Grow old along with me; the best is yet to be - Robert Browning
Perhaps I had ambitions to be an MP - or an undertaker!
Thursday, January 20, 2011
For a number of years now, I've enjoyed surfing the net and collecting paintings and photographs that I've found there.
Here are three photos taken in the High Street and Saltmarket areas of 19th century Glasgow.
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My parents were both born in the last decade of the 19th century, and there will undoubtedly have been places in Kirkintilloch just like those shown above.
This photo of my father was probably taken in 1914 when he joined the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.
I think it would be around that time when my mother (on the left) was photographed with a friend.
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BLOG NEWS
This week-end my new site JOHN'S GALLERY begins with 4 paintings by Jan Vermeer, including my favourite "The Girl with the Pearl Earring." Then from Monday onwards I will be adding a painting each week-day. The address is http://johnsgallery.blogspot.com
The Pre-Raphaelite blog will continue on week-days, Quiet Corner on Tuesdays, The Poetry Path on Wednesdays, and A Touch of Culture on Fridays.
Wise Men Say, which has the biggest following, will achieve a record of sorts next month, for it will have been going for 5 years.
As you can see, all these websites will keep me busy, but something must go and I've decided that today's post on EIGHTY PLUS will be the last.
I always like to finish up with something from YouTube, so here's a record from 1931 - "You're Driving Me Crazy" played by the original BBC Dance Orchestra led by Jack Payne. The vocalist is Val Rosing.
Three weeks ago, having posted 80 paintings, I brought my Pre-Raphaelite blog to an end.
However since then, more and more people have been logging on to the site, and so I decided to do a second series.
This will begin on Saturday 15th January, with the four Pygmalion paintings by Edward Burne-Jones.
When the Pre-Raphaelite blog finished, I began to prepare for a new site in which I would collect my favourite paintings from all schools of art. This will go ahead as planned, and “John’s Gallery” will begin on Saturday 22nd January at - http://johnsgallery.blogspot.com
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The Poetry Path site this week features some love poems by Henry VIII, and next Wednesday I will post two of William Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads.
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Tomorrow the subject on A Touch of Culture is classical guitar music, with some great playing on the 5 short videos.
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“The Harbour at St.Monance” by the Glasgow-born artist Alexander Ignatius Roche (1861-1921)
Watching the Queen deliver her Christmas Day message, I was reminded of a very emotive broadcast given by her father George VI. The occasion was Christmas 1939, just a few months after the start of World War II.
Because of his speech impediment, he spoke very slowly and deliberately, and this made his message sound all the more serious. “A new year is at hand,” he told us, “we cannot tell what it will bring. If it brings peace, how thankful we shall all be. If it brings us continual struggle we shall remain undaunted.” And he concluded with a quote which has now become famous. The words are from a poem by Minnie Louise Haskins.
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied, “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
I believe that the thought expressed in those simple words had a profound effect on all who heard the broadcast.
That led me to remember another royal broadcast, this one four years earlier, on 11th December 1936 when I was 11 years old. That was when the uncrowned King Edward announced on the radio that he was abdicating. I remember the unusually serious faces of my parents as they sat listening to the King’s message which told the nation of his inability to do his job “as I would have wished” without the support of “the woman I love.” The woman in question of course was Mrs. Simpson, a twice-divorced American who was considered to be quite unsuitable a person to be our Queen.
And, while I’m reminiscing, I must tell you of another broadcast (not a royal one) which caused some excitement at the time. It happened on the evening of 15th October 1940. As usual we were sitting in the living room listening to the news on the wireless. Suddenly there was some kind of crashing sound from the radio. The announcer Bruce Belfrage hesitated for a moment or two, and then carried on reading the news.
Later we learned that a 500 lb bomb had been dropped on broadcasting house, killing 7 BBC staff members. There was a great deal of praise for Bruce Belfrage who had managed to keep going, despite the fact that the ceiling had fallen around him.
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
To finish, there are some excellent pictures of Scotland in this short slide show.
