L. Capability Brown landscape gardens

Known as the Father of British Landscape Architecture, Lancelot Cap­ab­ility Brown (1716-83) started life as an estate worker's son. The Northum­b­erland lad trained as a gardener's boy at the local country house, Kirkharle Hall. By 1741 he had reached Stowe, a Bucking­hamshire estate where he became responsible for one of the loveliest landscape gardens in England. He stayed at Stowe for ten years and got married in the local church.

Croome sits in Brown's landscape.

Note the architectural reflections in the lake

Claude and Poussin’s view of the Roman Campagna inspired naturalistic garden design and Brown refused to create formal, symmetrical French Baroque gardens. Instead he designed naturalistic, picturesque spaces with undulating grasses, tree clumps, curving lakes and flowing rivers. He wanted to create landscapes like those the C18th Grand Tourists saw in Italy.

Naturalistic did not mean untouched. Capability Brown surveyed the land he had available to him and considered how to transform the English landscape with his designs. He did whatever needed to be done: moved entire hills, created vast lakes and managed distant views. Because wide open expanses, views and vistas were so important, landowners had to cooperate with Brown. Brown asked the landowners to redesign their houses so that the views could be better seen from the front rooms & they have agreed immediately

And the landowners would have paid! By the 1760s Brown was earning a fortune, usually £500 for one commission! As an accomplished rider he was able to work fast, arriving on horseback to survey an estate and prepare the plan in detail. Where he did not even have time to visit, Brown created a design on paper and let a subcontractor get on with the job.

His 170 surviving landscapes include the World Heritage Sites at Blen­heim Palace, Highclere Castle aka Downton Abbey, Alnwick, Chatsworth, Syon Byk and Compton Verney. In these places and others, Capability Brown set the standard for contemporary and future landscape designers, and probably landscape artists as well; he created the landscape style that I think of as typically English.

Bowood House, 1880, 

Wiki

Brown laid out the western lawns and removed the early C18th formal gardens. Lawns and trees replaced a canal and parterres on three sides of the house, and also created pleasure grounds in what had been a plantation. Brown turned the lakes into a single expanse of water by removing the dam between the upper long pool and the middle pool, making way for a new bridge. In 2016-7, an influential group of organisations and landowners marked the 300th anniversary of Capability Brown's birth with a nation­wide festival celebrating his life - guided walks, musical event, theatre productions and family activities. And Capabili-Teas, C18th-style tea parties.

Money raising and organising was done by the Landscape Institute, on behalf of a partnership which included the Association of Gardens Trusts, English Heritage, Garden History Society, Historic Houses Association, National Gardens Scheme, Parks & Gardens UK, Natural England, Visit Britain, Visit England and National Trust. Their first goal was to bring the special quality of Brown’s landscapes to a wider audience, both nationally and internationally. The second goal was to have as many of Brown's parks and gardens open to the public as possible. The third goal was to fix Brown at the forefront of modern thinking on design, and on the management of the natural environment.

A remarkable collection of watercolour paintings and drawings, once owned by the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, went on show at Hampton Court Palace. Never displayed before, the exhibition of 60 detailed views of the palace, park and gardens nicely captured Hampton Court during the time when Capability Brown served there as Chief Gardener to King George III. This intriguing collection appar­ently had remained forgotten in the State Hermitage Museum archives in St Petersburg.

Hannah Northam's portrait bust of Brown

2016

No portrait bust existed of Brown. So Haddonstone, maker of architectural stonework, commissioned sculptor Hannah Northam to create a new stonework piece. Examine the bust and see that it does indeed look like Brown's 1773 portrait by Nathaniel Dance (National Gallery). The completed work went on display at Blenheim, and in Haddonstone’s own show gardens in East Haddon near Northampton.

The festival showed a play called Mr Brown’s Directions that was produced at Burton Constable. And Capability Brown themed guided garden tours were held at Bowood House in Wiltshire. Visitors were taken along the lake, to the hidden cascade and through the arboretum, followed by a lunch in the House Restaurant. The rest of the day was free to explore the historic Georgian house and grounds.

Compton Verney in its Brown landscaped park

near Stratford-upon-Avon.

Was Capability Brown always admired? Of course not.. tastes come and tastes go. Brown's reputation declined somewhat after his death, because his landscape style was gentle and undulating. It was not remotely dramatic nor did it express the full conflict of wild nature. In the C19th Brown’s critics were bored with his work.

one of Compton Verney galleries

Many thanks to the Lancelot Capability Brown: a Research Impact Review, University of East Anglia.

 

Panama Canal: corruption or poor science?

Europeans dreamed of a Central American canal for ages; even Pres. Ulysses Grant sent 7 feasibility expeditions. As tra­v­­el and trade in the Western hemisphere increased, a canal became essential. To sail from the At­l­­an­tic to Pacific, ships went around treacherous Cape Horn taking c21,000 ks (New York-San Francisco)

The isthmus separating Gulf of Panama

from the Caribbean Sea

     

In Feb 1881, driven by patriotism and capitalised by mainly small in­vestors, the Panama Company began work on a canal that would cross the Col­ombian isthmus of Panama and unite the Atlantic & Pacific Oceans. This can­al would make its stockholders rich, just as the Suez did for its investors. Ferdinand de Lesseps (1805-94) showed the tiny cross-Panama rail­way had made $7+ million in 6 years although building that rail­road HAD cost 6,000+ lives.

Even though he had little financial expertise, De Lesseps handled prom­oting and money-raising for the canal project. His enthusiasm for the pro­ject, and his faith in technology, att­racted many stockholders. Frenchmen keenly invested because public loans were backed by the French gov­ernment, thus a patriotic public service.  

French share certificates

signed by de Lesseps

When work started in 1881, digging progressed slowly but st­ead­ily. The French contr­ol­led modern equipment, from locom­ot­ives to tug­boats & dredges, while their crew was made mostly of West Indian & Indian lab­ourers. De Lesseps, who’d visited Pa­nama only in the dry season, disregarded the rain warnings of men who knew Pa­nama in­tim­ately. Now his crew discovered imp­as­sable jungle, tor­r­ential rain, ins­ects, sn­akes, swamps, hell­ish heat and smallpox. In 1881 the Fr­ench recorded 60 deaths from disease. In 1882 deaths doub­led. In 1883 420 died mainly from malaria and yellow fever, but the Co. of­ten fired sick labourers to reduce medical costs. Doctors at the French hos­p­ital at An­con worked hard but 3 out of 4 men hospitalised there died.

