MRS. MEEK.

 And now, as the Pythons used to say, for something completely different:

THE STORY OF MRS. MEEK

Once upon a time there was a nice little woman called Mrs. Meek. Although Mrs. Meek was a very little woman she had an amazingly strong right arm. Her right arm was amazingly strong because she did a lot of ironing or perhaps she did a lot of ironing because she had an amazingly strong arm. I don't know which but I do know that she was very quick and clever with the smoothing iron. She was a champion.

She always did the ironing on Tuesdays. One Tuesday she was in a very bad mood. She was in a bad mood because she had eight lively children and seven of them had been writing rude words on their bedsheets and duvet-covers and in ink and the sheets and duvet-covers had been washed and now Mrs. Meek needed to iron them and she hated ironing sheets and duvet-covers. Only little Daisy, her favourite child, who never did anything wrong, had not written any rude words in ink on her sheet and duvet-cover.

Mrs. Meek was also in a bad mood because thirteen pairs of Mr. Meek's trousers needed to be pressed and she hated pressing his trousers. Mr.  Meek was a very big and very noisy man whose trousers were the biggest you have ever seen. He quite often lost his temper and couldn't find it again. Whenever Mr. Meek lost his temper the whole family had to search for it until one or other of them found it.

Mrs. Meek also had a huge wicker-basket, as big as a small elephant, full to overflowing with tops and bottoms and handkerchiefs and towels and socks and stockings and tablecloths and napkins and lots of other things, all of which needed ironing.

She certainly had lots of ironing to do but she had an amazingly strong right arm so she set to work and dashed away with the smoothing iron and folded all the bedsheets and duvet-covers and the very big trousers and the tops and bottoms and handkerchiefs and towels and socks and stockings and tablecloths and napkins and all the other things and sorted them into neat piles like the champion that she was and before you could believe it she was ironing the last little handkerchief from the huge wicker-basket and she was feeling that she was just getting into her stride.

I quite forgot to tell you that the Meeks had a tabby-cat. She was not a noisy cat but she was nervous and badly behaved. Well, just as Mrs. Meek was folding away the last little handkerchief the cat jumped up onto the ironing-board. Well, can you guess what Mrs. Meek did? Mrs. Meek did not hesitate. She grabbed the cat and ironed her flat and folded her neatly and started a new pile with her. 

The flattened and folded cat looked so neat and tidy and peaceful lying there that Mrs. Meek looked around for the old dog. I quite forgot to tell you that the Meeks had a dog. He was not a noisy dog but he was very old and smelly and in no time at all Mrs. Meek had hoiked him up onto the ironing-board and flattened him and folded him and piled him very neatly on top of the cat.

Mrs. Meek was just telling herself how neat and tidy and peaceful and sweet-smelling the dog was when the seven children who had written rude words on their sheets and duvet- covers and in ink started to come home. They came home one at a time, shouting and screaming and calling for tea and tea-cakes.

Well, can you guess what Mrs. Meek did? Mrs. Meek did not hesitate. She picked up her children one after another with her amazingly strong right arm and put them on the ironing-board and flattened and folded them one after another and added them to her pile one after another. One - two - three - four - five- six - seven! They looked so neat and tidy and peaceful and well-behaved lying one on top of the other that she started to lose her bad mood. Yes, her bad mood was definitely fading away but before it had faded completely Mr. Meek came home from work. He burst into the house and he didn't say hello. He only said, “Humph! I seem to have lost my temper again.”

Well, can you guess what Mrs. Meek did? Mrs. Meek did not hesitate. She picked up her very big husband with her amazingly strong right arm and put him on the ironing-board, which creaked a little, and she flattened him with the iron, which took quite a long time because he really was so very big, and she folded him neatly and put him on the same pile as the badly-behaved cat, the smelly dog and her seven lively children. Then she took all the neat piles of ironing and shut them away into cupboards and drawers and at once her bad mood faded away, but completely!

