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Sweeney Todd and the Persistence of Fears and Legends

Sweeney Todd is one of the most famous people in the world, his legendary status is up there with Sherlock Holmes, Jack the Ripper and George W. Bush. This demonic, insane barber of Victorian-era London who loved slitting the throats of his victims with a straight-razor and sending them sliding down through a trapdoor into the basement of the pie-shop below, run by his accomplice, Mrs. Lovett, has been famous for over a hundred years as one of the most bloodthirsty serial-killers in the world.

But did he ever exist?

The recent Johnny Depp film of a couple of years back, entitled “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” was an amazing success, but was any of the story ever based on fact? Or is it just the concoction of a lively and grusome imagination? This article will explore the world of Todd, the truths, the facts, the falsehoods and lies.

Sweeney Todd: The Man

Sweeney Todd, the insane barber. A real person or a figment of imagination?

Sorry to disappoint the more bloodthirsty readers out there, but Sweeney Todd was not a real person. As far as reliable historical records and research have uncovered, a man named Sweeney Todd never existed. Possibilities that Todd was in fact based on a real serial-killer by a different name are equally unlikely. Examinations of legal records from courthouses such as the Old Bailey in London have concluded that Todd was little more than a Victorian-era urban legend. If Todd was, or was based on a real person, pieces of evidence to support this are either few and far between and of questionable repute, or never existed at all.

Sweeney Todd: The Myth

If Sweeney Todd never existed, either as a person himself, or as an alias for another person, then how did he come about?

Sweeney Todd was ‘born’ in 1846. He was the subject of a short story called “The String of Pearls”, which was published as a ‘penny dreadful’ during the early Victorian-era. Penny dreadfuls were exactly what they sounded like – cheap, short stories or novels which were just…dreadful…to read. These short stories were printed on news-rag and their plots were usually dark, lurid, erotic and morbid…all the things that respectable publishing-houses of the time refused to run through their printing-presses.

Sweeney Todd’s method of killing was to slit his victims in a specially-constructed barber’s chair. By pulling a lever or pressing a foot-pedal with his shoe, Todd could make the chair tilt over, tipping his victims down a trapdoor into a basement below. The drop would make the victims break their necks. After they were dead, the bodies were then processed into meat pies, to be sold by Todd’s partner-in-crime, Mrs. Lovett, in her pie-shop, in the most hardcore example of food-adulteration in the world.

Over the next century and a half, the public lapped up Sweeney Todd. There plays made about him, books written about him and at least two films with him as the main character. Although Todd himself never existed, I think one reason why the story lasted so long and was so popular among the Victorians was because it concentrated on elements of daily life that would have been very familiar to men reading the ‘Todd’ stories back in the 1840s and 50s.

Elements of Sweeney’s Legend

Although Sweeney Todd wasn’t real, even though he was only a murderer on ink and paper, the fear and horror he generated and continues to generate to this day, is due mostly to mankind’s combined fears of two things, which Todd did much to excacerbate: The straight-razor and food-adulteration. Almost singlehandedly, Todd turned what was once a finely-crafted blade into a cold, hard killing-utensil, and made all our fears of “mystery meat” a reality, so to speak. But what was the reality of these things back in Victorian times? Did people really turn people into pies and serve them for lunch?

Shaving with a Straight Razor

If Sweeney Todd did one thing at all, he made the straight-razor the fearsome, lethal, morbid and terrifying throat-slitting, blood-gushing murder-utensil that we know it for today, capable of ending life in a second with nothing more than a quick draw across the flesh. Now people are just terrified of these things, aren’t they? Show someone a gun and they start looking all over it, touching it, staring at it, examining it minutely. Show someone a straight-razor and they’ll hand over their wallets so fast they’d get leather-burn on their fingers. Popular culture and Sweeney Todd has ingrained in mankind that straight-razors are horrific, dangerous knives which only highly skilled professionals or insane barbers would ever dare apply to their faces. But how much of all this whazzoolally is actually fact?

Straight-razors are extremely sharp, there’s no doubt about that. They would be useless for their intended purpose (uh…shaving, folks. Don’t forget, they are razors!) if they were not, but the chances of actually cutting yourself with a straight-razor, or having someone else cut you with a straight-razor, if it was used as a razor, are actually rather minimal, provided of course that the razor is ready for shaving. The reason for this is because the angle of the blade required to cut hair and the sheer lack of pressure applied to the blade-edge would make slitting your throat highly unlikely. Furthermore, the slick, lubricated surface of prepared, lathered skin means that the open blade slides across your skin’s lubricated surface, it doesn’t scrape across dry skin, cutting into it. Straight-razors are used in smooth, sweeping vertical strokes, edge-leading, spine-following, not in side-to-side slitting, slashing horizontal movements! With enough practice, a steady hand and a sufficiently honed and stropped blade, you can soon gain enough proficiency to shave to perfection with a straight-razor. It’s not that hard.

Today, few people shave with a straight-razor…which is a pity, because in today’s waste-conscious, green-worrying world, a straight-razor is the ultimate in long-lasting bathroom accessories. You sharpen it, strop it, shave with it and then just continue honing and stropping it and shaving with it throughout the rest of your life, never having to buy another razor ever again. Apart from looking amazingly cool, shaving with a straight-razor saves you a lot of money, believe me!


Sweeney Todd’s seven-piece straight-razor set from the movie “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”. While most straight-razors are sold on their own, if you can afford it, you could…and still can…buy a seven-piece razor-set, with a different blade for each day of the week

Of course, there were people back in the Victorian-era who couldn’t shave themselves, for various reasons. Maybe they didn’t own a razor, or they didn’t have the skills necessary to shave themselves. This was where the barber came in. The unshaven man would visit the barber, who was (and still is) the only professional man qualified to give anothe person a shave. Barbers used to be trained in the art of shaving and were expected to be able to give smooth, quick, bloodless shaves as part of their training. The barber would prepare the man’s face by softening it with hot water and a towel, brush on the lathered shaving-soap and then start the steady and methodic task of shaving. Lying back defenselessly in a barber’s chair while a man stood over you with nothing less than three-and-a-half inches of steely, ice-cold metallic death in his hands was probably enough to scare anyone, and it was this fear that Sweeney Todd preyed on, and to this day, many people are terrified to shave with straight-razors, even though they’re actually no more dangerous than a cartridge-razor.

Food Adulteration in Victorian England

The other big fear that Sweeney Todd generated was that of food adulteration. Food-adulteration is the process of making food out of unsuitable or substandard products. Although we like to think that food back in the old days was fresh-baked, fresh-picked, fresh-harvested and free from preservatives, pesticides and additives, colours and all that stuff…the truth was significantly more different.

Until the late 19th century, food-adulteration and contamination was rife in Victorian-era England. Almost anything was used to make anything else and anything else was advertised as anything the customer wished it to be. If the customer wanted to believe it was ice-cream…it was ice-cream…not paint, sugar, milk, cream and ice blended to look like ice-cream (which it could very well have been!).

One of the key elements of the Sweeney Todd legend is that his victims were processed and turned into meat pies. Although I’ve found no records or information that Victorians ever served up cannibalistic culinary creations such as this, what is known for sure and certain is that the Victorians were notorious for serving contaminated food. There were precious few health-laws in the 19th century, and there were even fewer laws governing food and drink. Because of this, unscrupulous vendors could sell absolutely horrific grub to the public with the public being none the wiser. It was estimated that in the mid-1800s, over half the food sold by food-hawkers in London was contaminated. How contaminated?

Toffee sold to children could contain lice, fleas, hair and sawdust.
Tea-leaves could be recycled, dried, redarkened with ink and resold as “fresh” tea.
Mustard could contain lead.
Chocolate could contain mercury.
Milk was watered down, and then rewhitened with chalk.
Cheese that was mouldy could be covered with paint to make it look fresh.
Butter, gin and bread all had varying amounts of copper added to it, to give it that fresh, yellow appearance.
Chalk was also added to bread to whiten it, due to the high price of flour.
Beer was watered-down with water or even vitriol! What is vitriol you ask? Consult your highschool science-teacher. ‘Vitriol’ (also called ‘Oil of Vitriol’) was a Victorian English term for the compound known today as…sulphuric acid! Eugh!

These, and hundreds of other atrocities far too numerous to mention here, were all commonplace in Victorian England and would have been horrors that Victorians who were familiar with the stories of Sweeney Todd, would become increasingly aware of as the years rolled by. The first act of British parliament to try and control food-adulteration came out in 1860. It wasn’t very strongly enforced though, and was largely ignored by those whose job it was to uphold the law. It wasn’t until 1875 and the passage of the ‘Sale of Food & Drugs’ act that proper laws regarding hygeine of food and drink were brought into permanent and practical effect.

 
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A Concise History of the British Secret Service

Bond. James Bond. MI-6 agent 007 with a license to kill.

Since the mid 1950s, the suave, sophistocated and sexy secret agent known as James Bond, created by the famous author Ian Fleming, has introduced us bit by bit to the world of the British Secret Intelligence Service…the SIS…more commonly known as MI-6, or Military Intelligence – Section 6.