Ch­agres River crossed the canal route 14 times! De Lesseps' decid­ed to dam and divert the river, ignoring eng­in­eers’ advice re the impossible task. But in the rainy season, this River rose to a monst­rous torrent that swept everything aw­ay. Chest deep in mud, the Fr­en­­ch force contin­ued. The rain and Chag­res often de­st­royed what en­g­ineering and hard labour won; mudslides buried men, sup­p­lies, mach­ines.

In 1887 Gustave Eiffel agreed to build Panama Canal's locks. This was his biggest contract AND the riskiest. So he was gr­ant­ed major financial advantages and solid guarantees, all­owing him to collect his profit as soon as the work began.

When the Canal Co failed in Dec 1888, French investments were lost and Panama meant fraud; c$287 m had been sp­ent, 50 million cubic ms of rock were moved, 11 miles of canal dug & 20,000 men killed. The money end­­ed and shareholders voted to dis­s­ol­ve the Co, placing it in legal re­ceiv­er­ship.

The wor­th­less Canal Co. stock made investors fur­ious, demanding the Fr­en­ch government conduct an 1893 Inquiry which named many individuals and in­stitutions. The br­ibes, slush funds and in­fl­uence ped­dling also pr­oved that many legis­l­ators were involved!! Key fin­an­ciers Baron de Reinach and Cornelius Herz allegedly gave bribes to targets. The public claimed that the VERY REA­SON for their con­fid­en­ce, government back­ing of loans, was the key factor in the crisis. And although some culprits were impr­is­oned or fined, de Rein­ach died before he was sen­tenced. Ferdinand & Charles de Lesseps, and Gust­ave Ei­f­fel, were sentenced to (non-enforced) prison terms. Herz fled to Eng­land. Eventually the burden was born ONLY the c800,000 French citizens who saw their investments eliminated.

So President Roosevelt took up the cause. In 1901, Roos­evelt passionately spoke of the Panama Canal to Congr­ess. In 1902 the U.S agreed to buy rights to the French canal property and equipment for c$40 mill and U.S Dept of War began negotiating a Panama treaty with Colombia.

When Colombia slowed negotiations, Roosevelt & Panam­an­ian bus­iness int­er­ests collaborated on a revolution las­ting br­ief­ly. Colombian soldiers in Colón were each brib­ed $50 to down arms; USS Nashville cruised off the Panaman­ian coast in supp­ort. In Nov 1903, the nation of Panama was born.

The U.S took control. Americans had written the Pan­amanian Constit­ut­ion in advance, after a payment of $10 million se­cured a canal zone and rights to build. The pro-canal lobbyist Phil­lipe Bunau-Varilla, instal­l­ed as Pan­amanian minister to the U.S., signed a treaty favourable to US in­t­erests. The $40 million given to J.P Morgan for distribution to French stockholders faded amid rumours of larceny.

The Americans' first year in Panama (1904) replicated the French disast­er. The chief engineer, John F Wallace, developed no action plan; the food was putrid and living conditions abysmal. Disease struck, 3 out of 4 Am­ericans went home, and Wallace soon followed. The Americans had poured $128 useless millions into the swamps of Panama.

Clever John Stevens took over, he who’d built the Great Nor­thern Railroad across the Pacific NW. He ultimately saved the troubled canal with a new plan i.e a well-housed, well-fed, disease-free labour force. Dr William Gorgas, who’d earlier eradicated yellow fever in Havana by killing mosq­uitoes & sanit­ation. Workers drained swamps, swept ditches, pav­ed roads, instal­led plumbing and sp­rayed pesticides. Towns rose with housing, schools, churches, shops and halls.

Pres. Roosevelt visiting the Canal

1906, PBS

After 9 months of Capitol Hill lob­bying, the push for Roosevelt’s fav­oured Lake and Lock Canal succeed­ed and the canal's engineering was ch­ang­ed. Stevens planned to dam the Chagres to create the vast Gat­un Lake in Panama's interior where a series of locks could raise ships from the Atl­antic side to the level of the lake. The boats could cross the lake, then de­scend by another set of locks to the Pacific. This plan was near­ly iden­tical to one proposed by French engineer Godin de Lépinay in 1879 when M de Lesseps promoted his sea-level plan. With sanitat­ion complete, gig­an­tic steam shovels scooped tons of earth, and railroad cars ran on double tracks, dumping tailings on the Chagres dam.

By Dec 1905 yellow fever had been eradicated. In Nov 1906 Roosevelt happily visited the canal. In Feb 1907, Chief Engineer Stevens resigned and Col. George Goethals, an Army engin­eer who built lock-type canals, quickly took over.

First ships ready to test the Canal, 1913

At Gatun Locks on the Atlantic side, workers poured concrete for a wall 8' wide, 12' high and 133 miles long. They built cul­v­erts/rail­­road tunnels to channel water from Gatun Lake into the locks. Pitt­sburgh's furnaces roared as 50+ mills, foundries and mac­hine shops chur­ned out the metalwork. There were lost equip­ment and deaths, but progress!

In May 1913, steam shovels broke through the Culebra Cut and the last cement was poured at Gatun locks. The Chagres filled Gatun Lake, and en­g­ineers prepared for the canal's first trial run in Sept. The  end was near! The Panama Canal opened officially on Aug 1914. Sadly just as German troops were driving across Belgium to Paris.

A cruise ship sails down the completed Canal

Many thanks to PBS 

medieval Barcelona, Jewish sites, Christian control

Barcelona is a loved cultural destination by international trav­ellers – in 2017, c32 million tourists visited the city of 1.6 million residents. When I was a tour­ist there, I loved it.

From C9th until the final Spanish Expulsion in 1492, Jews flourished spiritually and intellectually. Despite Barcelona never becoming the major centre of Jewish life in Spain, it featured prominently in the country’s history as the port city at the crossroads of trade in Western Mediterranean.

Barcelona Haggadah, late C14th 

illuminated manuscript

British Museum

Catalonian Jews developed a unique identity and language, Judaeo-Catalan. Of the c4,000 Jews living in Bar­celona in the C13th, many worked as doctors, scientists, scholars, merchants or money lenders for Catalon­ia’s royals and aristocracy. The Jewish dist­rict was named El Call and was located in the middle of the Goth­ic Quarter, starting at the NW corner of Plaza St Jaume. Despite its hid­den nature, El Call was the heart of Spanish Jewish history.