It was at just this moment that Mrs. Meek's favourite child, Daisy, came skipping home. She had been in the meadow picking wild flowers for her mother. “These are for you, dear mummy,” said Daisy Meek, “because today is Tuesday and I expect you've had a hard time of it at the ironing-board.” Mrs. Meek was pleased as Punch. “Thank you my sweet child,” she said, “Yes, Daisy, I've been ironing all afternoon, but, as you know, I have an amazingly strong right arm and I am a champion at ironing and it's always very satisfying when one has finished and everything is flattened and folded neatly and put away. And now you and I can sit down to our tea and tea-cakes in peace and quiet.”

And so they did, that day and every day, and Mrs. Meek and Daisy Meek lived happily ever after.

ⓒ Wayland Wordsmith,  22nd July,  2026. (His 87th Birthday!!)

£2 HORSES, DEVONSHIRE, 1845.

James Barnes was the head gardener of Bicton Gardens who wrote a letter to The United Gardeners and Land Stewards Journal The 25th Number) in July(?) 1845 professing to give a correct account of Devonshire Farming.   According to a letter to the Editor of The Exeter Flying Post published on of 24th July 1845 and written by J.W. Harvey, Collector of Taxes at Ottery St. Mary, Mr. Barnes did not think highly of Devonshire farmers.  below is an extract from Mr. Harvey's letter:

"Of Devonshire Farming he asserts there is no drilling or hoeing, except in Turnips, which occasionally get hoed once.  That the Turnip bulbs do not on an average exceed a goose's egg in size.  That there is rarely  a drain cut for any purpose - that it is rare to hear of more than 9 Bushels of Wheat to the Acre, all other produce averaging the same ratio, that the Horses do not average Two Pounds each, that they seldom get Cleaned or Groomed in any way, that there is no chaff-cutting.  That the Harness is never Cleaned or Mended except being tied with Rope Yarn, in short the Devon Farmer is Careless, Dirty, Lazy, Improvident, Gossiping, slack in his payments, buys altogether on credit, and he concludes his description with the following elegant sentence.  Therefore he seems a poor Manager, a poor Husband, a poor Father, a poor Neighbour, a poor Citizen, a poor Christian, and not much fit for a Farmer some would I dare say imagine."

There was naturally reaction to this attack.

  One such letter, from a Mr. N. Tucket of 168, Fore-street, Exeter, (The Exeter Flying Post, 7th August 1845) gave a pleasant description of  Exeter's busy quay.

"....if he (Mr. Barnes) had been st Exeter Quay for the last fortnight, he would certainly have been astonished to have seen the thousands of bushels of wheat shipped daily from this poor, insignificant, half-starved county; after all, I will tell Mr. Barnes as a well known fact, that Exeter is the best supplied and cheapest market for corn and particularly wheat and barley, in England."

*

Bicton Gardens:  today are much visited and famed for  their great beauty.  Beauty to which the disparaging Mr. Barnes made a great contribution.  At the time, these were the gardens of Bicton House (today an Agricultural College) the home of the formidable Lady Rolle, one of the wealthiest landowners in the country.

The United Gardeners' Journal:  I need to say that I have not seen Mr. Barnes' original letter but I imagine it was quite as insulting as described.

Rope yarn:  O dear!  In Devon they tied up their harness with string! I would believe this to be a seed of Exeter's current decadence if I did not believe every city throughout our nation has become equally decadent.

Mr. Tucket concluded his letter from Fore-street thus:

"I should like to shew this Mr. Barnes the farms of many gentlemen around 10 miles of Exeter, those of renting farmers; he would then soon repent and throw down the charge."

I rejoice in Mr. Harvey's use of capital letters.

James Barnes worked at Bicton for 30 years.  He lived in the Garden House at Bicton with his wife and son and servant,  He was a strict disciplinarian said to have transformed the Gardens and greatly improved the work force.

Mr. N. Tucket: was a wealthy Exeter merchant with warehouses on the Quay and a leading member of the Exeter Agricultural Society.  