But why is it MI-6? Why not 9? Or 3? Or 2? Or 45? What does “MI-6” actually mean and where does it come from?

This article will delve into the murky and fascinating depths and history (as far as can be discovered) of the British Military Intellgence Service, of which MI-6 is just a tiny part.

The History of Military Intelligence

Those letters and that number are magical, aren’t they? “MI-6”. Bam! We enter a world of nightclubs, cocktails, black-tie evening-dress, guns, car-chases, espionage, amazing fight-scenes and raunchy one-night stands. But MI-6 is just one small section of what was once a much larger military intelligence network. So what was it and where did it come from?

British Military Intelligence as we know it today was born in the early years of the 20th century. In 1909, the War Office in Great Britain authorised the creation of the “Secret Service Bureau”. The Secret Service Bureau was made up of a series of military intelligence departments. Over the decades, they increased and decreased in size and function. At their height, though, the military intelligence departments numbered nineteen in total. They were…

MI-1 – Codes and Cyphers. General codebreaking.
MI-2 – Geographic information on other countries.
MI-3 – Further geographic information.
MI-4 – Aerial Reconnaisance.
MI-5 – Security Service, responsible for internal national security (still operational today).
MI-6 – Secret Intelligence Service, responsible for espionage, etc (still operational today. James Bond is an MI-6 agent).
MI-7 – Propaganda.
MI-8 – Communications security and signal-interception. MI-8 was responsible for scanning airwaves for enemy radio-activity.
MI-9 – POWs, enemy & allied. POW debriefing, aid to allied POWs, interrogation of enemy POWs (until 1941).
MI-10 – Technical analysis.
MI-11 – Military Security.
MI-12 – Military Censorship.
MI-13 – Section unused.
MI-14 – Surviellence of Germany.
MI-15 – Aerial defence intelligence.
MI-16 – Scientific Intelligence.
MI-17 – Secretariat for Director of Military Intelligence.
MI-18 – Section unused.
MI-19 – Enemy POW interrogation (from 1941 onwards, taking over some of the duties from MI-9).

The Secret Service Bureau was in active duty from the early 1900s through both World Wars and onto the Cold War. Many departments were created as a direct result of the two World Wars, while others were created in response to the Cold War starting in the late 1940s, running to the 1980s. Over the years, departments changed functions or ceased functioning entirely, although some lasted for a considerable time before that ever occurred.

MI-8 was responsible for radio-surveillence during the Wars, tapping telephone-wires, scanning radio-frequencies for enemy radio-activity and helping to track down enemy agents by intercepting their messages to find out more about enemy activity.

MI-9 might be familiar to anyone who has studied the famous “Great Escape” of March, 1944. MI-9 was responsible for the aid of allied POWs and allied secret agents. MI-9 sent cleverly-disguised pieces of contraband to allied POWs and agents working behind enemy-lines, in an increasingly ingenious number of ways. Phoney aid-organisations and charity-groups were created which sent over “care-parcels” for allied POWs. Inside these parcels, which, on the outside, came from “family” and “friends”, were items such as maps, matches, compasses, knives and other escape-aids, which the allies put to good use.

MI-6 remains the most famous section of the Secret Service Bureau because of its exposure created by author Ian Fleming and his world-famous “James Bond” novels and series of films, which continues to this day. Fleming was ideally suited for writing such gripping and exotic spy-novels. During the Second World War, he had a post working for British Naval Intelligence, and his work as an intelligence officer during the war exposed him to codes and spies and espionage, a perfect background for James Bond…which probably also explains why Bond also holds the rank of “Commander” in the Royal Navy.

In the 1950s, with Great Britain licking its wounds from the Second World War, Fleming’s novels of a suave, dnner-jacketed spy who flew around the world combating evil was exactly what people wanted to read. Something exciting and escapist, so that they too, could escape from their own, dreary, rationed, postwar lives. It was because of Fleming’s novels that MI-6 has remained so famous today.

The End of the Secret Service Bureau

The MI sections began to become defunct in the years during and after the Cold War. With no “hot” war to fight (a ‘hot’ war being one with actual military engagements), many of the MI sections became useless. There were few if any POWs, there was no Germany to fight and there were few, if any, aerial engagements. One by one, the sections were closed down until eventually, only two remained. The two sections that still had a practical use to the British Government outside of an actual military conflict: MI-5 and MI-6, concentrating on internal, national security and on collecting international intelligence respectively.


Thames House, London. MI-5 HQ


Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6) HQ, London

Today, MI-6 still captures the public imagination as the ultimate secret intelligence service, this despite the fact that it is little more than a WWII-era relic of a once large and complex intelligence network. A book was published recently as an official history of the Secret Intelligence Service, covering MI-6’s history from 1909-1949. Who knows how many of those things shown to us in those glitzy Bond films were ever real?

 
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The Mid-Autumn Festival

As the Chinese (among other cultures and civilisations) traditionally followed the Lunar Calender, various events on Chinese calenders change to a different date on the more commonly-used Western calender. Chinese months are dictated by the movement of the moon, instead of the sun, as with Western calenders. Before very long, the world (or at least, the Chinese part of it) will be celebrating one of the most famous events on the Chinese calender.

The Moon Festival.

Also called the Mid-Autumn Festival or the “Mooncake” Festival, it was and is, one of the most famous Chinese holidays in the world. But what exactly does this festival celebrate, when does it happen and how is it celebrated?

The Date of the Mid-Autumn Festival

As the event’s title rather obviously suggests, the Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated in the middle of Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. In 2010, this date will be the 22nd of September. A little less than two weeks from now. It was actually the approach of this festival that inspired this article. This blogger having a Chinese background, it’s only natural that he keep an eye on important Chinese celebrations so as to successfully cash-in on any goodies that might come his way. But…what kind of goodies are there?

The Chinese Mooncake

The Chinese Mooncake, called a ‘Yuebing‘ (‘You-Bing’), literally “Moon Biscuit” or “Moon Cake”, is one of the most famous and undeniably, one of the most delicious Chinese desserts ever to come out of the Far East. Mooncakes are small compared to Western cakes, about the size of a Chinese rice-bowl. Mooncakes feature a thin, pastry crust, usually stamped or imprinted with Chinese characters or a pattern of some kind, and a thick, dense, sweet paste-filling, variously made of peanuts, mung-beans, Lotus-seeds, red beans and in Southeast Asia…even Durian paste! Some varities of mooncake feature salted egg-yolks in their centers, to symbolise the moon.


A traditional Chinese mooncake. The yellow stuff in the center is the salted egg-yolk. There are varieties of mooncake which are sold yolkless, however

The Mooncake is considered a delicacy in Chinese cuisine. Apart from tasting like edible heaven, the mooncake is notoriously labour-intensive to make…probably why they’re only made once a year! Although modern manufacturing-processes have made it easier to make mooncakes, they’re still usually only a once-a-year treat if they’re home-made (akin to the Christmas pudding) due to the time it takes to make them.

The History of the Mooncake

The mooncake is believed to have been created in the 14th century during the Yuan Dynasty. Legend states that during this period, China was invaded by the Mongols. To overthrow them and restore traditional Chinese rule, revolutionaries and resistance-leaders baked special cakes with Chinese characters stamped on their tops. As a conventional cake, the characters made no sense. The cake had to be sliced up and the slices then rearranged like a game of Scrabble before the characters, then arranged in their correct order, would reveal their secret message. Using this method, the revolutionaries delivered cakes throughout China, spreading the word about a planned uprising. The uprising was successful and in 1368, the Yuan Dynasty collapsed, to be followed by the Ming Dynasty. The cakes are still made today to commemorate the return of traditional Chinese rule, as well as to celebrate the Mid-Autumn festival and the full moon. An alternate version of the legend was that messages were written on paper (giving the date and time of the planned rebellion). The messages were scrunched up and hidden in the center of mooncakes so that their secret would only be discovered when the cake was sliced up to be served. Neither of these legends is likely to be true, but they sure make for some interesting stories.

The Celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival

The Mid-Autum, Moon or Mooncake Festival is one of the biggest celebrations in the Chinese calender (along with Chinese New Year). Depending on the cycles of the moon, the Mid-Autumn Festival takes place in either September or October each year and celebrates the end of the harvest-season. Traditionally, families gathered together to eat mooncakes, moon-gaze and for the youngsters at least, to play with fire (literally!). Another nickname for the Mid-Autumn Festival is the ‘Lantern Festival’, this is because it was a tradition for children to be given lanterns after the sun went down and when they went outside to play. As a child, I remember the lanterns that we used to have, with candles inside them. The candles shone against the sides of the lanterns (which were shaped as various animals or objects such as flowers or fish) and reflected the plastic, coloured sides of the lantern, shining all kinds of different colours everywhere.


Children holding lanterns during the Mid-Autumn Festival

Other traditional celebrations of the Mid-Autumn festival include dragon-dances and the burning of incense.

 
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Lighting the Way: The Light on Bell Rock

What’s some of the most dangerous working-conditions you can think of? Cleaning the blades of a jet-engine? Jackhammering rocks off a cliff-face? Repairing overhead powerlines? Crab-catching in the North Atlantic? Working in a gas-station convenience-store at 2:00am?