Call Marlet, Wiki

ancient synagogue,  expanded in the C13th 

Walking through the Jewish Quarter’s very narrow streets, see a house which was ? where Rabbi Shlomo Ben Avraham ibn Aderet/the Rashba (1235-1310) had lived. He became a successful banker, schol­ar and rabbinical authority; then he was named the chief rabbi of Spain, serving in Barcelona’s Sinagoga Mayor for 50 years.

Near the cathedral was Palau Reial Major where the religious disputation of July 1263 took place before Span­ish King James I between Nachmanides/Rabbi Ramban & Pablo Cristiani. Nachmanides was initially Rabbi of Girona, and later became the chief rabbi of Catalonia. Cristiani was a Jew­ish convert who’d been encouraging other Jews to convert to Christ­ianity. He assured the king that he would prove the truth of Christ­ianity, from the Talmud and other rabbinical writings. The Ramban agreed and after 4 tough days of debating in front of the king and men of the chur­ch, King James dec­lared Nach­manides the victor. In fear Nachmanides fled the country, moved to Jerusalem and established the Ramban Synag­ogue.

A century before the Inquisition and expulsion across Spain, Barcelonians were subjected to pogroms. The Black Death ep­id­emic of 1348 provoked the slanderous accusation that the Jews had poisoned the water, so the call was attacked and Jews were murd­ered. But the most brutal pogrom was in 1391 - c3,000 Jews were mur­d­ered, Jewish cemet­er­­ies were vand­alised, and some of the grave­stones were embedded into the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and St Eulalia’s walls.

Barcelonians were endangered in 1391, but not all the Jews could escape. See the building where Jews were brought to be interrog­ated and tortu­red by the Inquisitors. Today this building houses the Mus­eum of the Barcelona Diocese, standing next to the Cath­edral’s Gothic walls.

Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia

Wiki

 Only when the Jews were finally expelled in 1492 did the community leave behind its historical artefacts, abandoned synagogues and un­attend­ed cem­et­­er­ies. Now that those sites were re-examined, Bar­celona’s con­cealed Jewish history and archaeology have been re-rev­ealed. And recently researchers from Barcelona gained access to thousands of documents stored in Spanish Inqu­is­ition Dungeons. Through thorough archival examin­at­ion, they pieced together Barcelona’s stories. The result was a walking trek through local Jewish history, with a great historical map.

The space of Placa del Rei/Plaza of the King is surrounded by a sinister-looking building with archways and prison cell-like struc­t­ures. That was the square where the Inquisition did its work; Jews who refused to convert, or were caught practicing their true faith, were burned at the auto-da-fé. Many families really did convert to Catholicism, to be allowed to stay in Spain, and other families became Marranos (pretend Catholics).

Forever Barcelona recommends these tourists sites:
A] The ancient synagogue was C3rd or 4th. When Sinagoga May­or’s building was first ident­if­ied as an ancient shul, it was one of the oldest in Europe. The building measured only 60 square ms, because in Medieval Spain a synagogue could never be tal­l­er or bigger than the city’s smallest church. Sinag­oga Mayor reop­ened as a museum in 2002, offering a historical and architectural tour of the old synagogue.

B] The Museum of History of Barcelona opened in a med­ieval weaver home. The museum has two floors of very good displays of Jewish life in Barcelona including a glass floor over the Roman ruins under­ground. In the Medieval Section, see family and relig­ious ceramic objects that survived. The beautiful Barcelona Haggadah was produced in the C13th, showing the Laws of Passover, liturgical poems and Torah readings for Passover according to the Sephardi custom. The copy is in this Museum.

C] The towering rocky cliffs that look down on Barcelona, still cal­led Montjuïc/Mountain of the Jews, were once the site of a major Jewish cemetery. After this cemetery was abandoned, some tombstones near the stone quarries were used for sites in the Gothic Quarter.

D] Visitors can see preserved a few columns and arches, part of the medieval Mikveh/ritual bath in the Barcelona Jewish Quarter. It is now in the back of a modern furniture shop.

E] During the demolition of a Marlet St building in 1920, workers found medieval Hebrew inscriptions regarding Rabbi Samuel Hassardí.

For 500 years there were no Jews in the city, until the early C20th when an influx of both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews moved from Nor­th Africa and Eastern Europe. National apologies for the medieval auto-da-fés and expulsions were slow. But finally Spain’s 2015 Citizenship Law allowed Jews to reclaim their Spanish citizen­ship.

 

Major Synagogue, built C6th

ruined in the 1391 riots

renovated and reopened in the 1990s. 

Wallis Simpson: Britain's royal drama.

Duke and Duchess of Windsor, 
wedding day June 1937 
photograph by Cecil Beaton. 
Britannica

A familiar story was that handsome, popular Prince Edward was expected to marry an aristocratic virgin who’d become Queen when he became King. But at 37, Edward fell in love with divor­ced American, Wal­l­is Simp­son. No one thought the affair would last, especially after his coronation.

The 2019 book, Untitled: The Real Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor was the first to see Wal­lis as a warm, loyal, intelligent woman ad­or­ed by her friends; a woman written off by cunning, in­fl­uential es­tab­lishment men seeking to destroy her rep­utation. Author Anna Pasternak arg­ued that, far from being the villain of the British drama, Wallis was actually the vic­t­im. 

So in reviewing this book, I asked if there any legitimate, altern­ative views about Wallis Simpson, the woman whose relationship with Ed­ward VIII “precipitated” his abdication in Dec 1936. But was the real Wallis an opportunistic American social-climbing man­ipulator who nick­ed the British king? OR the true love of Edward’s life?

Or mere­­ly an unfortunate femme fatale who unwittingly laun­ched the greatest British royal crisis of the C20th? Edward’s dark nature was no sec­ret to the royal family, the church or the Parliament; everyone cl­ose to Edward knew that beyond his charming façade, he was imm­at­ure, self-centred and unfit to rule. Wallis begged Edward to stay on the throne and let her go.

"Untitled: The Real Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor"
by Anna Pasternak

From the reviews, some readers understood the auth­or's attempt to un-demonise Wallis, and make her more sympathetic to history. Wal­lis' difficult childhood and romantic past, before she met Edward, became clear in the book. She was orphaned as a neonate and felt shame in her adolescence about being the illegit­imate, poor relat­ion of an important Baltimore family. Read of her first disastrous, abusive marriage, followed by a tragic, un­req­uited love affair with a diplomat.

Wallis was flattered by Edward’s attention, but like everyone else, she never expected his jealous passion to last. Aristocratic aff­airs were always time-limited, and in any case she never planned to divorce her second husband.

