in Dickens's work but in the in Canterbury's, in Bournville, in Lever, on Merseyside, in Coleman's, in Norwich, all of who.

00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:25.000
Did much for their low paid semi skilled workers. Christmas time. So in a sense A Christmas Carol.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:34.000
One way one can view it is that it is a story which is in a sense an economic fable.

00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:47.000
Which allows the middle class is of Dickens this time the Victorian period to applaud their own charity.

00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:58.000
Without alienating because screws is converted and gives to the deserving.

00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:18.000
It is interesting that in the original version of a Christmas Carol The manuscript does not contain. The penultimate paragraph which reads and to tiny Tim who did not die.

00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:30.000
That was only did later. The book would have been very different. Had Tiny Tim not. Survived.

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:42.000
So the transformation of screw. Is central to this story. And it embodies. And reb.

00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:55.000
And essentially Christian theme. It is an allegory of Christian reduction. And Claire Tomlin, who is Dickens biographer.

00:44:55.000 --> 00:45:11.000
Seize the conversion of screws as Scrooge as conveying the Christian message. That even the worst of sinners may repent and become a good man.

00:45:11.000 --> 00:45:23.000
In inspired by the message of Christ's birth and teaching. And I think really He Dickens is establishes the template.

00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:47.000
By which Subsequent. Victorian Christmases were modeled after Dickens's death and which probably continued on through the Edwardian period.

00:45:47.000 --> 00:46:02.000
Until the really large scale decline in religious faith in Britain. Which has led to an increased secularization.

00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:13.000
Of the festival. Now I'm aware that I am running out of time to allow you, to ask questions.

00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:27.000
So I will. To that point and I hope that's just been little, guide to the way in which Christmas evolved over the, Victorian period.

00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:38.000
So thank you very much to you all. And, Merry Christmas. Okay, thank you.

00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:45.000
Thank you very much, Stephen. That was absolutely fascinating. And, We've got some questions.

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:50.000
No, I think you did stun people into a little bit of silence for a while, but we have got some Christmas.

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:59.000
I've got some questions here. No, this is from Jane and was the pantomime ever worked into the Victorian Christmas?

00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:01.000
I know you touched on it slightly.

00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:06.000
Yeah, yeah, it was. I mean, the origins of Pant. I'm not sure.

00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:09.000
They come from the, in Italian drama. But yes, they are increasingly a feature of later Victorian Christmases and then into the, but yes, they are increasingly a feature of later Victorian Christmases and then into the Edwardian, period.

00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:26.000
So yes, and they, are increasingly a feature of later Victorian Christmases and then into the Edwardian, period.

00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:31.000
So yes, and they, they develop specifically, Christmas themes, post to Dickens.

00:47:31.000 --> 00:47:33.000
So yes, indeed.

00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:44.000
And from that question from me, you know, those those pantomimes, would they be similar to the ones we know today?

00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:55.000
Yeah, yes, broadly speaking. They would. I mean of course, I mean it thrives off.

00:47:55.000 --> 00:48:13.000
Topicality. So pantalimes of of the Victorian age would allude to or sample political thought of the day because I mean the great thing about pantomime is that it operates according to what's called dual address.

00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:33.000
That is, the slapstick elements, which have always been there and still persist. They are in a sense to entertain the children in the audience and the more knowing kind of duplong Tom.

00:48:33.000 --> 00:48:45.000
That is to serve the adult to accompany the children. So yeah, that was a feature, certainly of Victoria.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:46.000
Yep.

00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:56.000
Okay, thanks for that. And this is a little bit the comment here from Paula actually. It seems the sending of Christmas cards is now dying out due to the rising cost of stamps.

00:48:56.000 --> 00:48:57.000
Yes.

00:48:57.000 --> 00:49:02.000
I have to say that puts me off slightly. I guess our Christmas cards are a little bit different to some of the ones you showed us.

00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:03.000
Yeah.

00:49:03.000 --> 00:49:19.000
Yeah. No, I think we have another question here from Suit. In that period did they have a green father Christmas or the more usual red one that we know today.

00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:33.000
No, the, I missed that section now because I was running out of time. In fact, but, As you can see in the illustration there from Chris, Carol, he is, that is the ghost of Christmas present.

00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:42.000
And he is dressed in green. The idea of a figure dressed in green. Probably goes back to the medieval period.

00:49:42.000 --> 00:49:58.000
But certainly during the Dickens's time. Father Christmas was traditionally seen dressed in green. The presence of the red.

00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:10.000
Is is a result of the as somebody once said the Coca-cola.Ization of the world.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:19.000
Because Coca-cola introduced it's that red, Santa Claus figure in its marketing of crisps.

00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:30.000
Really quite early, sort of around the beginning of the twentieth century. If I remember rightly. So no, traditionally you would have green.

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:36.000
Okay, thank you. I hope that answers your question soon. And another question from, Maureen.

00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:48.000
She's asking, did Christmas Day become a public holiday at a particular date? Was it during this period or or later or?

00:50:48.000 --> 00:50:56.000
No, it's been, it was a public holiday. Certainly by the early steward.

00:50:56.000 --> 00:51:10.000
Area. It was observed as, as a Sabbath day. And you would have been expected to attend church.

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:23.000
What happens, is the under the protectorate. It's a parliamentary subcommittee that bans Christmas in 1647.