How about building a lighthouse on a rock in the middle of the ocean? How about building a lighthouse on a rock in the middle of the ocean where the tide can come surging in at a moment’s notice to a depth deep enough to drown you in a matter of minutes, every single day of the year? How about building a lighthouse on a rock in the middle of the ocean with killer tides and huge, scary storms that swamp the rock for half the time in the year?

Interested? Read on.

Bell Rock, Scotland

Inchcape, or ‘Bell Rock’ is a tiny, Godforsaken piece of crap, stuck off the east coast of Scotland. ‘Bell Rock’, the common nickname for Inchcape, is a particularly dangerous stretch of rocky reefs which for centuries, had been a hazard for local shipping plying trade along the eastern Scottish coastline. The rock’s notoriety for destroying anything that dared sneeze at it, is legendary. In the 1300s, the Abbott of Arbroath, a town in the district of Angus, in eastern Scotland, tried to install a warning-bell on the reef, to alert passing ships. The bell lasted the grand total of one year, before, depending on which sources you read, the bell was either washed away by the sea, or was stolen by unscrupulous pirates. For whatever reason that the bell-buoy disappeared, its legacy lingered in the reef’s current name of ‘Bell Rock’. For the next four hundred-odd years, Bell Rock continued to claim more and more lives as ships sailed unknowingly over the reef, running aground on it and splitting open. Due to the local tides and the bad weather to be encountered in Scotland, the reef is often invisible, submerged beneath several feet of foaming sea-water, to appear only for a few hours each day for only a few months each year.

Bell Rock was proving more and more dangerous as the centuries rolled by. By the close of the 1700s, it was estimated that the rock claimed upwards of six ships every year. On a particularly bad night, up to seventy ships were lost in one storm alone!

Robert Stevenson was a young man at the close of the 18th century. Born in 1772, he was in his early thirties when in 1804, the HMS York, a huge, 64-gun warship, ran aground on Bell Rock. The waves smashed the ship to pieces, killing the entire crew onboard (nearly 500 men). The governing body whose job it was to approve the construction of warning-lights, the Northern Lighthouse Board, had been bombarded by Stevenson for years, to build a light on Bell Rock, but they had always refused him. It would be impossible to build a lighthouse under such dangerous conditions and it would cost far too much money! 42,684 pounds sterling and 8 shillings…and that’s in 1800s currency, unadjusted for inflation. The loss of the HMS York, one of the prides of the Royal Navy, however, forced the Board to reconsider. After much deliberation, approval for a lighthouse on Bell Rock was finally given in 1806.

Stevenson was probably estatic that he could now start building his lighthouse. With a solid grounding in civil engineering, Stevenson was sure that he could make a name for himself as the man who built a lighthouse on Bell Rock, one of the most hellish places on earth! But…it was not to be.

The Northern Lighthouse Board roped in Mr. John Rennie to design and build the lighthouse. Born in 1761, Rennie was considered Scotland’s most experienced and knowledgable civil engineer. He had built bridges and canals and dockyards. He had to be the best man for the job! Only, the Lighthouse board overlooked one crucial detail – Rennie had never built a lighthouse in his life! And now, he was going to have to build one on a handkerchief of land right in the middle of nature’s food-processor!

Luckily for the people building the Bell Rock Lighthouse, Rennie did not oversee construction, and neither were his plans for the lighthouse closely followed. In a stroke of good fortune, Robert Stevenson was selected to fill in the post of Resident Engineer (the position of Chief Engineer already taken by Rennie).

Designing the Light

Stevenson was meticulous in his construction of the Bell Rock Lighthouse. He didn’t need to be a sailor to know how dangerous the weather and the waters were, off the coast of Angus, Scotland. All he had to do was read the memorials and the countless newspaper-reports of the hundreds of ships and the thousands of lives that had been wrecked and lost on the rocks over the last century.

In designing the lighthouse, Stevenson examined the structure of other successful lighthouses, particularly the Eddystone Lighthouse, situated on the treacherous Eddystone Rocks, off the coast of Cornwall, England. He determined that the base of the lighthouse would have to be curved and sloped, so as to effectively deflect the force of any waves which would be slamming into the lighthouse every single day of the year. The lighthouse would also have to be extremely tall (over a hundred feet high!) to protect the all-important lamp at the top of the house, from being smashed to pieces by the force of the waves.


The third Eddystone Lighthouse (also called Smeaton’s Tower, named after John Smeaton, the civil engineer who designed it). It was this successful lighthouse (which, by the time it was dismantled and replaced in the 1870s, had stood for over a hundred years!) that Stevenson based his design on

Stevenson saw the designing and construction of the Bell Rock lighthouse as his project. It was, after all, he who had tried for so long to get permission to build a lighthouse there in the first place! To Stevenson, Rennie was nothing more than a helicopter schoolmaster, hovering over him all the time, checking on his work and generally being a nuisance. Although the two men corresponded frequently, with increasingly longer and more detailed letters as the lighthouse was constructed, Stevenson rarely took any of Rennie’s advice, preferring his own decisions and design-features instead.

Working on Bell Rock

Construction for the Bell Rock Lighthouse began on the 17th of August, 1807. In a series of small row-boats, Stevenson and thirty-five labourers set sail for Bell Rock from the district of Angus on the east coast of Scotland. The challenge ahead of them was great. Very great. To begin with, the window for working-time on Bell Rock was absolutely miniscule, and to follow up, the tide could change and swamp their work-site at a moment’s notice under sixteen feet (over four meters) of water in just minutes. Bell Rock was accessible by boat for only a few months each year in the summertime, and even then, only for four hours every day, at low tide! To maximise every single minute that nature allowed him and his men to work, Stevenson insisted that everyone was to work every single day of the week, including on the Sabbath Day (which is every Sunday in the modern calender), something that his highly religious work-crew was unwilling to do. After all, as the Ten Commandmants say: “Observe the Sabbath and Keep it Holy”. To Stevenson, however, religion had no place in a world of civil engineering.

Working on Bell Rock wasn’t just difficult because it was so darn inaccessible. Bell Rock itself was a right royal pain in the ass. Being part of a reef made up of extremely hard sandstone, and working only with hand-tools, Stevenson’s men found it almost impossible to chisel and pickaxe out a decent foundation on the Rock without beating their pickaxes to pieces! It was necessary to employ a blacksmith whose job it would be to set up shop on the Rock, working in freezing water, and to sharpen and resharpen all the pickaxe heads which were quickly blunted by the constant hammering into rock-solid sandstone. Using gunpowder (dynamite would not be invented for another seventy-odd years) to blast holes in the rock was impractical given the wet conditions of the building-site, and which could be extremely dangerous as well.

It was treacherous working on Bell Rock. To save time in going to and from the shore every single day to the Rock, Stevenson procured a ship and anchored it one mile away from the rock, out in the ocean. Each day, workers boarded the ship’s boats and rowed to Bell Rock. There, they would commence their two-hour shift of work. Ending work after two hours and heading for the boats was crucial. The rapidly rising tide could sweep the boats away and leave the men to drown. On one occasion, the second of September, 1807 this actually happened and it was only by very good fortune that Stevenson himself managed to escape with his life.

Work on the Bell Rock Lighthouse was, probably rather predictably, going along at a snail’s pace. The digging of the foundations took an extremely long time, being done entirely by hand…and the foundations that they were digging weren’t even for the lighthouse itself! Before construction of the lighthouse itself could begin, it was necessary to build the Beacon House. The Beacon House was a wooden tower which would serve as a temporary barracks for the men so that they would not have to constantly go back and forth from the ship all the time. It was three floors high, and stood on a framework of stilts, high above the waterline. It was finally completed in the middle of 1808.

Despite all of Stevenson’s coaxings, beggings and rationalisations, he could not convince his men that it would be a good idea to work on the Sabbath Day. They simply refused to do so. The incident of nearly drowning when their boats were washed off the Rock by the rising tide, was all the evidence that they needed, that God wanted them to down tools and chill out on a Saturday, like anyone else would want to do. This all changed in 1808.


A sketch showing the Bell Rock Lighthouse (right) and the temporary Beacon House (left), which housed the construction-workers during the summer months spent on Bell Rock

After leaving the half-completed Beacon House to the mercy of the North Sea, the men rowed and sailed away. Imagine their shock when they returned the following summer to discover that the Beacon House was still standing! Confidence in Stevenson’s engineering skills now firmly established, the men agreed to work seven days a week to complete the lighthouse on Bell Rock.

Building the Bell Rock Lighthouse

Bell Rock Lighthouse, Stevenson knew, would be unlike any other lighthouse then in existence. It would have to put up with fierce winter storms for most of the year, strong tides and waves for the rest of the year, and it would have to weather anything and everything that the North Sea could throw at it without collapsing. To ensure that his tower would stand the test of time, Stevenson constructed it out of highly durable Aberdeen Granite. Quarried from Rubislaw Quarry near the Scottish city of Aberdeen, this granite is famed the world-over for its incredible strength and this was the material that Stevenson was determined to build his tower with. The first stone for the construction of the actual lighthouse was laid on the 9th of July, 1808.

