Tuesday 10 December 2013
Sandy's Blog: ALAIN FOURNIER
Sandy's Blog: ALAIN FOURNIER: Le Grand Meaulnes Author and Poet Alain Fournier was born Henri-Alban Fournier on 3rd October 1886 in La Chapelle-d'Angillon...
ALAIN FOURNIER
Le Grand Meaulnes
Author and Poet Alain Fournier was born Henri-Alban Fournier on 3rd October 1886 in La Chapelle-d'Angillon, the son of a schoolteacher.
Although he wrote mainly poetry, he became famous for his novel Le Grand Meaules, which was nominated for, but did not win the Prix Goncourt.
Fournier was killed in battle on 22nd October, and vanished without trace, until 1991, when his remains, along with those of his Company were unearthed and identified by archaeologists.
A monument was erected at the place where they died and Henri-Alban Fournier’s final resting place is now Saint-Rémy-la-Calonne National Cemetery in the Meuse.
Here is a summary of the plot as described by Wikipedia:
"François Seurel, the narrator of the book, is the son of M. Seurel, who is the director of the school in a small village in the Sologne, a region of lakes and sandy forests in the heartland of France. After arriving in class, Augustin Meaulnes, a bright young man who comes from a modest background, soon disappears. He returns from an escapade he had which was a nightly and magical costume party where he met the girl of his dreams, Yvonne de Galais. She lives with her widowed father and her brother Frantz in a vast and ancient family chateau which has seen better days. The garden party was held to welcome Frantz and the girl he was to marry. The fiancee, however, fails to appear at that party.
After having returned to the school, Meaulnes has only one idea : find the mysterious chateau again and the girl who he has now fallen in love with. However his local searches fail while at the same time a bizarre young man shows up at the school : it is Frantz de Galais under a different name trying to escape the pain of having been rejected. Augustin Meaulnes finds out and leaves for Paris in order to find Yvonne de Galais but fails. He writes to his friend Francois Seurel : " It is better to forget everything".
Francois Seurel ,who has now become a school teacher like his father, succeeds in finding at last Yvonne de Galais and reuniting her with Meaulnes. Yvonne still lives with her aging father in what is left of old family estates. It is called "Les Sablonnieres" and is not as far as the two young friends had first imagined in earlier years. Yvonne de Galais is still single and confesses to Augustin Meaulnes that he is and has always been the love of her life. Yvonne de Galais accepts, with her father's blessings, Augustin Meaulnes marriage proposal. However Meaulnes leaves her after a few days in order to find her lost brother Frantz (to whom he had promised help many years ago) and re-unite him with his fiancée. Yvonne de Galais, now married to Augustin Meaulnes remains alone at the chateau. Yvonne gives birth to a little girl but dies two days later. Eventually Francois inherits the house Meaulnes and Yvonne lived in and raises the little girl there, while also waiting for the return of his friend Augustin Meaulnes. While looking through old papers Francois Seurel discovers a small handwritten diary by Meaulnes. During the years in Paris ( before François brought Meaulnes and Yvonne back together), Meaulnes had met and romanced the girl who had abandoned Frantz at the party.
Years later, Meaulnes does return having brought Frantz and his fiance back together and claims his daughter."
I first encountered Le grand Meaulnes when a play called "The Lost Domain" was broadcast by the BBC, in the late 1960's, I immediately rushed out and bought the book and every time I read it I still get a shiver up my spine.
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Thursday 5 December 2013
BRATBY
John Bratby - self portrait.
John Bratby is one of my favourtite Painters and Authors.
It all started when I read his book "Breakdown" nearly fifty years ago, and it started a lifelong interest.
I went on to read "Brake-Pedal Down" and "Break 50 Kill", and they increased my interest in his writing and painting.
Bratby was the originator of the British "Kitchen Sink" art movement, and indeed one of his early works is a painting of a kitchen sink.
In 1958 Bratby created works for the fictional artist Gulley Jimson in the Alec Guinness film The Horse's Mouth.