Powerful men wanted King Edward, whom they considered weak and ill-disciplined, off the throne and they used Wallis as the reason. Here was a woman written off by a cun­n­ing, powerful British est­ab­lishment who sought to destroy and dim­inish her.  PM Stanley Baldwin and Cosmo Lang, Ar­chbishop of Canterbury, both had vested interests in dehumanising Wallis, as did the palace courtiers.

Wallis was accused of entrapping the prince in a sed­uctive web in order to achieve her impossible ambition to be queen. The royal court agreed, assuming that Wallis could only have had a “sexual” hold on the prince! Yet there was no evidence that their relation­ship ever became phys­ic­al. Or with any of her other husbands/lovers for that matt­er. Who knew that Edward was left ster­ile by mumps as a child, suffering from orchitis of the testes? or that Wallis had a medical condition that made conception impossible.

Nonetheless she ended up being manipul­at­ed into a tedious mar­riage (in June 1937) to a spoiled ex-King. During their marriage, Wallis undoubtedly worked hard to make Edward happy. But Pasternak argued that the abdication had made Wallis cruel and ab­us­ive towards Edward in their marriage; she was bitter about being trapped.

It was what Pasternak did not say that was neglectful. From his youth Edward had manifested a fondness for the German language and culture. In July 1933, he said it was “no business of ours to inter­fere in Germany’s internal affairs either re Jews or re anything else. Dictators are very popular these days. We might want one in England before long.”

Edward VIII abdicating on BBC radio,
December 11, 1936. 

Britannica

In Seventeen Carnations, Andrew Morton detailed Wallis’ close rel­at­ionship with members of Hitler’s cabinet, esp foreign min­ister Joachim von Ribbentrop. The extent of the couple’s in­vol­vement with the Germans was unproven, yet both royals were enth­us­iastic supporters of the Nazi regime. They had not simply befriended the Nazis to avoid another war. Morton called Wallis “nonchalantly rac­ist and anti-Semitic”, as a product of her era and cult­ure. Clearly both royals shared a racist, anti-Semitic worldview. One of Morton’s sources claimed both Wallis and the Duke were mak­ing anti-Semitic remarks at a dinner party. "People were horrif­ied when they made it perfectly clear that the world would have been a better place if Jews were extermin­at­ed."

Who was more pro-Hitler and who fol­l­owed? Hitler had been telephoned by Lord Halif­ax reg­ard­ing Germany's expan­sion­ist pol­ic­ies, att­empting to get their 2 govern­ments to negotiate.

3 days later the Wind­sor tour to Germany ended with a meeting with Adolf Hitler in Oct 1937 at Hitler’s Bav­arian retreat, The Berg­hof. There Edward and Hit­ler had a long discussion where the Duke en­couraged his “ally” to pursue Nazi policies in the East. Then the Windsors had an amicable tea with Hitler and left. A con­tem­porary observer des­cribed how the Duchess was vis­ib­ly impressed with the Führer’s personality, and ind­ic­ated that they had become fast friends.

Edward’s family banished them from UK. They spent the rest of their days in exile, in quiet devoted love for each other. 

In conclusion, Wallis never intended to divorce her second hus­band, Ernest Simpson, with whom she had a comfortable marriage. But the King forced her into an untenable position, refusing to ever give her up. In the name of his needy love, Wallis paid the ultimate price: entrapment by a child­ish narcissist who insisted on the two things he wanted most – her and the throne. He chose Wallis.

Anna Pasternak showed that Wallis Simpson was actually an intel­l­igent wom­an, written off by cunning, powerful men and for­ced into a life she never wanted, in a tragic story of betrayal. Pasternak read Wallis and Edward’s published letters and was haunt­ed by their tragic love affair.

This book was a reworking of earlier Wallis books, although there were in­deed important facts I didn't know about before. But, apart from feeling sorry for her long and lonely life, noth­ing much about Wallis has changed in my mind … or about Edward for that matter.

Edinburgh's 17th century Tron Kirk

Tron Kirk/Church was commissioned in Edinburgh by King Charles I from Scot­t­ish architect John Myle, as part of the plan to upgrade Edinburgh to city status. And it seems that the timing was critical. King Charles was try­ing to impose an Episcopal structure onto the reluctant Scottish Church. This was just after the bishopric designation of Edinburgh’s High Kirk St Giles in the royal charter of 1633.

Looking along the Royal Mile to Tron Kirk.

Furthermore the location was also significant. The North-West parish congreg­at­ion had been displaced by St Giles’ changing status, and they required a new home. So the new church was built on the Edinburgh's gorgeous Royal Mile.

As the building went up in the 1630s and 1640s, the architectural taste was mixed, reflecting both the cultural tastes and the politics of that period. The side of the Kirk facing Hunter Square looks like a Dutch church or town hall of the same era. Other parts of the building look Palladian, with strong Gothic elements.

Scottish Historic Buildings Trust

 

Change over the centuries was inevitable. For example, the Great Fire of Edinburgh in Nov 1824 ravaged Scotland’s capital. Ten lives were lost and hundreds of families made homeless due to the inferno. £200,000+ worth of damage was inflicted on the south side of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile which included the toppling of the Tron Kirk’s famous Dutch-influenced steeple. The current Tron Kirk steeple, which was a totally new design, was not created until 1828.

The church has been largely closed to the public since soon after WW2 and it was very fortunate to escape destruction. Plans to remove the church were regularly floated in order to improve traffic flow around the busy junction of the Bridges and the Royal Mile. Luckily for Tron Kirk, it became a key part of a large plan to restore the historic heart of the city. The goal was to bring unused heritage buildings back to life as cultural and arts venues.

A restoration programme commenced in 1974 and even then there was a surprise: work on the floor and foundations of the church uncovered the remnants of 16th century shops and dwellings on historic Marlin’s Close. Naturally the site soon became interesting to historians and archaeologists. The excavated remains of the medieval Marlin’s Close have now been glassed over, creating a unique and fascinating window into Edinburgh’s past.

The Kirk’s connections with Hogmanay were interesting. While the winter solstice was celebrated among the Norse in ancient times, the link to the Vikings’ celebration of Yule (then the Twelve Days of Christmas) might also have played a role. Perhaps these pagan winter festivities were not always popular with the stout Scottish clerics of the Protestant Reformation, but this changed. By the late C17th, various areas of Scotland were developing their own Hogmanay rituals including, or perhaps especially Edinburgh.   