Over the next two years, construction continued at a very slow pace. By the end of 1808, only three courses (levels of stone) had been laid, bringing the lighthouse to a grand height of…six feet! As the tower grew higher, though, the risks of construction began to show. One man, Charles Henderson, was killed when he fell out of the Beacon House during a storm. Another man named Wishart was crippled for life when the arm of one of the cranes fell from the top of the tower, smashing his legs, leaving him unable to work or walk properly for the rest of his life. All the details of daily construction were recorded by Stevenson in his diaries, letters and journals and he wrote ‘Account of the Bell Rock Light-house’ in 1824, chronicling his experiences working on the crowning achievement of his profession.

In 1809, John Rennie (remember him? The guy who was the Chief Engineer and pinched Stevenson’s dream job?) made the second of only two trips to Bell Rock to examine construction; the first trip he made was in 1808 to witness the laying of the lighthouse’s foundation-stone. By now, both Rennie and Stevenson were quite sick of each other. Stevenson saw Rennie as nothing but an interfering buzzard, and, to prevent him from coming to the Rock again, Stevenson kept Rennie swamped by dozens and dozens of letters, asking for his ‘advice’ on how to build the tower. The letters were long and incredibly detailed. They asked everything from what kinds of locks to use on the doors, what type of putty to use for the window-glass, what size and shape the windows should be and so-on. In all, Stevenson sent Rennie eighty-two letters! And Rennie replied to almost every one. But Stevenson just ignored them.

By 1810, the tower was completed. It had cost two men their lives and one man the ability to walk unaided (among other injuries which the men suffered), but the tower was complete! A total of twenty-four powerful oil-lamps were installed in the light at the top of the tower. These lamps were based on a design by French scientist Aime Argand (1750-1803). Unlike conventional, round, spherical oil-lamps, Argand’s lamps were cylindrical in shape.


A typical, tabletop Argand lamp. The lamps used for the Bell Rock Lighthouse were modelled after these

While most lamps just had glass windows to protect the flame, or bulbous, spherical chimneys, again to protect the flame, that was all that these chimneys and windows did. Argand’s lamp, with its cylindrical chimney, had the effect of giving more illumination-power than a regular lamp, as well as protecting the flame from gusts of wind. This was achieved because the tubular shape of the lamp magnified the light output from the burning oil-flame, concentrating it and making it appear brighter. Twenty four, extra-large Argand lamps were installed in the Bell Rock Lighthouse, and both clear and red-tinted glass sheets were placed around the outside of the tower’s light in which these lamps were housed. The result was that at night, when the lamps were lit and the light was set in motion, ships at sea would see an alternating red-and-white flash of light, warning them of the presence of the Bell Rock Lighthouse and the dangerous coastline that it protected.

The Completion of the Lighthouse

The lighthouse was finally completed in 1810, with a total of 2,500 specially-cut blocks of Aberdeen granite going into its construction, each one of these stones delivered to the docks by the same horse from 1808-1810. Its name was Bassey. In the closing months of the lighthouse’s construction, the tower became something of a tourist attraction. Locals and travellers would hire boats and row the twelve miles out to sea, to witness its construction.


A computer-generated image of the Bell Rock Lighthouse as it would have looked immediately after the completion of its construction in 1811

On the 1st of February, 1811, the lighthouse was lit and operated for the first time. In an agreement with Stevenson, made during the lighthouse’s construction, the workman Wishart, who had been crippled by the falling crane, was appointed the lighthouse’s first keeper. Having worked so hard on the lighthouse and having been rendered unfit for most other jobs, Wishart was ideally suited to becoming the first keeper of the Bell Rock Lighthouse.


An artist’s rendition of the Bell Rock Lighthouse in the middle of a fierce, North Sea storm

The Bell Rock Lighthouse stands to this day, a testament to man’s engineering skill. Untouched for over two hundred years (apart from periodic maintenance of the tower’s light), the Bell Rock Lighthouse continues to warn local shipping of the threat posed by the Inchcape, or the reef at Bell Rock.


Bell Rock Lighthouse as it appears today

While there were still disputes for decades after, between Rennie and Stevenson over who should take credit for the lighthouse’s phenomenal design, there can be no doubt that it was Robert Stevenson who built her from the ground up, risking every day of his life on Bell Rock to see his dream come true. Risking death by falling masonry, death by drowning, death by the stormy conditions to be found in that part of the world.

Bell Rock Lighthouse today at low tide. Note the small area of land which the labourers would have had to have worked on. Also, compare this photograph with the one above, showing the extreme difference in water-depth between high and low tide. Failure to get into the boats at the end of each two-hour shift would have resulted in all men drowning within a matter of minutes, as the water washed over their heads.

Robert Stevenson did make a name for himself with Bell Rock. His civil engineering skills were recognised and he went on to design and construct fourteen more lighthouses, along with five bridges! His sons, Thomas, Alan and David Stevenson all went on to become successful civil engineers in their own right. Although Robert Stevenson was famous for building one of the strongest and most robust lighthouses in the world in one of the most hellish places on earth, today, most people would probably remember him for another reason. In November, 1850, the year that Robert Stevenson died, at the very respectable age of seventy-eight, Margaret Isabella Balfour (later, Stevenson) and Thomas Stevenson, Robert’s son, welcomed a new baby boy into the world. A boy who would eventually grow up to be even more famous than his civil-engineer grandfather who brought safety to the East Scottish coast, more famous than his father or either of his uncles. A boy who is still very well-known to this day, over a hundred years after he died.

That boy was Robert…Louis…Stevenson. The famous children’s author, who gave us such famous novels as ‘Treasure Island’, ‘Kidnapped’ and ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’.

 
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The Home of Monarchy – The History of Buckingham Palace

For nearly two hundred years, from the late 1830s until today, from Queen Victoria to Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace, in the heart of London, has been the seat of the British monarchy. The building is a symbol of power, tradition, a source of nationral pride and a place of national gathering during times of joy and grief. How many of us remember the photographs and newsreel-pictures of people crowding outside the gates of Buckingham Palace in May of 1945 to celebrate VE Day? How many of us remember the dozens of bunches of flowers which were laid against the gates, stacked up against the walls or tied to the railings by Britons mourning the death of Princess Diana in 1997?

But how much do we really know about Buckingham Palace? How old is it? How big is it? How many toilets does it have? How did it get its name and when was it built?

This article will look into the history of one of the world’s most famous royal palaces, from its humble beginnings as a lavish townhouse, to its grand finale as the home to the current queen.

Buckingham House

Does this building look vaguely familiar? It might. Behold Buckingham House, 1809.

The building which is today Buckingham Palace was originally a townhouse named Buckingham House, named after the Duke of Buckingham and Normanby and was constructed starting in 1703. The building was designed by Capt. William Winde, a notable architect of the day who was famous for designing several grand manor-houses. Unfortunately for Winde, few of his original structures survive today, either renovated, intergrated into other buildings or destroyed by fire over the two hundred plus years since his death.

Buckingham House did not last long in private hands, though. After being built for the Duke of Buckingham, it was then passed to his descendant Sir Charles Sheffield in the 1760s and thereafter into royal hands, starting with King George III.

Throughout the next sixty years, Buckingham House was gradually renovated, improved and enlarged. King George IV and his younger brother, the later King William IV, had Buckingham House extensively renovated and improved. In 1834, the British Houses of Parliament, the Palace of Westminster, burnt to the ground in a spectacular fire…

…The destruction of Westminster prompted William IV to turn Buckingham Palace into the new Houses of Parliament, but Parliament turned down the king’s offer, which allowed for the palace’s further renovations until the king’s death in 1837.

Buckingham Palace

It had been the wish of King William IV, who had been a popular and well-liked public figure, to turn Buckingham Palace from a mere noble townhouse into a palace and residence fit for royalty. Although renovations and building had been ongoing since the time of George IV, William, George’s younger brother, died before these renovations were completed.

On the 20th of June, 1837, Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom, and became the first monarch to move into the new palace and so Buckingham Palace entered on its role which we know it for today – being the London home of the British monarch.

If you expected a palace fit for a queen to be glamorous and wonderful…think again. Victoria (then aged only 18) moved into her new house so fast that the renovations were barely completed! The palace hadn’t been cleaned properly, there were heating problems due to malfunctions with chimneys (which meant that fires couldn’t be lit in the fireplaces) and probably most dangerous of all, the newfangled ‘gas’ lighting wasn’t working properly, which could turn Buckingham Palace into the world’s most luxurious time-bomb!

Another problem with the new palace was space. If you’ve read my article on classical makeup of domestic servants, you’ll know that grand houses built during this era took a small army to keep them primped and proper and neat and tidy and running smoothly. Any grand house would have up to a dozen or more servants. In a royal palace, this number skyrocketed to a few hundred! Footmen, butlers, waiters, chefs, cleaners, laundresses, courtiers, valets, ladies’ maids, chambermaids…and then you had to consider the space needed for courtiers, guests, family…and all of their servants! There simply wasn’t enough room!

