Raynes Park on sea

A few days ago, happening to dine at the Bugle of Brading, we found they had shelves of old books, rather in the way of the Tooting Wetherspoon's of old or Raynes Park platform library of today. Generally speaking, rather older than those to be found in London. We looked at two and borrowed one.

First, the Victorians, as detailed at reference 1. A worthy looking book, about an inch thick, by one Charles Petrie (reference 3) whom I had confused with Flinders Petrie (reference 4). This one was a prolific historian with a keen interest in matters royal and Jacobite and who veered sharp right in the 1930s -  which makes it a bit odd that he was made a CBE in 1957. During his Jacobite phase he penned the very slight bit of what-iffery at reference 6, sometimes part of the more substantial collection of same at reference 7. Discarded.

Along that way, I turn up a stray connection between Flinder Petrie and Brading. It seems that as a ten year old he was dismayed by reports of crude excavations at the Brading Roman Villa, quite possibly the excavations which resulted in reference 5. Furthermore, the snap above suggests that he could do substantial sums in his head. A trick perhaps not unconnected with one of his sons going on to become an eminent mathematician.

Second, Kent, as detailed at reference 9, with the author at reference 10. Another prolific author occupying the first three quarters of the last century. He also managed three wives. Of humble if interesting origins, became something in the Custom & Excise, where the outbreak of war seems to have found him in some kind of laboratory. I have failed to find out what he did during the war - maybe his sort of civil servant was exempt, maybe he was tubercular, but he went on to have a very busy career. Including being editor for Dent to Dylan Thomas. 

It turns out that the book was one of the county series which you used to come across in larger bookshops and libraries, a series which, for some reason, I had wrongly associated with Batsford. With the snap above being taken from eBay, rather than from the book in question. Complete with woodcut.

And despite being an economy production, it comes with a number of black and white photographs and a helpful fold-out map at the end. One of those maps which you can keep out if you are reading the book at a table. A convenience few modern books bother with.

I thought that a series such as this would be able to command eminent and able authors, while BH thought the style impossibly florid. For the moment, contrariwise, I persist with it. Pleased to find the known-to-me names of both Edmund Blunden and H. M. Tomlinson so far, so the author can't be all bad. I will also have a go at reference 11.

The editor of the series is one Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald, who also did Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. I dare say we will be able to pick one up. Curiously, a naturalist by trade who specialised in cats and dogs. Or, as reference 12 puts it: 'Apart from wildlife, cats and dogs, he had particular interest in the countryside in general, gypsies, fairgrounds and boxing. He showed sympathy with both poachers and gamekeepers'.

PS: reference 11: now done the first 50 or so pages of this interesting memoir of a Battersea childhood. A memoir with a whiff of both Proust and Freud. Maybe I will remember to get a proper copy. A Battersea of which I have some knowledge from my trips from Clapham Junction to Vauxhall, using the route which takes in Asparagus, Latchmere and Duchess.

References

Reference 1: https://suxxesphoto.com/portfolio/isle-of-wight-landscape-photography/brading-down-isle-of-wight-067-pano/. The source of the panoramic shot, looking south from the top of Brading Down.

Reference 2: The Victorians - Sir Charles Petrie - 1960.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Petrie,_3rd_Baronet.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flinders_Petrie.

Reference 5: https://archive.org/details/adescriptiveacc00nichgoog/page/n20/mode/2up. 

Reference 6: http://www.jacobite.ca/essays/if.htm. If: A Jacobite Fantasy - Charles Petrie - 1926.

Reference 7: If It Had Happened Otherwise - edited by J. C. Squire 1931. Each essay in the collection could be considered alternate history or counterfactual history, a few written by leading historians of the period and one by Winston Churchill.

Reference 8: Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development - Francis Galton - 1883. Snap from page 66 of the Everyman edition of 1907.

Reference 9: Kent - Richard Church - 1948. Being the third book in the County series published by Robert Hale of Bedford Square. This volume produced in line with wartime economy standards.

Reference 10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Church_(poet). 

Reference 11: https://archive.org/details/overbridgeessayi0000rich/page/n7/mode/2up. Over the bridge: An essay in autobiography - Richard Church - 1956.

Reference 12: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Vesey-Fitzgerald.