I don’t understand Glastonbury; perhaps it’s wonderful if you’re one of the crowd but how can you possibly see what’s going on when you’re fields away, big screens I suppose but then you might as well watch television. Louis Capaldi was great last night, he’s very loveable and sings a good song even though he was struggling with his voice but then along came Lizzo, her big song just repeating the words ‘I love you bitch’ over and over again ad nauseam. She’s a very large lady surrounded by very large ladies gyrating and shaking their butts. Commentators are lauding her performance, her body positive attitude and her costumes, which I agree were theatrical however what ever turns you on I guess and I’m not of that generation but that’s showbiz. Sorry she didn’t get the box of chips she so much wanted when she was in Belfast during the week but good publicity all round. Roll on Elton tonight.
It’s been an appalling week. Wars go on, in fighting in politics, the horrors of those poor men stuck in the cylinder, bolted into an area the size of a people carrier and something of a relief that they died immediately when it imploded meaning, hopefully, they didn’t suffer. What about the cost? That’s very debatable especially when it was so foolhardy to climb into such a submersible and head to the bottom of the ocean against advice. All very dodgy and I’m sure there will be many repercussions. But over arching all this is the question of going anywhere near the remains of the Titanic, A grave. hundreds of bodies still trapped in the structure yet people dive to retrieve memorabilia- glasses, little suitcases even a glass eye apparently. How obscene to hear that a couple went down to the site to be married. Please, if anything is fair in this life, leave this cemetery in peace and keep your nose, and your bank account, to yourself.
Talking of bank accounts, there’s the panic in RTE, over paying presenters who are already paid a king’s ransom. I’m sorry about Ryan Tuberty, I spent two weeks recently listening to his morning programme and I thought he was a most appealing and professional. Now he’s not allowed to continue his programme and I bet he’s feeling terrible. If he pays back the extra wage he got over the years I guess the public would forgive him. Maybe he didn’t notice the extra euro. How so many of the mighty have fallen – might it be Putin next? I’m sorry that friend Eamonn Holmes is so vitriolic about Philip Schofield, not pleasant to hear.
And then there’s Russia.
Prospects of peace retreat. Who would have thought this vast nation could be thrown into chaos in little more than a day. Whatever next, the world launches from one terror to the next.
It’s too hot to even think these days. A £25 table fan has been a Godsend, powered by a plug-in lead same as for the phone or the laptop so always available for relief. The thunder last week was frightening, I was stopped at the traffic lights on Newtownards Road when the all time awful Blatter shook the car and almost burst my heart. I considered it might be the end of the world!
THERE ARE GOOD THINGS TO ENJOY
If you ever decided to write a family history, and I hope you do, take a leaf from Caldwell McClure’s book William Scott a Family History. He has uncovered a story of poverty, tragedy, war and fame and the main character is his uncle William Scott, an artist of distinction who doesn’t have the recognition he deserves.
Although Dan Dowling, President of the Royal Ulster Academy, tells me Scott was indeed a massive talent sadly he had no connection with the Academy which would have enhanced his local profile before his death in 1992. He was awarded a CBE and membership to the Royal Academy in London and one work sold seven years ago for £337.000, he was one of the most distinguished painters of his time. Although Caldwell devotes a chapter to each member of the family, originally from Scotland then growing up in Enniskillen their father’s hometown, his uncle William claims most space and no wonder. Research revealed a life of determination and diversity. As a boy he helped paint shop signs in his father’s workshop, he assisted painting Orange Order banners, he attended Kathleen Bridle art classes in the town and in 1928 William Trimble, owner of the Impartial Reporter newspaper, launched a fund which amounted to £700, enough to enrol as a student at Belfast College of Art, Within three years he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy Schools in London where he shared a flat with Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. They must have been heady times.
Important Find
Whilst gathering material Caldwell discovered a cache of memorabilia when clearing out his mother’s house after her death. It often happens that way, older people kept documents and photographs stashed away in a memory box, today they are probably committed to a computer and eventually lost over time.
I am fortunate as, being something of a squirrel, I raided all our memory boxes over years and have valuable history stored in a drawer with major details on a laptop – the best of both worlds. Recently I came on a letter my grandmother wrote to her family from her cabin en route to New York on board the SS California, later sunk by bombers in the Bay of Biscay in 1943. Tales of singing Irish songs, learning to tango, eating a cuisine new to her and the last few paragraphs of sailing into New York harbour and seeing the Statue of Liberty loom out of the mist.
My grandmother Mary Edith deWinter with her children Billy Graham, Tom Graham, Joan Esler and Maureen Shaw
A subsequent letter describes living in an apartment high above Queens, visiting shops and restaurants and the delights of Long Island before World War Two changed everything. Mary Edith de Winter was worshipped by her four children and they were worried about their twice widowed mother taking on this solo trip to see her cousin so much so that before she departed they gave her a diamond ring to keep hidden in case she needed money urgently to get home.
Like Cardwell, I have a treasury to work through, but unlike me he has compiled his story and published a fascinating record of a large family, featuring his artistic uncle William Scott.
Cardwell was named after this grandmother Agnes Cardwell and was born in her hotel, Scotts on Ennisklillen’s East Bridge Street. She had eleven children, five of them died before her, accident, killed in action and in 1930 Violet, her youngest daughter, and her eleventh child, died at two years of age. Her first husband was killed in a fire trying to rescue a mother and child caught in the building, there were many tragedies during those years.
Family Archive
“Thank goodness my mother collected newspaper cuttings and photographs, she had a great closeness to William who would sit her at the table in their home and paint her. There was a lot to sort through over the last ten years, I had to stop for a while when I was unwell, then Covid but I’m so glad that the family have given the book their approval! I’d a phone call form a cousin in Australia who at 85 said he knew nothing about William and that he was glad he lived long enough to read the book and pass on the history to his sons.”
The author has written four books including the history of Portadown gasworks, the town’s foundry and the Edenderry area of the town as well as the Irish Wade pottery. His son Timothy said he’d never seen his dad read a book so he’s surprised with his fine ability to tell a story, certainly his latest well illustrated book proves that.
Cardwell told me he only met his uncle once. “My first impression was how arty he looked, well dressed and spoke well. I took him to Portadown golf club and he invited me to London, bring £1000 and pick your painting he said. If only I had!”
David Bowie did recognise the artist’s talents. In 1993 he bought two paintings including Girl Seated At Table for a record at that time of £45.500. “Probably my Granny sitting for her talented son many years ago; after the singer’s death it sold at Sotheby’s for £337.000. The record for a Scott painting at auction is £1,071,650,” he added.
The queen admired his work and the Irish Post Office featured one of his paintings on their 5p. stamp! Less praised was his 1962 panel of huge squares and rectangles mounted in Altnagelvin Hospital foyer, according to newspaper reports it ‘caused controversy’.
Caldwell McClure has compiled pictures, reports and first hand accounts of his family in a fascinating book, for an accountant who apparently didn’t read books, he has succeeded in writing a memorable and detailed history,
“If I take a notion I can make it work whether it’s renovating or building houses in my retirement or picking up the pen. Writing has given me the greatest pleasure because it’s history and that’s important, indeed when I’m gone all my writings will be left to the Public Records Office in Northern Ireland.”
TO ALL TALENTED CROCHETTES
