I go back to Liverpool on special occasions. When my mother was alive I went often, and the highlight of Sunday mornings was the Billy Butler show: ‘Hold Your Plums’. (Don’t ask)
The format was simple, a phone-in quiz. The result was comedy gold, as callers struggled to find an answer despite clues that all but gave it it to them.I’m not too sure I’d recommend listening to these short clips (5mins average) all in one go, but even now I found myself snorting with disbelief and laughter, much like I did all those years ago. They also bring back memories of teaching, where I would be determined to tease out an answer, and the pupil would be equally determined not to give it.
Words change in meaning. Gay is a good example. Banter a less obvious one. When the word emerged in the C17th it was seen as aggressive street talk verging on bullying. For much of my life it’s been defined as affectionate teasing between friends, an important bonding exercise.
More recently its definition seems to be reverting to the original C17th meaning – at least if HR Departments are to be believed. Women’s groups too. The term banter is itself gendered, argues UCL gender studies professor Katherine Twamley who, while acknowledging women also indulge in banter, argues that it has become more closely aligned with ‘lad culture.’ “I know plenty of men who can banter without racially slurring others or making misogynist comments,” Twamley continues. “However when a word is used to mask behaviour that is fundamentally abusive, vindicating it as ‘just a bit of fun,’ banter becomes a damaging concept that can result in victims feeling silenced.”
Bullying is bullying. It shouldn't be redefined as 'banter'. Judge for yourself whether those on ‘Hold Your Plums’ feel silenced. I’ve never met a silenced Scouser in my life. The glory of the city is that from an early age people have learnt to laugh at themselves and laugh at others. May it continue until the end of time
In the early 1950's the local vicar told the Daily Mirror: ‘my tummy wobbles like jelly every time I pass the entrance.' I was just desperate for the toilet. But this is the entrance to the famous Hell Fire Club.
The knights of St Francis of Wycombe (aka Sir Francis Dashwood) better known as the Hell-Fire club started in about 1742. Its members were drawn largely from the friends and circle of Frederick, Prince of Wales. Few records exist, but a full Chapter meeting took place twice a year - autumn and summer. It was attended by the twelve inner members in flowing white robes, the Abbot wearing a crimson gown and hood edged with rabbit skin. Ladies were admitted so long as they were of a ‘cheerful, lively disposition to improve the general hilarity of the company.' They wore masks and a badge: ‘Liberty and Friendship.’ And nobody knows what happened there, though one can make a good guess.
The club flourished until 1763 when it broke up, partly from political disagreements, partly from the famous ‘baboon incident.’
One of the members, the Radical John Wilkes, dressed up a baboon to look like the devil and hid it in a box in a recess of the Chapel. When released, the frantic animal jumped onto the back of Lord Sandwich who nearly died on the spot. Both he and the terrified baboon ran out, the distraught Lord crying aloud: 'Spare me, gracious devil: thou knowest I was only fooling. I am not half as wicked as I pretend.’ The club finally closed in 1774.
The caves themselves had charitable origins. There had been a serious of bad harvests, and the poor of the locality were in dire need. A new road was needed between West Wycombe and High Wycombe, and Sir Francis Dashwood devised, in effect, a job creation scheme. Men were paid a shilling a day to excavate and extract chalk from a nearby hill to be used for the new road. They did it to a plan, copied from an ancient underground Greek temple. The resulting caves are a quarter of a mile long and at their deepest 300 feet underground.
Sir Francis was no dilettante – though he co-founded the Society of Dilettantti. He studied architecture and antiquities, was widely travelled, and one of the few Englishmen to visit Russia. For twenty years or more, he was an active politician, and was, briefly, an unsuccessful Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was also an intimate friend of Benjamin Franklin.
Franklin was a regular visitor and a great fan of the Caves. Together, the two men wrote a revised Book of Common Prayer for the Church of England. “…its purpose was to prevent the old and faithful from freezing to death from long sermons in cold churches, to make the service so short as to attract the young and lively, and to reprieve the well-disposed from the infliction of interminable prayer."