 

AN ALARUM, EXETER, 1845.

 "Mrs. Lydia Tothill and Mrs. Elizabeth Rice, have been neighbours, and cronies, residing in Toby's Buildings, Lower North-street, - 

"They were both dressed in mourning; but one of these being about to remove to a litle distance from the other; the joy of the one remaining was testified by setting up an alarum at the window with a pestle and mortar, and ringing a bell. - 

"The Bench had no jurisdiction and dismissed the case, with a word of advice to each, and an intimation that it was well perhaps for themselves, and also the peace of the neighbourhood that such good neighbours were separated."

I needed to read this Court report (from The Exeter Flying Post, 3rd July, 1845 ) several times before I understood it.  I'm still not sure that this is the story.  The tired sarcasm of the Victorian newspapermen can be very confusing.   Mrs. Tothill and Mrs. Rice, both perhaps widows, hated each other like poison.  When Mrs. Tothill eventually left Toby's Building there was the ringng of a bell and the rattling of a pestle in a mortar at Mrs. Rice's window to spitefully send her on her way.   Mrs. Tothill brought Mrs. Rice to the Exeter Guildhall to answer for her incivility but the Bench, quite rightly, dismissed the case.

Pestle and mortar  being used to make a racket I find an interesting detail. 

Dressed in mourning: I guess for Messrs. Tothill and Rice who had gone before.  Widows were expected to wear mourning for at least two years.   Many never again wore anything other. 

Good neighbours:  The clue as to what here is sarcasm and what not is indicated by the newspaper by the change of type style.

VULGAR SPEECHIFYING, EXETER, 1845.

Mr. Vinning was a professor of music who had truly remarkable musical children.  When "The Infant Sappho", also known as Louisa Vinning, came to Exeter in January 1845 she was eight years old and had already been performing in public for five years.  The Exeter Flying Post (16th January, 1845) reported favourably on her precocious performance as a singer but was not impressed by the way her father, Mr. Vinning, dumbed the evening down with references to empty benches and bill-stickers and other such humbug.  This so chimed with my own sensible thinking, that there are few things quite so aggravating as vulgar speechifying during the presentation of songs and instrumental performances that I copy this section of the Post's review :   

"We are perfectly aware that country audiences require a certain degree of what is vulgarly called, "humbug," to be practised upon them.  In our judgement however, Mr. Vinning carries this to an absurd extent.

"He indulges in what, to use the slang of the Commom Showmen is termed "patter," not only in lauding the  powers of the "Infant Sappho" almost before every song.  but in talking to his audience about the songs that have been written for her, the verses in praise of her, the crowds that have thronged to listen to her, and the empty benches, there were not many, that these ought to and would have been filled, if due dilligence had been exercised on the part of the bill-sticker.   We are convinced that sensible people (and those are many among every audience) must be disgusted with all this vulgar speechifying, and we assure Mr. Vinning that the talent of his very interesting and highly gifted child is quite high enough to be appreciated every where without the aid of any false excitement among the audience."

The biggest offender with regard to such vulgar speechifying today with which I an familiar is BBC Radio 3.  The presenters' (and their guests'!) patter has become unbearable and grows more trivial and more vulgar with the years.  I guess it is the common fault of our national institutions that they feel they must be popular. (a  close synonym of vulgar!).  The consequence, it seems to me, is that it becomes increasingly tempting to switch off from the broadcasts.  Okay, a certain degree of  false excitement and what is vulgarly called "humbug" is necessarily practised upon us, but BBC Radio 3, I would argue, carries humbug, as did, reportedly, Mr. Vinning,  to an absurd extent. 

P.S.  Free Example! I switched on to BBC Radio 3 yesterday and heard no music but the words, deliberately spoken by a woman presenter, something like:   "Laura  - I think I would be right in saying  - that politics have been a thread throughout your life."  I switched off before 'Laura' made answer.   Humbug, humbug!!!