Originally constructed with a central building and two wings, it was decided that Buckingham Palace would require an extension. London’s famous Marble Arch, built to commemorate great naval victories, was originally the ceremonial entranceway to the palace. But it was only ceremonial, and little else. It was decided that Marble Arch took up too much space, and so it was moved to the corner of Hyde Park where it is today. In its place, a third wing was constructed, joining up the two other wings and enclosing a central courtyard that is the quadrangle that we know today. It is this last addition to the palace that makes it begin to resemble what we recognise today.


Buckingham Palace as it appeared in 1910, at the end of the Edwardian era

The enclosing of the quadrangle was completed in 1847 and this was one of the last major construction-efforts taken out on the palace until the early 20th century.

A New Palace for a New Century

With a new century came a new king. Edward VII, famous for being fat and friendly and for forgetting to button up his waistcoats, was well-known for being something of a party-animal. He loved entertaining. Dinners, balls, hunting-parties and dances were always on Eddie’s calender and the palace was modernised and renovated to suit the king’s needs and taste.

London is famous for a great many things. One of these is the notorious London fog. Fog or smog in London was not just low-hanging clouds. It was everything. Ash. Dust. Soot. Moisture. Smoke. Grit from the streets. Oil and grease from factories. On especially bad days, London’s smog was so bad, you literally couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. This unsightly and nasty fog caused terrible cosmetic damage to the palace. In the end, the damage of the smog to the palace’s stonework was so extensive that the stonework had to be entirely replaced…a process that took well over a year in 1913.

A Wartime Palace

As a symbol of Britannic pride, of monarchy, of patriotism, Buckingham Palace has long been a target in times of war. In the 1910s with the outbreak of WWI, George V was encouraged to lock the palace’s wine-cellars so as not to set a bad example to his subjects by enjoying himself and guzzling down wine while the country was in dire straits.

Warfare took a bigger toll on the palace in WWII, though. The Blitz on London, from 1940-1941 caused massive amounts of damage throughout the British capital and the palace was not spared. Hitler knew that he could seriously hurt British morale by destroying the palace and the Luftwaffe made it a specific target. It was bombed no less than seven times in the Second World War. One bomb detonated in the palace quadrangle, blowing out all the interior windows in the process! This particular attack made the front page of local newspapers and served as a morale-booster to the British public, glad that their monarchy had not deserted them in this time of national crisis.

The Palace Today

The palace in the 21st Century is still very much a working royal institution, just as it was when it was first inhabited by Queen Victoria over a hundred years ago. Events such as grand dinners, meetings and press-conferences still continue within its chambers and garden parties for everyone from adults to grandparents to children, now take place in the palace gardens on a regular basis.

 
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Battle of the Dauntless – A Short Story

Been a long time since I added anything to the ‘Creative Writing’ area of my blog. This is a short, 2,500-word piece that I finished recently and which I thought I would share with everyone:

Battle of the Dauntless

July, 1804
Northeast Atlantic, west of Spain

Timbers creak and waves slosh gently against a bobbing hull, like so many mothers’ hands reaching to comfort a crying baby. Sunlight, fresh and warm, beams down on white sails, furled for the time-being, and on ropes and rigging, some taut and which creak from tension, some slack and limp from lack of use. On the deck, I watch the men at work, coiling ropes, scrubbing decks and doing general maintenance. I head through one of the hatchways towards the back of the ship and knock on the door of the Great Cabin.
“Come!” a voice calls out. I open the door and step inside.
“Ah! Good morning, Mr. Colton!”
Captain Christopher Peale sits at one end of a table. Capt. Peale is a tall man, some six foot two inches in height and of solid build, with long, dark blond hair done up in the back in a rough ponytail to keep it out of the way. I smile at him in a way that exists between friends.

“Good morning, Christopher,” I said. Behind closed doors, I had decided to indulge in my social rather than professional relationship with the captain. The captain smiled and beckoned me to sit down. Next to the captain, a man in his late thirties, was another man of a similar age. Dr. James Frost. I have known Christopher Peale since we were a pair of ‘snotties’, midshipmen, both aged some twelve years old. Dr. Frost has been our ship’s surgeon these past five. We say ‘surgeon’ but he is both physician and surgeon and so much the better.

“Any news?” Christopher asked. I shook my head.
“Everything is as it should be,” I said.
“Excellent,” said Christopher. “Well Jack, James, I fancy we can help ourselves to the first drink of the day”.

Being First Lieutenant and a close friend and colleague of both the captain and surgeon always brings certain privileges with them, which I was happy to take advantage of. Our morning drink was interrupted when someone knocked on the door.

“Come!” Christopher called out.

Second Lieutenant Arthur Collins or ‘Artie’ as we called him, opened the door.

“Sail ahead, sir!” he said, “You’d best come see!”

Christopher nodded. “Very good. Thank you, Collins. Doctor, back to your quarters; Jack, close the windows and then join me on the foredeck”.

The men left the cabin and I leaned out to close the windows in the ship’s stern. Looking down, I read the large, white letters which spelt out the word ‘Dauntless’ on the stern. I closed the cabin door and headed up on deck.

“You see?” Christopher asked. He pressed a spyglass to my hands. I extended it and observed a ship several yards away. I could make out the red, white and blue French flag flapping in the wind and then I noticed a bright, white flash. The sun glinting off a spyglass lens!

“He’s spotted us!” I said. I handed the glass back to the captain.
“So he has, the dog! Lieutenant Colton, alert the officers, beat to quarters and clear for action!”
“Aye sir!” I said, nodding. “Mr. Collins! Mr. Barkley, Mr. Shears! Beat to quarters and clear for action! Quickly, now!”

Soon, all was a flurry of activity as orders were shouted hither and thither. Piercing notes from the bosun’s pipes squealed and warbled through the air and voices yelled out loud and full of conviction.
“Mr. Jones, run up the colours! Midshipman Bell, two points starboard!” the captain shouted. I rushed below. A marine, dressed in his distinctive red and white uniform stood rapidly beating a drum, setting the pace for action. Men raced towards the gun-decks.

“Cast loose!” I and the other officers shouted and the gun-crews undid the ropes restraining the cannons to the hull of the ship.
“Run out the larboard battery!” yelled the captain, “Roundshot! Carronades and chase-guns to be loaded with grapeshot and case!”

“Run out!” I yelled. My friend Arthur yelled out the same. I bent down next to the nearest gun-crew and helped them to run out their gun. The Dauntless was a 5th Rate Ship-of-the-Line with forty-four guns: Twenty 18-pounders, twenty 12-pounders, four 6-pounder chase-guns as well as eight 18-pounder carronades, not counted in the ship’s armaments.

The view of the sea from the open gunport was small, and running the cannon-muzzle out through the gunport was hard work. Even with the help of the ship rolling in the swell, it still took the entire five-man gun-crew to push out the piece on its gun-carriage or pull it out using ropes and pulleys. Then, the action started.
Nothing could possibly describe over twenty cannons firing in quick succession, one after the other, after the other, after the other! As each order of “Fire!” was given, the gun-captain pulled on the lanyard that operated the gunlock and the whole contraption would explode! White smoke, flames and a jet black iron cannonball would come hurtling out and off into the distance. The gun leaps back with a kick like a stubborn mule, making the gun-deck shake from the blast! Through the gunport I could see the shots smashing into the timbers of the other ship. We had now drawn alongside the enemy which was firing back at us. Heavy iron cannonballs smashed into the hull, showering splinters everywhere!

“Reload!” I shouted. I heard gun-captains yelling out orders which echoed in my ears, a confusion of incomprehensible sounds.

“Worm! Sponge! Cartridge, wad, shot, wad, ram! Prime! Run out! Level! FIRE!”

The gun-decks were filled with choking, blinding smoke enough to make one double over in coughing and sound enough to make one deaf to all things around him. The steady ‘thud!’ of the guns firing, the whistling and droning of shot and the inevitable shattering and splintering of wood and the screams of the maimed, wounded and the fading groans of the freshly deceased filled the air. Through the smoke and blood and splintered wood, youths of fourteen, twelve, ten and even younger, were jogging back and forth in a relay race of death. Slung over their shoulders were cylindrical kegs. These unfortunate lads were the powder-monkeys . A sudden cannon-blast hit the side of the ship! One of the boys was thrown back against a support-beam! He screamed and fell to the ground. I snatched up his empty keg and jogged through the ship.

“Mr. Collins! Mr Barkley keep them spitting! You boys, get a move on! Sharpish, now!”

I sprinted through the ship, sliding down the staircases and ladders until I reached a large, copper-lined room: The Magazine. There, the Ship’s Gunner helped me fill the powder-keg with cartridges before sending me back up to the guns. From there, I headed up on deck to witness the full fury of the action.

The deck was a mess of wood, smoke and bodies. The carronades and chase-guns were firing on the enemy ship while the captain screamed out orders. After taking in sail so that we’d fall behind the enemy, the captain had ordered all sails set and the ship turned hard a’larboard. This swung our ship left, so that it passed by the stern of the enemy ship.

“Mr Shears! Run out the starboard battery!” the captain yelled. We ducked as something whistled past our ears and wrapped itself around a mast! I reached up and untangled a length of chain-shot and held it up to the captain .
“Bloody frogs can’t shoot worth a damn!” he shouted over the roar of cannons. I laughed.
“Take that below and have one of the lads send it back to them proper-like!” he ordered. I passed the chain-shot below with orders to fire it back before helping one of the ship’s boys to carry a wounded man below.

