Day: March 28, 2015

Edith

/ aspinalllucy / Leave a comment

Amongst a donation last week was a book which is called ‘The Place Names of Warwickshire’. The spine has that printed on it and ‘English Place Names Society XIII’ and the crest for Cambridge Press.

I put it to one side as it seemed arcane enough to be worth checking out and – as my frequent reader will know – arcane often equals value one way or another.

A couple of days later it was in a small pile of books I needed to check out and so I opened it to get the publications date etc etc.

Imagine my surprise when I found there was no printed book but the hand-written life story of Edith Chadwick Holmes. At least I think that is what her name is, as the handwriting is hard to decipher.

The first entry is January 6th 1941 and she says she is writing it ‘Just because I have nine grandchildren who like most children just xxx for true stories and are ever curious to hear past histories & habits of their grown up relatives. I am daring enough to write about myself on this, my seventieth birthday, it seems a big age written down & quite startling (?) Now then, the big question is, shall I think backwards into the past or start right from the beginning. I suppose it is right and proper to start once upon a time a baby girl was born on the Epiphany 1871.’

And the last entry is January 30th 1956 which starts, ‘Here I am now age 85 & am wondering if it is worthwhile adding to this account of my simple life, but I hate to leave anything unfinished. It is too wet and cold for gardening so xxx where I left off.’

The final words in the book are ‘and then on to my dear Chad’s death in 1921.’

In the back of the book there is a sort of fixed envelope which would I think, should, if the book had been really printed, have had a map for the place names of Warwickshire.

In it I found some small pages of a notebook written by Edith and starting to tell of her sailing to Durban.

There are also some notes in a different hand, titled Mother’s Story and starting ‘Dad died 27th March 1921’ and I presume is more of the story, retold to Edith’s son or daughter.

If I had the time, I would work my way through the book and notes and transcribe them but I think that is a job for someone researching the family history.

So, I have been looking to find some trace of Edith Chadwick Holmes and I started with the Mormon site – free and very good in the past.

But nothing.

Her parents were Frank and Jane Sophia Fagg of Canterbury, but I cannot find them either.

I presume her beloved Chad was a nickname based on Chadwick Holmes, but I am not sure.

I am not sure either,from glancing though the book,  that Edith’s life was extraordinary but I love the sound of her voice and would like very much to have someone cherish it.

But who, and where, and how? Again, I am not sure I will do the work and it maybe that Edith sits on a shelf in Oxfam until someone picks her up and has the interest and determination to tell her story.

I will have another go at looking for her in the records – not just now though because I have to make supper.

(Just in case you are interested, I am told that sometimes publishers would print and bind a book with blank pages and send to the prospective author and ask him (usually) to fill in the pages. It was an inducement to get the book done. And the book was written and it was published.)

Whipplesnaith and French cooking

/ aspinalllucy / Leave a comment

Two curious books have arrived in Oxfam this week – neither is worth a fortune, or indeed much at all, but both provided a diversion from the endless filling of re-cycling sacks with books unwanted by their owners, or I am afraid, us.

That was my daily lot this week – and very dispiriting it is at times. Even with the satisfaction of getting to the end of a mound of black sacks and boxes and seeing the floor and walls again, there is that slight sense of resentment of spending my morning saving some others from the trip to the dump they should have taken with all those dog-eared misery memoirs and 365 ways to dry flowers in a microwave.

Our Antiquarian Book Expert (later to be referred to as ABE) came in this week and the shop was shut. I let him in and at the same time saw the boot opening of a car hovering outside and glimpsed the boxes and books.

Despite my urging him to get inside quick and under cover of darkness in the shop, steal quietly upstairs and let the book owners find another end to the spring cleaning, he insisted we should let them in.

I know was right, you should never turn away a donation but he was going to look at old and interesting books for an hour and I was going to be left with those boxes and I knew that what was more, someone was arriving with 25 boxes the next day – part shipment of their threatened 50 boxes – so any more were not that welcome.

We did let them in and ABE leant over one or two books and said, ‘ Nothing much here then.’

Mmm, well I could have told him that.

To be fair, he did offer to come in the next day and help sort but I am a darn sight quicker than he is and had those boxes dispatched in very short order.

And, of course, right at the bottom of the last box, there was a little treasure. A French cookery book from the early 1800s which I think will be worth about £100.

Back to Whipplesnaith.

If you went to Cambridge and spent your nights climbing around building rooftops, then you will of course know all about Whipplesnaith who wrote The Night Climbers of Cambridge.

‘Whipplesnaith was the pseudonym for Noel H. Symington, a recent graduate of the University. He worked with as many as 15 other students to create this incredible record in the autumn of 1936. Many climbed, some were camera-men, all helped silently lug the apparatus around in the dead of night.’

I had never heard of it but it is apparently a classic in the world of building and urban climbers and also there is still a thriving tradition of Cambridge night climbing. There is a twitter account for those still at it @whipplesnaith.

Our copy is a first edition and has the name J H Parry Jones on the flyleaf with the Greek beta sign and then the letter N C which I guess might mean Night Climbers.

So, for no good reason except curiosity, I want to try and find out whether J H Parry Jones was one of Noel Symington’s colleagues. If anyone knows, do get in touch.