Bratby's own work fell out of favour with the emergence of Pop art, but his paintings have increased in value and critical support over recent years. Paul McCartney has been a collector of his works.
John Bratby was born in 1928 and died in Hastings in 1992.
In the late 1970s I saw a Bratby painting for sale in a small Gallery near Blytheswood Square in Glasgow, the price was 800 pounds. If I had £800 in my pocket that day I would have bought it.
Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery has a painting by Bratby, but unforunately no image was available.
And I've just bought a First Edition of John Bratby's book "Breakfast and Elevenses on eBay.
And I've just bought a First Edition of John Bratby's book "Breakfast and Elevenses on eBay.
Monday 21 October 2013
The Lost Jaguar - the 1948 XK100
It is a little known fact that at the 1948 Motor Show, Jaguar exhibited not only the XK 120, but also a 4 Cylinder XK100.
It had a 1970 cc 4 Cylinder engine producing 95 bhp and giving a top speed of 93 miles per hour.
Below is the full specification of this car.
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I understand from a recent magazine article that Jaguar recently found 50 four cylinder XK engines (destined for the XK100 version of the XK120, which no one ordered). Anyone have any more information on this find, and what Jaguar intends to do with these engines (I believe they are not complete - only engine sets)?
Sunday 20 October 2013
THE SACK OF BALTIMORE
The Sack of Baltimore took place on June 20, 1631, when the village of Baltimore, West Cork, Ireland, was attacked by Berbers, North African pirates from the North African Barbary Coast. The attack was the biggest single attack by the Barbary pirates on Ireland or Britain. The attack was led by a Dutch captain turned pirate, Jan Janszoon van Haarlem, also known as Murad Reis the Younger. Murad's force was led to the village by a man called Hackett, the captain of a fishing boat he had captured earlier, in exchange for his freedom. Hackett was subsequently hanged from the clifftop outside the village for his conspiracy.
They captured 108 English settlers, who worked a pilchard industry in the village, and some local Irish people. The attack was focused on the area of the village known to this day as the Cove. The villagers were put in irons and taken to a life of.Slavery in .North Africa.
Only three or four of those taken as Slaves, were known to have been freed on payment of a ransom.
A Book has been written, "The Stolen Village" by Des Ekin about this seldom discussed slice of history.
Thursday 10 October 2013
Che Guevara - Cuban? Argentinian? Irish?
Che Guevara was born Che Lynch on 28 June 1928 in Argentina, to Celia de la Serna y Llosa and Ernesto Guevara Lynch.
His name "Che" is short for Chancho (pig) due to his bathing habits, or lack of, he was nicknamed "Stinker".Due to his father being half Irish, he could have played football for Ireland.
Contrary to the image we all have of Guevara, in his youth he was quite the geek. He loved playing Chess and even entered local tournaments.
While Guevara is best remembered for his actions in Cuba, he was actually born in Argentina to wealthy parents and he never became a Cuban citizen. When he was born, his father said “the first thing to note is that in my son’s veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels.”
After he was murdered by Bolivian troops backed by the CIA, a military doctor amputated Che’s hands. Bolivian army officers transferred Guevara’s body to an undisclosed location and refused to reveal whether his remains had been buried or cremated. The hands were preserved in formaldehyde to be sent to Buenos Aires for fingerprint identification. (His fingerprints were on file with the Argentine police.) They were later sent to Cuba.
"I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting."
Che Guevara
More abot Che Guevara can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara
Sunday 1 September 2013
The Brahan Seer
The Brahan Seer - Scotland's Nostradamus
In September 2013 we went on holiday to the Old Fisherman's Cottage in Avoch on the Black Isle. We returned there again on 20 August 2016 .
The cottage is one mile away from Chanonry Point where the Seer was burned to death for witchcraft in the 17th Century. The Brahan Seer also called Coinneach Odhar or Kenneth Mackenzie, worked as a labourer at Brahan Castle and was able to see into the future by using an Adder Stone which was a stone with a hole in the middle.