The surgeon’s quarters were below, aft, a room below the captain’s cabin. The windows were opened and Dr. Foster and his Mate were working double-time to attend the injured, which was everything from cuts and scrapes hastily washed and bandaged, to amputations requiring the use of the tourniquet, rum, laudanum, the flesh-knife and the bone-hacksaw.

“Another one, doctor!” I called out, helping the man into the room and sitting him on a bench. The ship rocked from another cannon-blast! But it wasn’t that which was preventing the doctor from paying attention to me. The blood drenching the floor was getting intolerable. The doctor’s loblolly-boy was scooping out handfuls of sand from a sack and throwing it onto the floor to try and soak it up, but wasn’t having an amazing amount of luck. I left them to their work and headed upstairs.

“What’s happening?” I shouted to the third lieutenant.
“Raking fire!” he shouted, “Give us a hand!”
Raking fire was always Captain Peale’s favoured method of attack. Indeed it was probably every captain’s favourite method, given the opportunity. And at the moment, the opportunity was golden.
“Fire as you bear!” I shouted to the men. “With a will, lads! Come on!”
Cannons were run out on their carriages and one by one, the lanyards were pulled and the guns fired!
“Off with the rudder, now!” Arthur shouted, “Gun-captains! On the down-roll…FIRE!”

There was a sickening blast! Shot smashed into the lower hull of the enemy ship, disabling its steering.
“Reload!” I shouted, “On the up-roll boys!…Steady…On the up-roll, FIRE!”

The ship groaned! Cannon-shot smashed into the stern of the French ship, ripping it to pieces! Just then, Fourth Lieutenant Shears ran up to me.

“Captain wants you on deck! Mr. Barkley, you’re to be here and command the guns, Mr. Collins also! Mr. Colton, cap’n wants men to lead boarding-parties!”

Up on deck, we prepared to board. I selected a brace of pistols and muskets and touched my hand to my side to ensure the security of my sabre. Again, it became a muddle of orders shouted out and begging to be heard, like drowning sailors in a sea of words.
“Boarders to me!”
“Reload! Case-shot!”
“Marines! Fix bayonets!”
“Ready…level…FIRE!”
“Grappling-hooks away! Bring forth boarding-planks! Handsomely, now! Make sure they’re secured!”

We charged across from our ship to the enemy’s. It was almost impossible to see anything. The smoke from the gunfire was as thick as a winter fog in London. Some of us swung over on grappling-hooks while others ran across the boarding-planks, jumping onto the quarterdeck of the enemy ship. I fired both my pistols scoring direct hits before shrugging my musket off my shoulder. Shoot, stab, swing, club! Move on! Sword, swing, stab, left, right! I am given a stark reminder of how hard it is to actually pierce the human torso, said task requiring quite an expenditure of strength on my part with the use of my bayonet. Behind me, I hear the captain charging forward with his men. I turned around for an instant and noticed two carronades on our ship firing caseshot onto the enemy quarterdeck to try and scatter and kill them. Two loud explosions nearby told me that Captain Peale was deploying his weapon of choice: a double-barrelled blunderbuss, a monster that was originally a coach-gun but which had been modified with a spring-loaded bayonet at the front for better use in close-quarters combat . Something black whistled over my head and hit the deck! The grenade rolled along the planking and clattered and bounced down the steps into the inside of the ship. It was followed by a loud blast and screams that alerted all around that it had hit its target!

“Jack! Lieutenant Colton! Take your men below and spike the guns!” the captain shouted as he held off two men with his sword. A dozen men and myself headed below. Spiking of the guns was not immediately necessary; the devastation wreaked by twenty cannons raking the enemy’s stern had already put most of the French guns wholly out of action. The few guns that needed spiking were already spiked by the French to stop us using them. We fought our way through the interior of the ship and then back up onto the quarterdeck where we were once again exposed to the full extent of the battle, with the crews of two ships fighting in a confined space. Men were thrown overboard, shot, stabbed, bludgeoned or slashed as British forces swept through the ship. Supporting fire from our still-active cannons soon gave us the upper hand. By degrees, we managed to corner the French until Christopher managed to get the enemy captain in front of him.
“Your name, Monsieur?” Captain Peale asked.
“Capitan Jacques Petard,” said the French captain. He was significantly older, probably in his fifties, with greying hair and scars from previous battles displayed like medals on his face.
“And do you surrender both your ship and your men to me?”
“Oui, monsieur capitan, and to whom do I have the honour of surrendering my ship?”
“Christopher Peale, Royal Navy, captain of His Majesty’s Ship Dauntless”.

Captain Petard unsheathed his sabre, and held it delicately between his fingers, handing it to Captain Peale, who sheathed it in his empty scabbard.

“Strike your colours,” Captain Peale said, “You and your men will be confined below decks until such time as we have made landfall. Lieutenant Shears, assemble some men to serve as a skeleton crew aboard ship, and half the full complement of marines to maintain order. Let us gather stock of these events and then proceed to repairs”.

The remaining French sailors were then confined to the lower decks of their ship, where marines were posted to guard them. Repairs were started almost immediately, by clearing and cleaning the decks and burying the bodies of sailors from both sides at sea. Each body was sewn up in its own hammock with a cannonball around its ankles to make it sink. The recovering wounded rested in the ship’s infirmary the ship’s carpenter proceeded to sound the vessel to check for damage.
“What orders, sir?” I asked as I directed the men in the repair of the ships.
“Once we’re underway, we’ll set a course East-Northeast”.
“East-Northeast…that would have us sailing to England, sir…”
“It would indeed, Jack. We’re going home. Alert Mr. Jones, will you?”
“Aye sir”.
By the next morning, with most important elements of the ship repaired, we set a course East-Northeast and sailed for home, with our captured prize no more than three ship-lengths behind us at any point during the journey.
“All in all, a very successful action,” Christopher said to myself and the other officers as we gathered in his cabin for our first proper dinner since we set our course for home.
“Indeed sir,” said Lieutenant Collins, brushing back his own blond hair and reaching for a brandy, “A most successful action indeed”.
“And what’s the butcher’s bill?” I asked.
“Fifteen dead, twenty wounded, five of them seriously so”.
“Define serious,” Captain Peale said.
“Two amputations, one concussion, two musket-ball wounds. I’ve removed the musket-balls but those two will have to be rested for a long time before they’re well enough to resume duties again, sir”.

Christopher sighed, “War’s a damnably messy thing, gentlemen. A hellish thing. But the action is done, so let us think of home and to our ships at sea”.

One by one, we raised our glasses and clinked them together.

“To our ships at sea” .

The End

 
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Fountain Pens: How to Buy and Where to Find the World’s Most Wonderful Toy.

Haven’t done one of these in a while. A post about that most boring and yawn-inducing of subjects, a topic bound to alleviate even the most hardcore of insomniacs from their troubles…the fountain pen.

Many people see fountain pens in movies, in magazines, at other peoples’ houses, or somewhere out in public, in the hand of a fellow writing something down in a cafe, or at the office. Sooner or later, a few of these people will start thinking that they’d like a fountain pen of their own. Only…they don’t really know where to find one…

So, if you want a fountain pen, either as a special gift or as an everyday writing instrument, where and how do you go about looking for one? And, having found their secret lair, how do you infiltrate it and decide which pens are the best for you?

Fountain pens, by their very nature, are highly personal posessions. A Bic Cristal is no-more personal than a plastic coffee-cup and retains as much sentiment as a tissue-paper retains water. Fountain pens, on the other hand, can literally last for decades…and will certainly be around for a lot longer than any time that you’d be on this earth for.

With that in mind, selecting and buying a fountain pen is a bit like buying a car. It’s a slow, careful and involved process, a lesson in patience, attention to detail and product-knowledge.

What to Know

Before buying a fountain pen, you need to know a few things about yourself, first. Chief among these are:

– How will you use this pen? Is it an everyday writing-instrument? Is it a ceremonial thing, to be brought out at weddings to sign registries, cheques and wills?

– Have you used a fountain pen before? Yes? Then you might know a bit more about what will suit you. No? Then move on to…

– What’s your writing like? Big? Small? Cursive? Curly? Print? The size and style of your handwriting will determine what type of fountain pen is best for you. Unlike ballpoint pens, no two fountain pens are exactly alike, and picking one that fits your handwriting comfortably is an odessy like trying to find the Holy Grail.

– What is your budget? If you’re already used to fountain pens, you might like to spend a bit more to get a really nice one. But if you’re starting out, a cheaper fountain pen that you won’t cry over if you lose it, might be a better option. There seems to be a huge misconception these days that fountain pens are hideously expensive, starting at a million bucks and skyrocketing up from there. This is absolutely NOT true. Fountain pens can be found at any price, it’s just a matter of what you’re willing to pay and the quality you’re expecting.

Picking Your Pen

Having decided that you would seriously like to buy a fountain pen, the next hurdle is to decide on WHAT pen to buy. There are thousands of fountain pens out there which could start at $10, or could start at $10,000. What brand or pen-maker do you want to focus on? What is important to you? Weight? Style? Comfort? Ease-of-Use?