                

Edinburgh Hogmanay, New Year's Eve

DanFlyingSolo

As a result, Edinburgh Hogmanay celebrations these days are probably some of the best attended in the world. And in Dec 2012 the Tron Kirk was open, for three hectic days and nights, to people welcoming in the New Year. The title, A Festival of the Extraordinary: The Drambuie Surreal Sessions, might suggest that some alcohol was involved. However the goal was always to help secure the future of the Tron Kirk as a central arts and culture venue in Edinburgh.

Today Tron Kirk Market is run by the Scottish Design Exchange, the company who support local artists and designers. The market provides space for 21 local artists and designers, selling a range of handmade products eg pottery, jewellery, woodwork, original art and prints

Tron Kirk Market

The original stained glass windows are still protected.

The Conservation organisation, Edinburgh World Heritage, submit­ted the plans to the Edinburgh City Council to open a visitor centre in the church. Now approved, this visitor centre will explain the history of the capital's Old and New Towns from inside the 17th century site. Perfect.

Canadian history, Hudson’s Bay Co and furs

The C17th fur trade became a major commercial growth in Nth Am­erica, due to Eur­ope’s dem­and for beaver hats. Two French trad­ers pl­an­ned a trad­ing com­pany to reach the inland via Hudson Bay and to gain access to the int­er­ior fur resources. Af­ter not win­n­ing French sup­­port, they went to Prince Rupert in Britain in 1665 where Rup­ert sw­ay­ed cousin King Charles II, mer­ch­­ants and noble men to back the ve­n­ture. Two ships were sent mid 1668 and the royal charter for Rup­ert’s Land. Hudson’s Bay Co./HBC was pr­o­claimed May 1670. The Gov­ernor and Co. of Advent­ur­ers of England received ex­clusive trading rights in Hud­son Bay Terr­it­ory.

Original charter of the HBC, declared in 1670

HBC shareholders at Annual General Court Meeting elected a Governor and comm­ittee to organ­ise fur auctions, order trade goods, hire workers and arr­ange shipping. The London-based Governor set all the basic polic­ies implem­ented in Rup­ert’s Land, using annual reports, journals & accounts supplied by the Bay of­f­icials. 

Prince of Wales and Eddystone, Hudson's Bay Co. Ships

Canadian Encyclopaedia

After trapping beaver pelts when they reached their best quality (win­t­er), Indigenous Peoples trav­elled to the trading posts in sum­m­er. These traders were middlemen, bringing furs from inland communities and trad­ing furs for manufactured goods eg tools, guns, text­il­es, food.

In 1713 France agreed to England’s claim to Hudson Bay with Treaty of Utr­echt. For 60 years, the HBC erected posts largely at major rivers flowing into the bay. This hesit­ance to establish posts in Rupert’s Land all­owed comp­et­itors to out­do the HBC by travel­l­ing into the in­ter­ior to trade with Indigenous peoples. In return, ind­igenous trad­ers extracted greater ret­urns for their furs. 

 

Timber wolf fur sales, Fur Harvesters Auction in North Bay, Ont.

CBC

Until 1763 HBC struggled with the French for control of fur trades in south­ern Rupert’s Land, and naval battles erupted on Hud­son & James Bays. In the Treaty of Paris 1763, the Montreal overland trade network was taken by the British. By 1774 HBC trade had been undercut enough that the Governor designed an aggres­s­ive policy of inland expansion, be­ginning with building facilities on the Saskatch­ewan River.

Intensive competition with the North West Co. spil­l­ed beyond Rup­ert’s Land into the Pac­if­ic slope, combining economic conflict with occasional physical viol­ence. In 1821 the parties merged, and the British Parlia­ment extended the Co.’s monopolies to include the N.W Territories.

Bringing together the different business traditions of the North West Co. and HBC required changes in the new Co’s administrative structure. British North America was divided into trading depart­ments and dist­r­icts. District managers met annual­ly in depart­mental council meetings presided over by the Governor in North Am­erica, Sir George Simpson. Th­ese coun­cils passed reg­ul­ations governing local trade, det­er­mined work­ers’ deployment and established the log­is­tical requirements. The offic­ers also had a vested interest since they shared in the profits, accord­ing to the 1821-71 deed polls. But Sim­pson had considerable power, and the London Governor overruled local decisions. Post-merger, the HBC closed many unprof­itable trading posts, adv­ersely damaging Indigenous groups whose survival relied on fur.

After 1821, independent free Métis traders at the Red River Colony opp­osed the Co’s monopoly rights, which had been renewed in 1838. The issue ended in the famous 1849 Sayer Trial, where Métis man Pierre-Guillaume Sayer was tried and convict­ed of trading with Indigen­ous groups, violating the Co’s legal privileges. The court’s decision to free him effectively opened the trade of Rup­ert’s Land.

To standardise trade between posts, HBC introduced the Made Beav­er as the currency (1857). All furs were valued according to the equivalent of one prime male beaver skin. Hud­s­on's Bay Co. fur trade im­pacted on Indig­en­ous peoples, many of whom ab­andoned th­eir life-styles and economy, and relied on Europ­ean manuf­ac­t­ured goods for survival.

Although the Co.’s primary concern remained the fur trade, it increas­ingly provided government for settlers in Red River Valley and Vanc­ouver Island. Only in 1849 did Britain grant­ the Van­couver Island col­ony to the HBC, to be used as an agricultural sett­lement.

During the Fraser Gold Rush in 1858, the mainland colony of British Co­l­umbia was created out of New Caledonia. Governor James Douglas was requ­ir­ed by the British govern­ment to resign his HBC commission before bec­om­ing Governor of BC. Thus the Co. began to relinquish its colonial res­ponsibilities. It was then Canada’s growing expansionist movement saw the ann­exation and settlement of the NW as essential to Canada’s future.

Expansionists portrayed the HBC as delaying Canada’s growth; they cl­aim­ed that to protect its fur trade interests, the HBC had proclaimed that the NW was a barren waste­land, unsuited to agricultural set­tlement. But this belief was challenged by reports of the Palliser and Hind expedit­ions in 1857-60 which encouraged westward British settlement.

In 1863, International Financial Society bought control in HBC, signal­l­ing a shift in the Co: most new shareholders were less interested in the fur trade than in real estate and economic development in the West. Negotiations held with the Colonial Office and with the Can­adian government DID result in selling Rupert’s Land to Can­ada in 1870. In the agreement the Co retained title to the old trading lands.

Fur trader in Northwest Territories, in the 1890s

Wiki

See the post-1870 growth. By retain­ing large land­holdings on the prair­ies adjacent to its posts, many of which were loc­at­ed in growing ur­ban centres, the HBC became a most im­portant dev­el­opers in western Canada.