Ignored in England, it provided the basis for the new American prayerbook after the War of Independence—speaking of which the war might have been avoided had the Government accepted The Plan For Reconciliation drawn up by Franklin and Dashwood in 1770 and championed in England by both Dashwood and William Pitt.
Progressive in many respects, it’s likely old Ben Franklin would not have met the approval of our modern Puritans. Advising a younger acquaintance that though marriage was preferrable, an older woman was an acceptable substitute: ‘as in the dark all cats are grey, the pleasures of corporal enjoyment with an older woman is at least equal, and frequently superior . . . and they are so grateful for the attention!’
So, the caves themselves.
And yes, I wish I'd read this before going this far down
Though of course, they would say that wouldn't they. You're not going to have a TV programme where 'nothing happened.'
Even so
The Banqueting Hall
The Banqueting Hall is a cavern 14 metres in diameter and 130 metres from the entrance. The hall has a compass design with four niches called ‘the monks cells’ and were used by club members for privacy with the ladies (though with twelve or more monks, one imagines a discreet but impatient queue.)
Those waiting could, however, enjoy food and drink. A large refectory table was supposedly placed in the cavern’s centre attended by liveried footmen who served food and wine in gleaming silverware.
The club became so popular it had two orders: the Superior and the Inferior. For Chapter meetings, only the Superior were permitted beyond the Banqueting Hall to perform their 'devilish' rites. As the port was finished at the end of their feast, the Abbot rose and made a toast to the devil.
Thus fortified, they then made their way to the Inner Temple which included crossing the 'River Styx.'
And from there through a triangular section, which was said to represent part of the female anatomy, (oh, those naughty, naughty aristocrats!) and finally the Inner Temple. What occurred next remains veiled in secrecy.
This, the Inner Temple is 100 metres below a church on the top of the 'satanic' chalk hill.
For about two hundred years, the caves were all but forgotten and fell into disrepair. It was a second Sir Francis Dashwood, the 11th Baronet who, in 1951, reopened the caves as a tourist attraction. A surveyor warned him they weren’t safe and at least £5000 was needed to stabilise them. Sir Francis only had £50 in his pocket. He got no help from his father, who called the whole thing ‘a damned silly idea.’ Undaunted, the second Sir Francis opened them to the public at a shilling a time, free candle included. Publicity did the rest. The local vicar told the Daily Mirror that ‘my tummy wobbles like jelly every time I pass the entrance.’ This was followed by a sermon denouncing the waves of evil emanating from the cave. Publicity to die for; tourists flocked, enjoying a satanic vibe without endangering their souls, and the money rolled in.
The question lingers: were these a group of talented but libertine aristocrats having a good time, with a touch of ‘Sympathy for the Devil,’ or did something overtly satanic take place in these caves?
We went to the Donatello Exhibition last week. I never knew the ninja mutant turtle to be so talented, nor we so lucky. We discovered a tunnel at South Kensington Tube Station that took us under busy streets and busier roads directly to the V&A. Up some steps and ‘Bob’s your uncle’ we were there. It was like discovering the North West Passage or the Harry Potter platform at Kings Cross.
At last, our allotted time to enter the exhibition arrived and for me a name and two dates became suddenly real. Donatello 1386-1466. Until now he’d been only a name I could place in or around certain key events: The Hundred Years War, Agincourt-1415, The Battle of Nicopolis 1396, The War of the Roses, and of course, the Medici.
Donatello though, just a name until now.
Bust of a man.
Possibly that of the Lord Mayor of Florence, Niccolo da Uzzano, or Neri di Gino Capponi, merchant and politician. We shall never know, though personally I think it looks like the present day Lord Adonis. Uncanny resemblance. I love the way his expression changes as you look at him from different angles.
The Reliquary Bust of San Rossore
Earlier Reliquary busts created idealised images of a saint. Donatello’s San Rossore appears as a real person, a harbinger of the Renaissance to come.
Head of a bearded man, possibly a prophet. Art historians see his gaze as one experiencing a vision. I was caught by the attention to detail and how long I enjoyed studying it.