Things that will help you decide what pen is best for you, include…

– Style. Do you want an older pen? A newer one? Something a bit retro and 30s Art Deco, or something that just rolled off the production-line? Something that’s made of metal and all futuristic? Or something that looks like what your grandfather used, for that vintage touch?

– Weight. Fountain pens are made out of LOTS of materials. Steel, silver, gold, celluloid, plastic, casein, ebonite, wood…need I name more? The type of material used to make the body of the pen will affect its weight, and therefore, comfort. If you’re wanting to own a pen which you’ll use for regular writing, you might want to pick one that’s lighter. Instead of wood or metal, pick one made of rubber or plastic.

– Overall Size. Fountain pens can be as thin as a drinking-straw, and as thick as a salami. The overall girth and length of the instrument is important. If you’ve got bigger hands, a larger, chunkier pen like a Montblanc 149 might fit more comfortably. If your hands are smaller, a slimmer number such as a Waterman Phileas might be more comfortable.

Brand Focus

Having decided on the general size and style that you want to go for, picking a good brand now becomes important. There are literally dozens of fountain pen manufacturers out there making pens of all styles and price-ranges. Some of the more well-known pen-makers include Parker, Sheaffer, Waterman, Visconti, Montblanc, Lamy, Rotring, Conklin and OMAS. You should take your time to sift through all the available options. Some pen-manufacturers only make really expensive pens, but others make pens of all price-ranges. If money is no object, look at everything you can find. If money is an object, limit your field to pen-manufacturers that produce pens at a variety of price-ranges.

Keep in mind that fountain pens have been around for over a hundred years. There are lots of defunct pen-manufacturers with perfectly functional vintage and antique pens still floating around the market. Some of these older pen-makers include such notables as Wahl-Eversharp, Mabie-Todd, Onoto and Morrison. And there are also hundreds of discontinued pen-models made by hundreds of well-established companies that are still available for purchase. How about a Parker Duofold from the 1920s? A 1950s Parker ’51’? A Sheaffer Balance from the 1930s? A Waterman Ideal from the 1910s? If you want a more vintage pen, keep an eye out for stuff like that.

Where to Buy?

You’ve figured out the brand, size, style, nib-type and the hundred and one other little tiddly things that you should know about fountain pens before buying one, and now you want to know…where the hell do I find one of these things?

First up, a stationery shop or a news-agent is not your best bet as a hunting-ground. Like it or hate it, fountain pens have drifted into the sort of “Novelty” area of desk accessories in the last thirty or forty years, and most news-agencies and stationery-shops are unlikely to stock fountain pens. If they do, they won’t be the really nice ones that you want, they’ll be the cheap, disposable kind. This might still be useful to you, however, if you’re thinking of getting a simple fountain pen just to give a trial-run before looking into pens more seriously.

The most obvious place to go to is a pen-shop or a large-sized stationery or office-supplies store. Places like Staples or OfficeWorks or any of those big, aircraft-hangar-sized stationery & office-supply shops may have a pretty decent selection of mid-priced and cheap fountain pens from a variety of manufacturers. It’s in places like this that you’re also likely to find the cheaper pen-models made by established manufacturers like Parker, Sheaffer and Waterman.

Pen shops are the top place to go. A good pen shop should be brightly lit with nice, easily-visible display-cases with the pen-brands clearly signposted all over the place. Head in and start browsing. Pen shops are also handy places to buy notebooks, diaries, ink and some general stationery-products such as sealing-wax, calligraphy-sets, envelopes and address-books.

Feel free to speak to the staff at the pen-shop. Any good pen-seller worth his salt, will be knowledgeable about the various brands and models of pens that he sells and will be able to help you make an informed choice on what you want.

Like I said before, buying a fountain pen is much like buying a car; you don’t just go out and buy it sight unseen and hand untouched. A good pen-shop should allow you to pick out a selection of fountain pens and perform what is known as a ‘dip-test’. A dip-test means that the clerk or shopkeeper will give you a notepad and a bottle of ink for you to dip and write with the fountain pens that you’re interested in. This is important as it allows you to see exactly how the pen performs. In some shops, there are even specific ‘sample’ pens placed aside, deliberately for this purpose.

If, for any reason, the shopkeeper or clerk won’t allow you to try a ‘dip-test’…move on to something else. Don’t waste your time arguing, just remember that the guy behind the counter just talked himself out of a potential sale. You wouldn’t buy a car without driving it first, and neither should you buy a fountain pen without first seeing how it writes.

Online Buying

Pen-shops are non-existent! They’re staffed by idiots! The prices send you to the hospital suffering from heart-failure! The local office-supply shop is staffed by clueless teenagers who wouldn’t know the up-side of a pen if you stabbed them in the eye with it! Damn it!…Now what?

Ironically, there are dozens of places online where you can buy fountain pens! The most obvious places to start are on pen-company websites, but there are also the smaller, independent pen-maker websites that you can visit. Some people (called pen-turners) manufacture their own, custom-made pens using a variety of materials and sell them online. If you’re looking for something unique, try there.

I mentioned vintage pens earlier. These pens can be up to a hundred years old. How is it that they still work today? This is made possible by the dedication and skill of the dozen or so expert pen-repairers in the world. Fountain pen repair and restoration is a niche market, but there is a solid community of these folks who accept, repair and re-sell fountain pens. Some of these repairers sell fountain pens via their websites, whether they be vintage models or brand-new pens. Buying from people like this will ensure that you’re dealing with professionals who know their product and that what you’re buying will actually work when you fill it with ink.

Lastly but not least…the electronic flea-market. eBay.

Buying fountain pens on eBay is an experience, to say the least. While you can find some amazing things there, keep in mind a few tricks and traps which can snare you and leave you crying in the corner. First, buy from sellers with a good reputation. Some pen-repairers have eBay accounts where they sell their restored vintage fountain pens. If you want peace of mind, deal with these folks. Some people are pen-collectors who want to sell some of their collection because it’s getting too big. As with any collecting niche, fellow collectors hate being ripped off, so you’re likely to get some very honest answers here to any questions you ask.

Then there are people who are clueless about what they’re selling. This can be a gold-mine, or it can be a minefield. Some sellers genuinely have absolutely no bloody idea what they’re selling…they just want to get rid of it! You can get some nice bargains here, but be sure to check the descriptions and photos for any signs of damage. Be mindful of…

– Cracks.
– Chips.
– Bent, cracked, or otherwise broken nibs.
– Bent filling-levers. This is a sign that someone tried to force the filling-mechanism on a lever-filler. This pen will need to be re-sacced before use.
– Missing parts.
– General quality and condition.
– Operational condition. Does the pen fill and write properly?

Some sellers *know* what they’re selling…and WILL try to rip you off. Best to stay away from folks like this, but if you really want what they’re selling, be mindful of various phrases that might jump out at you. In fact, any person on eBay may use these phrases, and it’s best to know what hidden meaning they contain…

“Fills with water”

That’s nice. But I need a pen, not a teapot. Does it fill with INK? And does it WRITE? Just because a pen fills with water and empties with water is no guarantee that it will work properly. Only ink and a writing-sample will tell you that.

“Rare!”

Seller: I’ve NEVER seen one of these before. Don’t let this fool you. Just because it’s advertised as ‘rare’ doesn’t mean it IS rare. If every pen in the world was ‘rare’, you’d never own one.

“Value $500/$1000/$25000. For you? $50”

The pen might be perfectly legitimate, but don’t be fooled. Unless it’s encrusted with diamonds and gold…no fountain pen is worth that kind of money. The ONLY time there might be exceptions to this rule are with limited edition or particularly old pens (when I mean old, I mean at least 90 years).

“12/14/18kt gold nib”.

Most honest pen-sellers or clueless sellers will mention this fact as a matter of common courtesy and habit. Nothing wrong with that. You want to know what you’re buying, and they’re telling you.

Where it becomes a problem is when an unscrupulous seller tells you that the nib is 14kt gold and demands a ‘Buy it Now’ price of $2,500. Gold is expensive, yes…but it’s not THAT expensive. Truth be told, the amount of gold in a nib is worth $15…MAX. Don’t be dragged in by this. They want you to think that this is REALLY SPECIAL…it isn’t. MILLIONS of fountain pens have 14kt gold nibs and it has absolutely NO affect on the value.

“Never used”

Perhaps not by you, the seller, but if it’s a second-hand pen, take for granted that it has been used and that it *may* need some professional attention.

“Genuine/Authentic”

Be careful of sellers who are trying to rip you off by selling FAKE fountain pens. Montblanc is HIGHLY prone to this. Keep a few things in mind…

– Montblanc nibs are 14 or 18kt gold. They do NOT say “IPG” (“Iridium Point, Germany”) on the nibs and they are NOT made of steel. The nibs are 14 or 18kt SOLID GOLD, not gold-plate-on-steel.

– The Montblanc Star should be PERFECTLY centered on the top of the cap. If it isn’t…fake.

– The pen (If fairly new) should have a serial-number electronically engraved onto the clip-band. If not…fake.