As Prairie economic development accelerated post-1870, the Co. expanded retail business with settlers. Initially most of this act­ivity occurred at its trading posts. Since it differed from the trade with Indigenous groups, separate sales shop accounts were kept. Then the HBC’s retail and whole­sale divisions emerged, with outlets separate from fur trade. In 1910 the Co was divided into 1]land, 2]fur & 3]retail. In 1913 HBC helped build new retail shops, recog­nising that this had a greater fut­ure potential than land and fur sales. The first of the 6 stores op­en­ed in Calg­ary and the last in Winnipeg in 1926. From 1965 the shop em­braced the short form of its name, The Bay, and its logo featured the B. And its historic coat of arms nodded to its rich role in Canadian history.

Hudson's Bay Montreal, department store chain acquired by HBC in 1960.

 In 1970, 300th year in HBC history, the Queen formally transferred it from U.K to Canada, with new headquarters in Winnipeg. The Co. owned 239 dep­art­ment stores in Canada and U.S then. But  after failing to secure new financing or buyers, the historic 355-year-old retailer permanently closed its last doors in 2025 and completed liquidation.

Thank you to Canadian Encyclopedia

 

Jewish Toledo - Spain's finest & worst eras

Toledo, capital city of Old Castile, started with the Romans. Jews have lived there at least since the C6th; in 589 CE, Council of Tol­edo pro­hibited Jews from marrying Christ­ians, hold­ing public of­f­ice or own­ing Christian serv­ants. Clearly the Jews suffered greatly under Ch­rist­ian­ity, especially when the 8th Toledo Council created even worse anti­-Semitic leg­islation in 652 CE. The rift between the two commun­ities led the Jews to befriend the new conquerors in the Muslim conquest of Toledo in 715 CE.

Facade of the Synagogue and Sefardi Museum

In 1252 King Alfonso X captured Toledo and declared it Christian again, yet this time he ensured that the Jews were treated as eq­u­als. Many Jews migrated to Toledo and rose to prom­inence, in pol­it­ics and government. Alfonso even named a Jewish physician as his royal appointment.

By mid-C13th, Toledo’s Archbishop grew concerned by the fin­an­cial and political prominence of the Jewish community, so he impos­ed a tax and housing tithe on every adult Jew. This didn’t work, since by 1290 nearly half of the town’s resources was still own­ed by Jews!

The commun­ity leader was the community’s rabbi; in 1305 Tol­edo Jews chose the learned nobleman Asher Ben Jehiel Abulafia (d1328) to lead them. In 1320 Samuel Ha-Levi Abulafia was born, the Abulafias having led the Jewish comm­unity in Castile for decades. Sadly Samuel’s parents died of the plague, and as Samuel was too young to inherit their legacy, he was app­ren­t­iced to the Knight Juan Alfonso instead. Samuel rose quickly in society un­til he found vit­al positions in King Ped­ro I of Castile’s court. Samuel became town Mayor, Treasurer and fin­ally High Judge. It was as Treas­urer when he chose to build a synag­og­ue.

Toledo already had 10 synagogues, including Spain’s largest, but this one was Samuel’s own special house of worship. In 1357 the new synagogue opened, with Samuel Ab­ul­afia leading the prayers. To thank his comm­un­ity, Sam­uel also opened the synagogue as a hub for Jew­ish education. Note that in the C14th, Spain had actually decreed a ban on all new Jew­ish educat­ional institutes and synagogues. How­ev­er Sa­m­­uel’s close rel­at­ion­ship with King Pedro meant it was ok. Was it a royal apology for the persecution that Jews had faced in Toledo in the 1348 Black Death?

Samuel Abulafia ignored the regulations requiring synag­og­ues to be under-decorated and smaller than churches. The lav­ish­ly decorated rect­angular prayer hall had a 12m ceiling where Heb­rew in­sc­riptions ext­ol­led both King Pedro and Samuel Ha-Levi. Arabic inscript­ions and Psalm passages were also on the walls, next to the family coat of arms and fine windows. Over 2nd floor women's gallery,  the arches were layers of low-relief stucco tendrils, round­­­els, scallop shells, geometric interlacing & rows of blind arches.

The façade was built of brick and stone and was unad­orned, in order to draw less public attention. Only the tow­ering roof raised the whole synagogue above nearby structures.

Inside Sefardi Museum

 

This house was an active place of worship for many years, but anti-Semitism reappeared. Samuel Ha-Levi Abulafia set out to pro­tect Jewish rights and freed­oms, but as the rift between the two men grew, King Pedro no longer de­f­ended him. Samuel was arrested on corr­up­tion and tortured to death. De­s­pite grow­ing attacks on Tol­ed­o’s Jewish com­munity, his house and synagogue rem­ain­ed, presumably from self-interest; it would be converted to a church.

By 1492, the Jews were given a final ultimatum: the Catholic monar­chs of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, iss­ued the Alhambra Decree which gave Spanish Jews the choice to 1] con­v­ert to Catholicism, 2] leave Spain voluntarily or 3] be expelled. This Royal Decree showed their belief that the Jews’ presence was a threat to Spain’s relig­ious and cultural identity. The exp­ul­sion marked the end to centur­ies of Jew­ish pres­ence in their beloved Spain, and led to their forced mig­rat­­ion to Europe, North Africa and the Ottoman Empire.

As no Jews remained in Toledo, the synagogue was turned into a ch­urch; Ferd­inand and Isabella donated the building to the Order of Cal­atrava who made it a Benedictine priory. The name El Transito, honour­ing the Virgin Mary’s Assumption, was given to the building as a church. Ironically the name today is still Synag­ogue El Transito. Artist Juan Correa de Viv­ar paint­ed a mural of Mary’s Virgin Transit over the original Je­w­­ish wall engr­avings, but Vivar’s canvases were later moved and preserved.

El Transito remained a church until the Sp­anish War of Independence against Napoleon broke out in 1808. Despite heavy resistance, 10,000+ French troops and horses took up resid­ence in Toledo. The Spanish fought back, and the defens­ive lines of both arm­ies often fell there. The Spanish revolutionaries and fighters needed barr­acks, and the spacious Church of El Transito was perfect.

Beautiful Old Toledo and the Tagus river

Things to do in Toledo

Although other heritage sites were lost in battle, by late in the war the synagogue-church-mil­itary barracks had become a symbol of Spain’s succ­ess and indep­endence. Surprisingly (to me) their mil­itary prowess meant El Transito Church became a National Monument.