Not Donatello but Beltramino's God The Father. What’s truly striking, apart from the obvious is the painstaking craftsmanship. A copper sheet was hammered from the back to create the complexity of the front that was then gilded. The attention to detail in the contours of the face and beard is staggering. Great art, along with the myriad and unrecorded acts of kindness and generosity are flashes of light in an age of deprivation and brutality.
And I’d never heard of rilievo schiacciato before, still can’t pronounce it to the amusement of my wife. It literally means ‘squashed relief’. The technique, mastered by few, conjures up a sense of space and depth within just a few millimetres of carving.
The Ascension with Christ giving the keys of Heaven to St Peter
Donatello’s use of ‘squashed relief’ conjuring up a sense of space and atmosphere within the shallowest depths of carving.
The Betrayal of Christ. Ligolino di Nerio
Ligolino was an earlier Sienese painter who undoubtedly influenced Donatello in his use of rocky terrains and inter-reacting figures. I love St Peter’s grumpy expression as he attacks one of the guards with what looks like a pencil.
Another contemporary, Lippo di Dalmasio’s The Madonna of Humility (1390)
Its name derives from The Virgin actually sitting on the ground with the Christ Child on her lap.
Virgin and Child (about 1270)
Not an imitator but one who likely influenced Donatello. Giovanni Pisano 1248 to 1319(?) here combines classicism with the Gothic. When viewed from the left, the Virgin’s hand points to the infant, who directs a blessing to the onlooker. It might be just me, but there’s an almost accusatory look in the Madonna’s expression.
The Genoa Madonna
Luca della Robbia was a younger rival and collaborator of Donatello. He used a new tin glazing technique which brought colour and protection to the terracotta surface. The heavenly blue and white figures imitate polished marble.
Madonna of the Apple
Worth contemplating the Madonna’s thoughtful gaze, perhaps signalling her meditation on Christ’s future sacrifice for humanity. The apple perhaps a reminder of the ‘fall’ about to be redeemed.
The Miracle of the Mule
One of four bronze reliefs illustrating the miracles of St Anthony. Its story is simple, the execution complex: a starving mule given a choice between food and the Host, kneels in front of St Anthony to receive communion. The use of gilding guides the eye to the focal point of the Eucharist
Crucifixion
This is absolutely brilliant and bursting with contrasts – the texture of the draperies and armour, the flesh of the semi clad soldiers, the chiselling of the rocky landscape and roughly worked foliage. As the eye wanders, the reflective gilding draws the eye to the crucified Christ.
Dead Christ with angels.
For those interested in technique, the textiles were hammer formed, Christ’s skin given a smooth sheen, and the feathers delicately modelled in the wax mould. The hair was chiselled in the cold metal after casting for added crispness.
Crucifix
It’s worth focusing on the deep eye sockets and tightly drawn flesh, the fluttering of the loin cloth suggesting Christ is still alive but in his final moments.
The Lamentation of Christ
Again, emotions are heightened by Donatello’s treatment of the bronze—the way the polished, ‘soft’ flesh of Christ contrasts with the raw, unfinished surface of the weeping woman
Don't tell me you don't see Morecambe and Wise here!
Virgin and Child by an unidentified sculptor but associated with a Donatello design. It was painted to imitate gilded marble.
Bronze cherub designed to decorate the organ loft of Florence Cathedral. Art historians highlight its ‘fleshy rotund body’ which made me pause
Attis-Amorino
Here Donatello exploits the bronze to create something almost alive. The open breeches suggests the Phrygian Shepherd Attis, and it has the wings of a young cupid (amorino) on its back. And then Donatello gets carried away, giving him the tail of a faun, the winged feet of Mercury, and a snake, most often associated with Hercules
David
I took no photo here - an oversight. Credit Patrick A Rodgers
This was remarkable for the time, being the first unsupported bronze of the period and the first free standing nude made since antiquity. It makes an interesting contrast with Michaelangelo's David made 60 years later. Donatello's bronze is five foot tall, Michaelangelo's seventeen foot tall. One is youthful and slender, the other muscular and mature.
It was a labour of love going through these photos again and browsing in close up, remembering which were mine, and which of them were my wife's.
Something more mundane next week. There's only so much elevation I can take.