– The pretty swirling patterns found on Montblanc nibs is mechanically pressed, not engraved by hand. If the patterning is off-center or rough in appearance or in any way suspicious…fake.

– The word ‘PIX’ should be stamped on the UNDERSIDE of the pocket-clip. If you don’t see a photo proving this fact…advance cautiously. This could be an older pen without this authenticity safeguard on it, or it could be a fake.

– Montblanc pens may have ‘Germany’, ‘Made in Germany’, ‘W. Germany’ or ‘Made in W. Germany’ on them. Older pens up to the early 1990s will have the latter two markings, more modern pens will have the former two. ‘W. Germany’ is WEST GERMANY, where Montblanc was located, before the reunification of Germany after the collapse of the USSR. Some fraudsters will try and trick you and type in stuff like “Made in Gormany” on their boxes and hope you won’t notice (I have seen this, you’d be amazed how stupid people will think you are).

“Pen functions/writes well / Working Condition”

This will generally mean that once you’ve got the pen with you, it should work right away. If doubtful, ask the seller to post a writing-sample or ask him/her how well the pen fills and empties with ink.

Pen-Sellers Jargon

As fountain pens are rather something of a niche market, some online pen-sellers may use specific jargon (slang) that you may not be familiar with. Here’s a few of the more common terms.

“BCHR/BHR”. Black (Chased) Hard Rubber. A pen made of Hard Rubber (ebonite) which may or may not have ‘chasing’ on it. Chasing is heat-pressed patterning on the cap and barrel of the pen. Pens of this kind were manufactured from the very earliest days of fountain pens up to the mid 1920s. SOME modern pen-makers (such as Conklin and Bexley) still make pens this way.

Similarily, there is also “RCHR/RHR”, which is Red (Chased) Hard Rubber. Same concept, different colour.

Flex/Flexy/Flexible/Semi-flex/Wet Noodle. Some pen-sellers will use these terms to describe nibs. Flexible-nibbed pens were very popular from the 1880s to the 1930s. It means that the nib will flex (bend) according to the amount of pressure placed on the writing-point. This produces lines of varying thicknesses. Thin (light pressure) or broad (heavy pressure). If you do calligraphy, you might like a pen like this. Flex-nibbed pens are NOT for beginners as they can take a bit of getting used to.

NOS/NIB. New Old Stock and New In Box. This means pens which were once new, but which were never sold commercially and which should still have all their papers and boxes with them. If you’re after particularly nice pens, keep an eye out for those acronyms.

Wet/Dry. A seller’s description might say that a pen writes ‘wet’ or ‘dry’. This relates to amount of ink that the nib lays on the paper. A ‘wet’ pen lays down a liberal amount of ink that may take some time to dry. A ‘dry’ pen lays down ink sparingly, which will mean it dries quicker. If you’re a left-handed writer, a dry-writing pen might be best.

Sprung. A seller selling an imperfect pen might use this term to describe the nib or the clip. A nib or a clip that has been ‘sprung’ is one that has been bent out of its original position. This IS repairable, so don’t freak out!

Sac/Bladder. From about 1900 until the 1950s, the majority of fountain pens filled with rubber or plastic ink-sacs (also called bladders). Over time, these can wear out, ossify (harden up) or simply just lose their elasticity due to overuse. Sacs in this condition must be replaced, fortunately, it’s a relatively simple job that any pen-restorer will be able to do.

Buying Pens at Flea-Markets

No pen shops, prices too high, unhelpful staff, no places nearby to buy pens, can’t buy pens online because you promised your wife/husband/parents that you wouldn’t or you can’t because your cards are maxed out. What now?

If you have one nearby, visit a flea-market, also called a trash-and-treasure market, a bric-a-brac market or a car-boot sale. The folks at places like this often just have a whole heap of junk at home that they want to get rid of or have collections of things that they want to trim down. You can find some amazing bargains here, if you know where, when and how to look. Here are some guidelines about searching for pens at flea-markets.

Turn up EARLY

‘The Early Bird Gets the Worm’ might be a tired and worn-out saying, but in this case…important. Collectors of ANYTHING, from stamps to records to CDs to…fountain pens…swarm around flea-markets like bees around honey. If you expect to find anything of quality and value at the flea-market, you MUST arrive early. If the market opens at six o’clock in the morning and you stroll in casually at nine…go and have breakfast, because you’ve missed the boat. Hardcore treasure-hunters will arrive before the sun’s up to scour through everything like a Victorian mudlark on the River Thames at low tide. Arriving early at the market means that you get FIRST PICK of any and all pens that are to be found there that day.

Tool Up

Bring along a few tools to help make your pen-hunting easier. Essentials include cash in small denominations, a jeweller’s loupe or a magnifying-glass, a small notepad and a bottle of fountain pen ink. If you’re arriving early and it’s dark…bring a decent flashlight/torch along with you as well.

The Hunt is On…

It’s six in the morning, it’s cold enough to freeze the nads off a brass monkey, you’ve got a hundred bucks in $5 notes, a magnifying glass strong enough to read microfilm and a flashlight powerful enough to fry eggs on. What now?

Really…it’s up to luck. First thing’s first. Don’t expect to find anything. Let’s face it…chances are, you may go there every weekend for a month and find nothing, so never get too excited. Secondly, know where and how to look.

Don’t waste your time with stalls or tables at the market which have absolutely nothing to do with pens. Unless of course, you’re looking for a new copy of Dante’s “Inferno” as well as a nice pen. Move quickly from stall to stall and scan everything carefully. Keep an eye out for display-cases, big boxes of crap and tables covered with all kinds of nicknacks. Pens are TINY things and they can hide almost ANYWHERE.

Time must be taken to find them. Knowing the likely places to search is important. Due to their size, people selling pens are likely to put them in glass-lidded display-cases so that they’re easily visible, but they may be buried or obscured by those cheap Mickey Mouse wristwatches, that 1912 Waltham pocket-watch or the collection of raunchy, 1890s postcards. Once you’ve found those display-cases, boxes, stands or cabinets, take your time to examine them thoroughly. The pen of your dreams might be hiding underneath the stack of Playboy magazines next to the shoebox of junk thoughtfully laid on the seller’s table.

Having found a stall or table that sells pens, remain calm and self-controlled. A hint of excitement and the price is likely to shoot up, or it’ll never come down when you want to try and haggle. It’s always best to ask the seller if you can handle his offerings, as some people can be a mite nervous of shoppers snatching stuff and running off with it or breaking it. Once you have the pen in your hands, check for a few things…

– Brand. Is the pen-name one that you recognise? If you want a quality pen with a good reputation, pick one with a reputable brand such as Parker, Waterman, Sheaffer, Conway-Stewart, Morrison, Wahl, Wahl-Eversharp, Conklin, etc. These were the “First Tier” pens (pens of best quality). Below them were brands such as “Mentmore” which produced mid-ranged “second tier’ pens and then there are ‘third tier’ pens such as Platignum and Summit.

– Quality. Check for damage. Loose cap-rings, bent or loose clips, missing clips, cracks, dings, bite-marks, chips, abrasions, fading, banana-ing (where the pen is bent like a banana), oliving (on BCHR pens where the sun has leeched the black from the pen, leaving it olive green) and any other imperfections.

– Nib. Check the nib for cracks. Make sure the tines of the nib are aligned and that the tipping is whole and intact. A bent nib IS REPAIRABLE, so don’t throw it out if it is. An untipped nib can be re-tipped. A pen with a tine missing *may* be salvagable if the right nib can be found for it (but here, you’re really skating on thin ice). Cheaper pens will have simple, steel nibs. Steer clear of these. There’s a reason nibs were made of gold…they don’t rust. Nibs made of stainless steel, however, are safe to buy.

– Check the filling-system. Chances are, pens that you find at flea-markets are the ones that have been in grandpa’s desk for fifty years. And grandpa died fifty years ago, so nobody’s touched them since then. In most cases, the filling-system will need to be serviced. If the rest of the pen is in good condition, buy it and then send it to a pen-restorer to fix the filler-system.

You’ve found a nice pen. It’s what you want, it’s in good condition (or it may need a bit of fixing) and you want to buy it. You attract the stallholder’s attention and indicate the pen.

Two things can happen here.

One: The price is reasonable, you knock it down a bit, or you pay the full amount, and walk off with the pen. Everybody wins.

Two: The price is massive, by this I mean $150 for a non-functioning 1920s Waterman. There are two main reasons for this high price. AGE and…GOLD.

People frequently believe that because something is really old, it’s automatically incredibly valuable. It isn’t. If it was literally a one-of-a-kind and a hundred years old…then yes. But if it’s one in a million and it’s a hundred years old…no. Rarity makes value, not age.

Similiarly, if the pen-nib is gold, this may prompt the seller to jack up the price. Again, this is unjustified, as I explained earlier, the gold counts for a miniscule amount of the pen’s already rather diminutive value. IF the pen was WORKING and in MINT condition (or at least very good condition), then a high price might be understandable, but if not, then as a rule, don’t bother paying more than $50 for any pen you find at a flea-market. It’s not worth it, otherwise.

Well, that just about wraps it up. Hopefully this guide will help you in finding and selecting your very first fountain pen.