In the C19th, Spanish Jewish communities began to slowly re­build. So historians and world heritage staff explored the site, and re­cog­nis­ed how important it had once been for the Jewish comm­un­ity. First they res­tored the holy Torah Ark. 14 latt­ices required fix­ing and the Hebrew inscrip­tions had to be carefully restored, letter by letter. Then work on interior walls and the women’s gallery.

Women's gallery on the first floor

Arturo Mélida y Alinari was head architect of the project, focusing on the old roof and outside walls. Before WW1 it was gifted to the commun­ity as a Museum of Sephardi Culture & His­t­ory. A deb­ate arose over whether to also restore the church feat­ures, and eventually they decided to pay homage to the church years. Thus the choir stage and other Christian features were returned to their former glory. Lastly some new features were added to the site eg a large Jewish library and a new Centre for Hebrew Studies.

Main prayer hall in the old synagogue

facing the Holy Arc with velvet curtain and Torah scrolls

The Sefardí Museum was created in 1964, located in the key medieval Hispanic-Jewish building in Spain. Now called the Nat­ional Museum of Hispanic-Jewish Art, the museum opened to the pub­lic, the rooms occ­upying the old ar­chive of the mil­itary ord­ers. The exh­ibition dis­plays Jewish cult­ure in Spain, from before the tragic expul­sion to the development of the Sephardic communities across the world. Many thanks to Mia Amran, and to my daughters-in-law whose parents came from Sephardi Damascus and Alexandria.

Intricately patterned wooden ceiling and stucco decoration

 Location of Toledo in Spain

Credit for the images: Sinagoga El Transito

State killings: Saudi Arabia, USA & Victoria

Saudi authorities beheaded a Pakistani in Feb 2014 for smuggling drugs.
Photo credit: Newsweek.

This article was written by the journalist Phillip Adams and published in The Weekend Australian (27-28 Sep 2014).  What has changed since?

When it comes to beheadings, ISIS are rank amateurs. In the past year the despotic Saudi Arabian regime has decapitated dozens. Enjoying favoured status as a US ally and provider of the good oil, this brutality has aroused no criticism. In Saudi, you can get the chop for everything from adultery to sorcery and minor drug dealing. We are talking public executions. Beheadings are a popular entertainment.

In 1995, Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk reported how 12 women of various South East Asian ethnicities had been executed after callous trials, including a mother and daughter who were beheaded in front of a male audience for murdering the woman’s abusive husband. Last year it was reported that more than 45 foreign maids were on death row in Saudi Arabia. The response from the West and its diplomats? As ever, deafening silence.

Phillip Adams became concerned by Saudi justice in 1980 when seeing the British film Death of a Princess screened, over Saudi protests and the regime’s threats of economic sanctions. A young member of their royal family and her lover had been executed for adultery. His praise for the doco-drama resulted in his first-ever death threat. No sooner had the broadcast began than the tv station received a bomb threat; the discussion continued on tv with the bomb squad and their dogs searching around.

But let’s not be eager to take the high ground. The huge death toll suffered in Iraq as a result of the Bush-Blair-Howard invasion, for example. But at least Australia (1973) and UK (1965) abandoned the death sentence. Not so the US where Texas leads the charge, having killed 600 people by lethal injection since 1982. Meanwhile 31 other US states continue to carry the death penalty, as leaders follow the example of former Texas governor George W Bush in demonstrating their Saudi-style manliness.

execution chamber Georgia Diagnostic Prison, Jackson. 2020

NBC News

Those executions are as political and cruel as the ISIS. And they serve as public entertainments for ultra conservative voters, in the proud tradition of American lynchings. And so often the chemical cocktail fails to do its job, leading to a death that is agonisingly slow. The US government is keen to talk up the savagery of the ISIS beheadings, but while many U.S states employ the death penalty so often, so arbitrarily and so clumsily, and in light of the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo and in secret rendition locations, the High Moral Ground seems totally inappropriate.

I agree with everything Adams said, except for the arbitrary nature of capital punishment in Saudi Arabia and in those American states that execute criminals. Saudi Arabia uses executions specifically to get rid of its problematic populat-ions: single women, married women who talk to men-not-their-husbands, foreign women, people who use guns to kill and drug dealers. Texas (to use Adams’ example) uses executions specifically to get rid of its problematic populations too: young black men, older black men, people who use guns to kill and drug dealers.

And one more statistic to make sense of. The 3 main countries that sent troops to invade Iraq in March 2003 were, as Adams noted, the USA, Britain and Australia. In the 3 weeks taken to complete the air strikes, 7,500 Iraqi civilians were killed by us Westerners, according to The Guardian. The 345 civilian executions in Saudi Arabia, carried out from 2007-10 by public beheading, seem puny in comparison.

Tens of thousands of people protested against the imminent execution of Ronald Ryan

Melbourne, 1967

Photo credit: Herald Sun newspaper

I recommend Dick Hamer: The Liberal Liberal written by Tim Colebatch and published by Penguin Books in 2014. Rupert Dick Hamer (1916-2004) was Premier of Victoria in the critical years from 1972 to 1981. This sympathetic biography was drawn from members of the Hamer family who shared with the author their stories, documents and photos. Colebatch also included details from personal and political diaries that Hamer wrote when he was a very young politician (1939-41). Since I am a paid up member of the Labour Party, it was incredible for me to have admired a conservative. But under this leader of the conservative party, abortion and homosexuality were decriminalised, anti-discrimination laws were introduced and protection of the environment emerged for the first time in legislation. What was there not to love?

Of all of Hamer's achievements listed in the book, focus on Hamer's strength on the abolition of capital punishment. Although opinion polls indicated that some Victorians still supported capital punishment, at least for particularly heinous crimes, Hamer allowed state MPs a free vote; he successfully legislated to abolish capital punishment in Victoria in 1975. This had been a risky move - in 1967 his predecessor Premier Henry Bolte had brutally ordered the execution of the last man in Australia to face the hang man. Ronald Ryan's execution devastated the state; remember the protest marches that brought the City to a standstill.

Was Victoria a leader of  Australian states in abolishing capital punishment? Hardly. Only W Australia (1984) and New South Wales (1985) were slower bringing in their legislation.

40 Objects 40 Years display, Freud Museum

In his essay Civilisation & its Discont­ents 1929, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) had analysed the aggressive cruelty that changed men into sa­vages. Aft­er Hit­ler took power in Germany in 1933, as much as he recog­nised these trends, Freud was reluctant to apply them to Vienna. Even when the Nazis burnt all the books in 1933 by hated authors, including Freud! Yet he supported his sons Oliver (1891–1969) & Ernst (1892–1970), to leave Ber­lin and to move to London in 1933.