The cottage is one mile away from Chanonry Point where the Seer was burned to death for witchcraft in the 17th Century. The Brahan Seer also called Coinneach Odhar or Kenneth Mackenzie, worked as a labourer at Brahan Castle and was able to see into the future by using an Adder Stone which was a stone with a hole in the middle.
A prediction he made was to led to his downfall – that the absent Earl of Seaforth was having sexual adventures with one or more women in Paris – seems likely, but of course was highly outrageous to Lady Seaforth, as it cast her husband in a scandalous light and heaped embarrassment on her. This led to an unfortunately unforeseen sequence of events on the Seer's part, leading to his barbaric murder at Chanonry Point, when he was allegedly burnt in a spiked tar barrel, on the command of the Earl's wife, Lady Seaforth.
The photograph below shows The monument to the Brahan Seer which was erected at the place where he died.
(Updated, as it appears now in August 2016).
(Updated, as it appears now in August 2016).
Also often visible at Chanonry Point are Dolphins at play.
The Prophesies
The Seer was at one time in the Culloden district on some important business. While passing over what is now so well known as the Battlefield of Culloden, he exclaimed, "Oh! Drummossie, thy bleak moor shall, ere many generations have passed away, be stained with the best blood of the Highlands. Glad am I that I will not see that day, for it will be a fearful period; heads will be lopped off by the score, and no mercy will be shown or quarter given on either side." It is perhaps unnecessary to point out how literally this prophecy has been fulfilled on the occasion of the last battle fought on British soil. There are several other versions of it from different parts of the country, almost all in identical terms.
When it becomes possible to cross the River Ness dry-shod in five places, a frightful disaster will strike the world.’ (Fulfilled. A fifth bridge was built in the last few days of August,1939. Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st.)
The day will come when long strings of carriages without horses shall run between Dingwall and Inverness, and more wonderful still, between Dingwall and the Isle of Skye.’ (Fulfilled by the coming of the railway 1860-1897.)
The day will come when the Mackenzies of Fairburn shall lose their entire possessions, and that branch of the clan shall disappear almost to a man from the face of the earth. Their castle shall become uninhabited, desolate and forsaken, and a cow shall give birth to a calf in the uppermost chamber in Fairburn Tower.’ (The last of the Mackenzie line died unmarried in 1850. The castle fell into ruin, and a cow calved in the tower, 1851.)
He also foresaw another disaster for the native Scots when he said that sheep shall supplant men and Scotsmen would "head south" and emigrate to all corners of the world and leave their home behind. In the 18th century, the Highlands were drastically depopulated when the British ordered that giant sheep farms be established, ending the small "crofts" that had been the standard of rural Scotland for centuries. The "clearances" led to many Scotsmen emigrating to America, Canada and Australia.
He also foresaw days when "horrible black rain" would fall from the sky. This may refer to radioactive fallout of some kind or perhaps a disaster in the North Sea oil fields near Scotland.
More about the Seer can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahan_Seer
Friday 16 August 2013
R.I.P. the Kirky Legend
R.I.P. Kirky Legend - Passed away on 14 July 2013
This is a rather unusual post for me, in that it is about a man I saw every day (for about thirty years) until about a week ago, Jim Rae.
Jim looked like a man of the road, with his tattered oilskins, large rubber galoshes and a huge backpack.
Whenever I went into the Village he was always there, striding along the road with his peculiar loping gait, or standing at one of the bus stops.
He wasn't homeless though, he apparently lived in a modern appartment near Townhead in Kirkintilloch .
Goodbye Jim, you will be sadly missed.
A Tribute Page has been established on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/RIP-Kirky-Legend/398575646920819?hc_location=stream
Photographs are courtesy of that Page.
Please note that the organiser of the Kirky Legend Facebook page has arranged to have a collector, or collectors at the Kirkintilloch Canal Festival on Saturday 24 August to raise a fund to pay for a monument to Jim Rae.
Photographs are courtesy of that Page.
Please note that the organiser of the Kirky Legend Facebook page has arranged to have a collector, or collectors at the Kirkintilloch Canal Festival on Saturday 24 August to raise a fund to pay for a monument to Jim Rae.
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