THE BATHING MACHINE

(A Study of a rare old Conservative)

Behold an old relic of old-fashioned days
Recalling the coaches, the hoy and post chaise!
It has not advanced in a timber or wheel
Since first it was fashioned by Benjamin Beale.
It is not aesthetic, nor yet picturesque,
'Tis heavy and cumbrous, expensive, grotesque-
      And I feel very certain there never was seen
      Such an old-fashioned thing as a Bathing Machine.

The windows won't open, the doors never fit.
The floor is strewn over with pebbles and grit.
A looking-glass too with a silverless back,
A pinless pin cushion, a broken boot jack;
It smells of old seaweed, 'tis mouldy and grim -
'Tis sloppy and stuffy, 'tis dismal and dim.
     'Tis a deer-cart, a fish-van, or something between.
     Oh a hideous hutch is the Bathing Machine.

The driver says "Right!" and he raps at the door;
He starts with a jerk and you sit on the floor;
It creaks and it rattles,  you rise and you fall
and bound to and fro like a mad tennis ball!
Again there's a lurch and you nearly fall flat
And first sprain your ancle, then tread on you hat-
     While you're bumped and you're battered, bruised blue, black and green
     In that horrid contraption,  the Bathing Machine.


( The Western Times, September 4th 1883)

AN ORIGINAL DISEMBARKATION

"As we descend the cliff pathway to Budleigh Salterton, the Duchess is nearing the shore.  Surely she shall stop presently, for there is no pier and the passengers must land in boats.   But nothing of the kind.  She steams straight for the beach, only stopping as her bow touches the pebbles.  Then a long stage is run out, down which the passengers troop to the shore.  It is an original way of disembarking and looks not a little dangerous.  But the fact is the beach slopes so rapidly that there is no danger of grounding, and, except in rough weather, the steamer can take no harm."

(The Coasts of Devon,  John Lloyd Warden Page, 1895.)

EARTHSHINE

There is apparently no correlation to be found between the ghostly phenomenon known as 'earthshine on the moon',  and the coming of stormy weather.    We, however, had a rare example of this tonight, (3rd January 2014) here on the Jurassic Coast.   The light of the Earth was reflecting onto the hidden face of the moon and a bright crescent moon was seen to be supporting it and, within an hour,  the stormy weather followed it like a dog his tail.

By a remarkable coincidence I had earlier in the day been reading the Scottish ballad of 'Sir Patrick Spence' (or Spens) to one of my granddaughters, a nine-year old,  and she had been particularly taken by the famous stanza:

"Late late yestreen I saw the new moon
Wi' the auld moon in her arm;
and I fear, I fear, my dear master,
That we will come to harm."

So said a skeely mariner and of course they did come to harm:

"Half o'er,  half o'er to Aberdour,
It's fifty fathom deep;
and there lies guid Sir Partick Spence,
Wi' the Scots lords at his feet." 

A few hours only after we had read this we were looking up at a fine example of the new moon with the old moon in her arm as the moon climbed high over Sidmouth.   Then came storm.  

THE SHINING SEA

(New Year's Eve 2013)


So bright the day
it's hard to say
where sky meets sparkling wave.
How full of hope a world can seem,
how peaceful and how brave!

Storms there have been;
and storms to be
are surely on their way
but here and now? - The shining sea!
How brave and bright the day!

ANDREW BRICE AND TOPSHAM PILOTS

Andrew Brice was an eighteenth century newspaperman at Exeter. There is a very good article about him among the Exeter Memories.   This snippet,  I suppose from his major work,  the Grand Gazeteer or Topographical Dictionary (1759)  and quoted by Powhele, tells us that  Exmouth is situated  at the mouth of the Exe,  "about ten miles from Exeter.  Here,  over the bar, hath the Exe its influx into the sea and here dwell the pilots who take charge of bringing ships over the bar,  as far up as Topsham.

No doubt this is obvious but only when I read this did I consider that when we  read of  eighteenth and nineteenth century 'Topsham pilots' we are probably reading about boats and men based at Exmouth.

And, as we have already noted, a 'Topsham pilot'  could also be a cormorant.

ANOTHER BAD POEM

This blog brings you below another truly excruciating Victorian poem from the pen of another bad and anonymous Victorian poet.   These verses appeared in Trewman's Exeter Flying Post.  21st October 1868.


"A PLEA FOR THE SEA BIRDS

Stay now thine hand!
Proclaim not man's dominion
Over God's works by strewing rocks and sand
with sea-birds' blood-stained plumes and broken pinion.

Oh stay thy hand!
Spend not thy days of leisure
In scattering death along the peaceful strand
for very wantonness,  or pride,  or pleasure.

For bird's sake spare!
Leave it in happy motion
to wheel its easy circles in the air
or rest and rock upon the shining ocean.

For man's sake spare!
Leave him this 'thing of beauty'
To glance and glide before him everywhere
And throw a gleam on after days of duty.

For God's sake spare!
He notes each sea-bird falling
And in Creation's groans marks its sad share
Its dying cry - for retribution calling.

Oh stay thy hand!
Cease from this useless slaughter;
For though kind Nature from the rocks and sand
Washes the stains each day with briny water

Yet on thine hand
Raised against God's fair creature
Beware lest there be found a crimson brand
Indelible by any force of Nature."

'Thy hand'  or 'thine hand'?    I suppose it depends on whether you say ' 'and' or 'hand'.

There must,  in 1868,  have been a great number of happy shooters wandering along the beaches taking pot shots at 'sea-birds' for this fervent plea to have been written.  Fortunately we live in gentler times and the sea-birds know it.  A herring gull flew off with my MarksandSpencers' prime Angus beef sandwich the other day,  snatched it out of my hand,(mine 'and)  all on the Cathedral Green in Exeter.   Still , I wouldn't have wanted to shoot him.  No briny water there to wash away the blood!   Moreover he was a giant, snow white, gleaming 'thing of beauty'  and a joy for ever.  

A DAWLISH TUNNY, 1868

In September 1868 a monster of a fish was caught and brought into Dawlish.   It was a tunny or tuna (thymnus vulgaris)    Whoever caught it,  I know no further details of the catch,  must have got the shock of his life.   It must have been 'Old Man and the Sea' stuff!     The fish was eight foot, seven inches long.   Its greatest circumference was five foot, two inches and it needed six strong men to carry it.    We know these facts because the fish was bought and caused to be taken to London by the celebrated Victorian naturalist,  Frank Buckland,, who made a  model of the fish for display in his Museum of Economic Fish Culture at the Horticultural Gardens in Kensington.

I hope the Dawlish fisherman or men had a good price for it.   It arrived in London 'anything but sweet smelling' and, after Frank Buckland had made his plaster cast, Mr Jerrard of the British Museum 'made a skeleton' of it.   No doubt its bones are still to be found there.

My source:   Trewman's EFP 23rd September 1868.