00:51:23.000 --> 00:51:42.000
And they They essentially said that there should be no, keeping or festival days. Only the keeping of the Sabbath on Sunday and the keeping of what were called fast days when people were expected to fuss.

00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:56.000
And the problem emerged when Christmas Day didn't fall on a Sunday. Under the protectorate, everyone was expected to go to work.

00:51:56.000 --> 00:52:07.000
Shocks were expected to be over. And this led to rioting. In the 1650 s in Norwich for example in Bury St Edmunds and a number of other places.

00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:16.000
And in fact, I think it's in. Norwich. The apprentices who riot, it took over the town.

00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:38.000
No, it's Canterbury. Took over the town for a week. And eventually the parliamentary army had to reoccupy the tab and if i remember rightly i think several people were hanged for celebrating Christmas and so

00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:41.000
It's quite drastic, doesn't it?

00:52:41.000 --> 00:52:48.000
Doth said by historians that had Cromwell lived another 10 years, Christmas as we know it today would be very different.

00:52:48.000 --> 00:53:03.000
Because you know, the protectorate lasts about a decade. But had it become more entrenched.

00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:04.000
Hmm.

00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:09.000
Who knows, what would actually have happened? So no, it's It was a holiday, then it wasn't a holiday, then it becomes a holiday.

00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:21.000
And just kind of related to that, there's actually a question here from K. And what's boxing day holiday in the Victorian period?

00:53:21.000 --> 00:53:22.000
Hmm.

00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:31.000
As far as I know, but don't quote, again, traditionally, some Stevens day was a holiday.

00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:38.000
In the medieval period, very little work was done during the 12 days of Christmas. It was incumbent upon landowners.

00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:50.000
To, to organize. Festivities, for their feudal workforces during the 12 days of Christmas.

00:53:50.000 --> 00:54:01.000
Culminating, as I said, I think. Epiphany which was the May feast.

00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:18.000
And so the 20 fifth was actually a fairly I mean it was a it was a feast but it was by no means the principle feast which was epiphany because that's when the presents were brought by the May.

00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:23.000
To the major. Yeah.

00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:24.000
Yep.

00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:31.000
Okay. And so a question here from Wendy actually, which is actually talking about the United States.

00:54:31.000 --> 00:54:36.000
And Was Christmas as popular in the US in this period? As it was here.

00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:46.000
Yes, it was in a sense. I mean, Washington, writes a lot about Christmas.

00:54:46.000 --> 00:54:50.000
But he writes about Christmases, writes a lot about Christmas. But he writes about Christmases that he had a lot about Christmas.

00:54:50.000 --> 00:55:02.000
But he writes about Christmases that he had observed in Britain. And then some of his writing imports, the Victorian reinvention of Christmas into the United States.

00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:03.000
And then in the late nineteenth century, it's the twentieth century it becomes very commercial in the States.

00:55:03.000 --> 00:55:16.000
Prior to that, because of the presence of of a stronger Puritan tradition, in the US.

00:55:16.000 --> 00:55:25.000
It tended to be more muted affair. yeah.

00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:35.000
Okay, thank you. And I hope that answers. Your question. No, and we've got another question here.

00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:43.000
This is maybe slightly more on the literary side. Do you know anything about the Christmas annual?

00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:49.000
And at what point this became a fixture in tradition. I remember getting these when I was a child.

00:55:49.000 --> 00:55:50.000
Is it anything, you know, that you, to say that, likely off topic perhaps, but.

00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:56.000
Yeah. Yeah. Well, No, not really. I mean the Christmas.

00:55:56.000 --> 00:55:58.000
No.

00:55:58.000 --> 00:56:15.000
The Christmas annual evolves out of the the development of Christmas periodicals which were published. During December and sometimes into January during the Victorian, period.

00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:37.000
Dickens was responsible for several such Christmas periodicals. And in fact, as a sort of intimated, he wrote, Christmas Carol because, he'd actually just had a night there with Martin Chuzzlewit, which didn't sell as well as he expected.

00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:41.000
So he dashed off for Christmas Carol, put it out in one of his periodicals which he edited.

00:56:41.000 --> 00:56:55.000
Because he thought it would sell very well. It did. And it refloated. Dickens is publishing, ventures in actual fact.

00:56:55.000 --> 00:57:24.000
So as it goes on, you get a proliferation of the magazine market so you're getting proliferation of magazines of christmas decorations Christmas catalogs and because of that popularity then publishers obviously think, okay, around the turn of the twentieth century.

00:57:24.000 --> 00:57:49.000
We'll start gearing. Christmas publications to feature Well known characters that are coming through. So by the time you get into the twenties thirties and so on, you're having the publication of Christmas annuals of Rupert Bear and so on and so forth.

00:57:49.000 --> 00:57:54.000
So it it's a progression really from periodicals into animals. Yeah. And now they seem to.

00:57:54.000 --> 00:57:57.000
Okay.

00:57:57.000 --> 00:58:03.000
They seem not to be as popular now, of course.

00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:12.000
Hmm. Hmm. Okay, well I think we will need to wrap things up. Their folks were pretty much out of time.

00:58:12.000 --> 00:58:21.000
So I'm going to, Thank you, Stephen, for coming along to tell us about all of this.

00:58:21.000 --> 00:58:34.000
And really interesting to hear about that transition of Christmas and to the sort of festival that we know today and that consumer driven holiday that we know and also a little bit of that literary side as well.

00:58:34.000 --> 00:58:40.000
So thank you very much.