I invite you to reread Freud's escape: Nazi Vienna->London 1938. Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Doll­fuss DID ban the Nazi Party in June 1933, but he was assassinated by local Nazis a year later. Even then desperately hoped that Doll­fuss’ succ­ess­or would continue policies of ind­ep­end­ence and basic decency. Why? Freud’s revol­u­t­ionary visions into the uncharted sub­conscious mind SHOULD have prepared him for the dark forces moving ahead.

Anna and dad Sigmund Freud, Vienna, 1920

Freud Museum, London

Sigmund didn't believe that Aus­tria would come under German rule! Yet in 1938 German soldiers were massing on Austria's border, annexing Austria into the 3rd Reich. Many Jews urgently fled to safety, but Freud was 81 and very ill with cancer; and U.K migration quotas remained inflex­ible.

Why had Freud not left Vienna quickly? Because he’d spent his apol­it­­ical life­ claiming that Nazi sturm and drang was mere noise, the outward man­i­festation of messy inner liv­es. Note Hitler appeared on the balcony of Vienna’s imper­ial Hof­­burg Palace to declare the Anschluss in March 1938 i.e absorption of Austria into the 3rd Reich. Vienna was fill­ed with excited Nazi sup­p­orters, thugs looted Jewish shops, damaged synagog­ues and attacked Jews. And ruined Freud’s International Psychoanalytic pub­lish­ing house.

While Freud believed in­sight would return to his be­loved cult­ur­ed Vienna, everyone in Freud’s circle tried to get him to leave. Note these fol­low­ers risked their OWN political capital, personal income and physic­al safety to save him. Anna Freud (1894-1982) had ministered to all her father’s needs while man­aging her own pioneering child psycho-analyst pract­ice. She dealt with the new Nazi overlords who were extort­ing money from notable Jews seeking to emig­rate. But she would never have left her dad. Physician-neurologist Ernest Jones (1879-1958) tire­lessly pro­moted Freud’s ideas in Europe. When he heard the threat to Freud, Jones flew to Vien­na to bend British immigration rules. US’s ambassador to France William Bullitt Jr (1891-1967) had been Freud’s patient in the 1920s. Their friendship devel­oped later, through collaborating on a Pres Wood­row Wilson biography; the U.S even demanded Freud’s safe release. Dr Max Schur was treating Freud’s jaw can­c­er. Schur’s loyalty was clear when he delayed his own family’s exit! 

Marie Bonaparte (1882-1962), grandniece of Napoleon & wife of Prince George of Greece-Denmark, had been Freud’s pat­ient be­fore she too became a psychoanalyst. She rushed to Vienna, paying the Nazis for Freud’s huge flight tax.

The refugees boarded the Orient Express in June 1938, 3 months after Hitler annexed Austria, and they noted that tension inten­sified as the train rolled through Ger­many via Munich and Dachau. At 3AM the train reached the border where the Ger­man bor­der guards glan­ced at his docum­ents, then into France with Bonaparte, then continuing to London.

Freud's four sisters in Vienna 1941

Holocaust Historical Society

Of Freud’s children, Anna and Martin had been taken by the Gestapo, but lived. Freud’s 4 sisters Rosa, Marie, Pauline & Adolfine stayed and were exterm­inated.

Freud's home in Maresfield Gardens, Hampstead

Later the Freud Museum

Note the Blue Heritage Plaques

The remaining Freuds moving to London, in Maresfield Gardens Hampstead in July. They brought their belongings, AND an amazing intellectual world. Freud spent the last year of his life with the objects that shaped his views about mental health. His London study has been preserved just as he left it, including thousands of books. And he avidly collected 2,500 Egyptian, Greek & Roman figures, & Asian artefacts that showed his interest in ancient life.

In London Freud was too ill to work and died with a year. Anna, a pioneering child psychologist, continued to live there until her death in 1982. According to her wishes, it opened as a permanent Museum in July 1986, with the entire contents of her father’s study and library left intact. So let’s visit Freud’s home-museum in London this year.

Freud's psychoanalytic couch surrounded by his books and art objects

Freud Museum

 

Freud’s couch from Vienna came in 1938 because it had been the centre of his psycho-analysis practice, blurring the line between work and home. Thus the couch had been essential in recreating end-of-century atmosphere Vienna, remaining in Freud’s study in the London Museum today. And explore the amazing books and collectibles next to the couch.

The exhibition, Protected: 40 Objects 40 Years, displays the life & work of the great Freud family marking the Museum’s 40th anniversary. Novelist Esther Freud and others from the world of culture & psychoanalysis have chosen objects from Museum archives to celebrate the event. These objects tell the story of the Museum, the history of psychoanalysis and of exiled family life. Esther Freud chose a young letter from her dad-artist Lucian Freud (Sigmund’s grandson), who wrote to his parents (Ernst Freud & Lucie Brasch) whilst he was away at English boarding school. Some of the artefacts were hidden from sight in the museum’s attic and are being shown for the first time in a collection curated by Briony Davis. One of the pieces on display is a metal porcupine, a momento of Freud’s trip to the USA in 1909, picked as a reflection on confusions of intimacy. See animal figures in relief, chosen by Neuberger, who was fascinated to find such an item in Freud’s personal collection.

One wall of Freud's library

Freud Museum, London

 

See a C13th copper Chanukah lamp, featuring a Hebrew inscription about light from Proverbs. The psychoanalyst was famously ambivalent about his Jewish heritage so this lamp was probably never lit by him; rather it was and appreciated as a cultural and historical artefact, not religious.

 

Chanukah lamp with 3 animal medals and Hebrew letters in relief

13th century, Northern France or Germany

The Freud Museum London

Following Freud’s own vision, the Museum Director’s aim was to create chances for everyone to learn about and from psychoanalysis. They urged the cultural commentators to be wide-ranging in their choices, about the past of course and also about the contemporary relevance of their chosen object. Other objects on display include a battered leather suitcase belonging to the Freuds’ live-in maid Paula Fichtel and the hand-written recipe book belonging to Freud’s wife Martha for Viennese apple strudel etc. And see Anna’s sewing machine and her patterns for cardigans, plus her embroidery and lacework. She saw weaving and embroidery invaluable crafts, alongside the serious work of psychoanalysis.

The exhibition is presenting lectures and tours in the anniversary year, and they are also building the Freuds’ beloved garden into a mental health refuge.