THREE HUNDRED AND ONE THINGS A BRIGHT GIRL CAN DO...

When researching The Last Days of Leda Grey, I took enormous pleasure in reading a book that was published during the Edwardian era: Three Hundred And One Things A Bright Girl Can Do.

I have to say that I would have loved to own such a book when I was a girl. It’s quaint, and in some ways it lingers in the realms of the nineteenth century. And then, there is the fact that only wealthy young ladies would have had the time or the means by which to truly apply themselves to its activities. But, it’s also exciting in its intention of offering independent thought, not to say to advise on certain tasks that are brave and somewhat reckless, even in our more liberated days. 

As the book itself explains ~ 

There is no need to become “mannish”, for girls have a world of their own, and qualities of their own, and a happy, healthy schoolgirl has surely no need to wish to be anything else, or to seek to imitate anyone else. All she need do is be herself.

Of course it was published at a time when women were gaining voices in their fight for the right to vote, and to live on equal terms with men. This new politics brought new freedoms, and the chapters on sports and outdoor pursuits feel very modern and confident ~ as shown by these lines from the Preface: ~

A girl may be able to swim, and yet she may not be a sufficiently strong swimmer, nor a sufficiently daring swimmer, to go out of her depth. Shall she, therefore, abstain from swimming? Certainly not. She still has the exercise of swimming, the fresh air, the sunshine, the exhilaration, the tonic effect of salt or fresh water, and, indeed, it may be that she receives all the advantages that are enjoyed by the strong swimmer who pushes far out to sea.

Push on, young women. Push on! Swim and splash, or play hockey, or badminton. And even if such outdoor pursuits are not what takes your fancy, there are pages on knitting, and sewing, or sketching ~ and samples of music for you to play upon the house piano. There are lectures on architectural styles, on lace making, and pet keeping. There are recipes for drinks and meals. And for those with more daring imaginations, there are a host of ‘magic’ tricks to create mystification among your friends. There are even some tutorials that explain how to make garden hammocks, to read futures in palms, or tell fortunes. Not forgetting the fabulous parlour games with names like Wizard’s Writing. And then there are the plays to produce ~ with much reference to Louisa May Allcott and the lengths that her Little Women went to when producing their fictional shows at home. 

A play, here called Norna, or The Witch’s Curse, is offered for our Bright Girls to act in - with pages and pages of scripted text, followed up by instructions for make-up and costume, or the way to create a drop curtain, such as those you would find on a real stage. Even the lighting is discussed with details of all the chemicals to purchase for different coloured flames, which must have been quite a fire risk ~ and which brings me on to the main event that I used in the pages of my book. The spectacle known as Cremated Alive.

This pyrotechnic extravaganza is described through the lips of Leda Grey, when my teenaged heroine and Theo, her brother, put on a show one afternoon; neither one of them realising then that the act will have significance in events that occur in their future lives ... 

On the evening before our ‘Cremated Alive! A Dramatic and Fiery Spectacular’, I spent hours on my costume. It was one of the vestal virgin robes from the fancy dress racks in the shop, to which I’d added pins and chains found in our mother’s jewellery box.

During these preparations my brother was in the drawing room, arranging the window’s large box bay into a sort of a private stage, just as the book suggested. With the window’s shutters being closed so as not to be seen from the street outside, he’d erected a wooden table that was customised with mirrors, along with the sack in which I’d hide when I ducked behind the furniture, with a bell that I would jangle, and the most convincing charred black skull that he’d made from papier mâché . . . just waiting there to be revealed when I vanished in a puff of smoke.

When we came to perform the thing itself, Rex ~ with the ringing of the bell and the sudden flaring of the flames ~ could only be subdued again when we put him in the garden, along with any scraps of meat left over from our leg of lamb. He’d barked, and Mrs C (who’d also stayed with us for lunch that day) had screamed, becoming very red, with a creaking of her corset bones when leaping from her seat to grab a vase of flowers on a stand, and about to fling its contents out to douse the conflagration, before Ivor had the common sense to make her sit back down again.

But how delighted I had been to think she’d really been convinced, even if that wild reaction might have been enhanced by Ivor’s wine, whereas Theo and I had been reserved, only sipping a little over lunch to be sure of our wits while we performed. But to hear our audience applaud! And then, when Ivor said that if we did a turn at the theatre Royal we’d be sure of a standing ovation ~ well, I’m sure his tongue was in his cheek, but still, I felt so happy. I felt not the least cremated. I felt as if I’d walked through fire and found a new me on the other side. I felt a humming in my blood, as exultant as I’d ever been when I’d dared to dream of a future life as an actress in the moving films.

© Essie Fox. The Last Days of Leda Grey. Published by Orion, November 3 2016.

R. W. 'DADDY' PAUL ~ THE FATHER OF MOVING FILM

I had to do a lot of research about the world of early film when I was writing my latest novel, The Last Days of Leda Grey. Most of that research was then left in a heap on the 'cutting room floor' when developed into fiction. But, here is a new blog post that is based on the factual work of 'Daddy Paul' ~ one of the founding fathers of the world of moving film. An amazing inventor and businessman...

R W Paul was an inventor of intricate electrical instruments, such as the unipivot galvanometer, and wireless telegraphy sets which were often used in submarines during the years of World War 1. From 1918 when his business merged with the Cambridge Instrument Company he helped to invent the iron lung.

But his pioneering expertise in the era of early silent film led to great innovations there as well ~ even being able to put one over Thomas Edison when discovering that the American had not patented his new kinetoscope (the forerunner of the motion film projector, where films were observed through a large box, inside of which reels of films were hung).

Having dismantled Edison’s machine, Paul then constructed one of his own, although when it came to showing films only bootlegs could be used, with Edison being canny enough to patent the cameras that made the films. 

So, along with a man called Birt Acres, a photographic expert, Paul designed a camera of his own. Also, by then having had success at the Earls Court Exhibition, they considered projecting the films they made onto much larger theatre screens ~ something else Edison hadn’t thought about.

At this point the Birt partnership ended. The two men became competitors, both demonstrating their machines in the early months of 1896 ~ with Paul’s new show coinciding exactly to the day with that of the Lumiere brothers first appearing in London with their shows.

What an exciting time it was for the future of the film industry! In very little at time at all the Lumieres were on permanent hire at the London Empire Music Hall, while Paul was employed in Leicester Square by the Alhambra theatre. 

One of R W Paul's theatrographs

A later version, known as the Animatrograph

With these ‘Theatrograph’ shows then becoming successful all over the country, Paul extended the rest of his empire to create a larger business. He produced cameras and projectors, and everything that might be used to set up a cinema of one’s own. In short he had the foresight to see where the industry might lead, and the business sense to take control of every aspect of manufacture, rather than being one small cog if what would be the most enormous wheel.

Still working on innovations he created hand-held cameras to be used anywhere a director wished, thus extending the scope for film-making to include more natural scenery. The introduction of reverse cranking meant that the film run through the cameras could be moved backwards as well as ahead, thus creating double exposures ~ a technique of huge importance when creating special effects for films. 

We now call these early film techniques magic, or trick illusions, such as those in the films of Georges Méliès, the genius French director ~ whose first cameras were bought from R W Paul.

Melies in one of his own trick films

But, Paul was also a film maker.  In 1899 he set up his own studio in London's Muswell Hill, creating over 1,000 films. He travelled through Europe to capture natural scenes, and even reproduced battles from the ongoing Boer War ~ which were reconstructed in London when he couldn't film in Africa. 

In 1901 he created Scrooge (also known as Marley’s Ghost) ~ which was something quite incredible, even though the double exposure trick had been used for years in photography, particularly by those charlatans who claimed to take pictures of the dead as they hovered around the living who posed for pictures while they grieved.

Paul’s gift for cinematography may look crude to our modern eye, but it's clear to see in the still below how this imagery was later used in 1936, in the film of A Christmas Carol, starring Reginald Owen as Scrooge. 

R W Paul created special effects that we tend to take for granted now - such as the use of close ups, or the cutting from one scene to another. However, for all his talents, by 1910 he had left the movie industry, destroying all his negatives and concentrating instead on the other areas of his growing business empire. Perhaps he'd been disillusioned by all the financial restrictions in an expanding global industry, with various cartels set up to try and control the trading terms.

The loss of so many films is hard. Only a small number have been preserved. What archives we might well have had! But such was the influence Paul made that, to this day, he is still known as ‘Daddy Paul’ by many of those employed in the world of moving film. And, in tribute now I will leave you with the final film that Paul produced, which is called Is Spiritualism a Fraud?

Is Spiritualism a Fraud?

The BFI have produced a DVD compilation of the surviving films by R W Paul. The box also includes a really good pamphlet with detailed information on every film it features.

EDWARDIANS AT THE SEASIDE ...BEHAVING BADLY?

When a novel is set in a seaside town it gives such a colourful setting. Add a little history to that mix and you have the gift of nostalgia too. Old postcards. Punch and Judy tents. Donkey rides upon the beach, and - in my case - the Brighton Pier, the aquarium, the Pavilion, the pubs and the shops in the narrow Lanes; all bustling and full of life.

Many Edwardian employees had around two weeks annual holiday. There were cheap train excursions to seaside towns. From London to Brighton in 53 minutes, and there to enter a different world with pier shows, with clowns and minstrels, and many other amusements too.

The seaside towns were liberating. A chance to dress up in your finest clothes, to become something fresh and new again; well away from the grime and daily grind of working lives in many towns. Those retired and better-off might also go during the winter months to take the health-enhancing air. But, the mainstay for the tourist trade was in the summer visitors - when whole families might book themselves into boarding houses or hotels, with varying degrees of luxury. Young men would travel down alone, or else along with packs of friends, heading out after breakfast every day to look for some excitement. And, due to raunchy behaviour upsetting the local residents some seaside resorts banned Sunday trains in the hope of preserving a small degree of gentility on the sabbath days.

The following is an extract, taken from Punch magazine ...

Saturday and Monday, and every working day in the summer week, Bournemouth is blithe and gay. Steamers are running hither and thither, wagonettes, coaches, gardens with music, excellent bands on (the) well-appointed pier, concerts, donkey-riding, al fesco refreshments ... in fact, everything that is considered by the majority as constituting 'appy 'oliday is to be found at its best ... But every Saturday night, long before the stroke of twelve, bands, lights, cocoa-nuts... and people that make life quite impossible, vanish, as if by magic, not to be heard of or seen again till Monday morning...

For a related post, you might like to see:  FILM OF MORECAMBE SEAFRONT, 1901

BIRTH OF THE PEARL: THE MUTOSCOPE CRAZE ...

From Birth of the Pearl, 1903, created by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company

From the end of the nineteenth century ~ right up until 1971, when the UK's introduction of decimal coins could not be used in the slot machines and most of them were sent for scrap ~ mutoscopes could be found in many public areas, such as at fairgrounds, or on seaside piers, even in gentlemen’s lavatories.

A mutoscope (first created by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company) was a device containing a succession of stills to give an animated view, into which one person could look at a time. 

A picture board above the machines would advertise the contents. Anyone with an interest would place a coin in a slot before turning a crank on the side. The crank would connect to a dynamo to power a light inside the box, which would then illuminate the scenes which were seen through a hooded viewing slit.

The themes were very varied - from showing idyllic rural scenes to popular comedians. Often the contents were saucy too. “What The Butler Saw” would perhaps be framed by a keyhole shape constructed around a woman who would be bathing or undressing. In fact, so racy could mutoscopes be that, in 1899, The Times published letters of complaint, one of which stridently spoke about: 

“vicious demoralizing picture shows in the penny-in-the-slot machines. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the corruption of the young that comes from exhibiting under a strong light, nude female figures represented as living and moving, going into and out of baths, sitting as artists' models etc. Similar exhibitions took place at Rhylin the men's lavatory, but, owing to public denunciation, they have been stopped."

Such outrage! Such scandal in Rhylin!

What would that letter writer think if he saw all the flesh on display today, often on the front of magazines and most of our daily newspapers? Now those demoralising scenes which by luck have been saved for us to see appear to be almost innocent. They hold a quaint alluring charm, whilst also allowing us the chance to peek in through the keyhole, and into a past now lost to us.

You can see the delightful Botticelli-inspired Birth of the Pearl in this film from The Library of Congress ... a huge inspiration for me when I was writing my novel, The Last Days of Leda Grey.

THE DAWN OF COLOUR ~ WITH ETHELDREDA LAING

Etheldreda Laing 1872-1960

Etheldreda Laing (née Winkfield) thought to have been the subject of the autochrome self-portrait above, was an accomplished artist who, following her marriage to the barrister Charles Laing in 1895, was also provided with the means to indulge in her love of photography.

In their marital home near Oxford – the imposing Bury Knowle House – Etheldreda had her own darkroom and, by 1908, was sufficiently versed in the art form to experiment with autochrome – an early version of colourised film first developed by the Lumiere brothers.

It was not an easy process to master, never mind considering the expense of the photographic plates, when four of them might well cost as much as a man’s weekly wage at the time. The photographer also needed to master using delicate filters which were dyed in red, green and violet-blue, and through which the light would then be shone, via the eye of the camera and onto the treated plate.

Much like Julia Margaret Cameron before – with it not being deemed appropriate for a decently married woman to travel around taking pictures of strangers - Etheldreda was to concentrate on her own home, gardens, and family as the subjects for her work. The results show beautiful photographs in which her daughters, Janet and Iris, were very often to be the stars; and they must have been very patient too, because autochrome exposures took twenty times longer to create than the usual black and white photographs. 

Autochromes soon fell out of favour, but Etheldreda’s are still on show at the National Media Museum in Bradford in a collection which is entitled, The Dawn of Colour.