Our Other Blog: Two Sisters and Two Points of View
by Taswegian1957 & Human59
Museums, galleries, concerts, theatre
Well, this weekend the weather has been too wet and miserable for outdoor photography so instead, I’d like to share a photo of two of Naomi’s Star Trek action figures.
Naomi recently started adding to her small collection of action figures. She brought her Enterprise Bridge up to my house recently so I could see it. I took this photograph that day.
If you would like to see more of these and other action figures check out Naomi’s posts on our doll blog. You can find a link below.
I haven’t been able to visit the Huon Show for several years and this year I really wanted to go. I was considering catching the bus to Ranelagh where the show is held when Ally called me and said that she and Matt wanted to go too. Could they come and stay with me on Friday night? Of course, I said yes. Saturday morning came and the weather was bright. We set off early to be sure of getting a park close to the Showgrounds. Ranelagh is just outside of Huonville so we were there in less than half an hour.
We all wanted to see the animals more than anything else and we spotted the Alpaca enclosure as soon as we came through the gate. There are several breeders in the area and some others had come from other parts of the state to show off their animals.
I also particularly wanted to see the cows this year. The reason for that is that I have been reading about the issue of de-horning cows in “Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss” this week. The Swiss are having a vote on whether this practice should be continued. I do see the odd cow near my house but I wanted to see if the practice was widespread in Tasmania. Well, I saw several breeds of cows, Jerseys, Herefords, Friesian etc and nary a horn between the lot of them I’m afraid. I decided to look it up and found in the RSPCA knowledge base a document that says that it is legal to de-horn cattle in every state and territory in Australia.
https://kb.rspca.org.au/is-dehorning-of-cattle-legal_274.html
https://www.ava.com.au/policy/84-dehorning-cattle
There are some guidelines about what age and how this should be done and apparently it is recommended that a procedure called disbudding be used instead. Disbudding is the removal of horns before they attach to the skull but I wish it wasn’t done at all. At least the Swiss cows get a referendum to support their cause.
We went to see the dog judging. It’s a small dog show compared to a city show but it’s always fun to see the dogs. I find dog show people are a breed of their own too.
On the main arena, the Tasmanian Light Horse Society was giving a demonstration of riding and training exercises that the troops would have done. Of course, we stopped to watch this for a while and to look at the Draught Horses in their pens nearby. There was some show jumping too but I had not brought my long lens so I could not photograph that well.
We saw goats and poultry but missed the sheep who were penned in an area of deep shade. Good for the sheep as it was warm but not very interesting to photograph.
There was wood chopping, which I forgot to photograph and wood carving with a chainsaw. There were carnival rides, sideshows, and Showbags. There were vintage machinery and farm equipment, handicrafts and afternoon teas.
To finish off here are a few more photos. WordPress is not letting me do galleries today or it could be this computer because I can usually do them on the laptop. The computer is seven years old so I forgive it.
A friend of mine who used to have an antique store gave us boxes of old magazines for the Op Shop. He says they are not worth the bother of selling online as they have loose and missing pages and other faults but that we might still get something for them.
As Naomi and I love old stuff and I knew that we were running short of storage space at the shop I volunteered to have them at home and sort them out. Several boxes went back to the shop last weekend but there are odds and ends that got missed and I thought I’d share a couple of them today.
These are two old copies of Every-Woman’s Encyclopedia which were on sale in installments. I could not find a date on them but it seems that King George V was on the British throne and there is no mention of WWI. I found a reference to 1911 in one of them so I’m going to say I think they are from that year or maybe early 1912. I found no reference to the Titanic in either and that was big news that year.
The magazines cover all sorts of subjects, there are recipes, tips on home nursing, childcare, fashion, and sewing as well as articles about prominent women.
Here are some interesting bits.
The Women’s Law Book
This chapter covers juvenile law and talks about such things as Parental Discipline, Juvenile Smoking, Intoxicating Liquor to mention a few. There is also a couple of pages about the law as it is applied to servants covering such things as Employer Liability, Workers Compensation, Burglary and “When the Master is Liable”.
“Marriage” by “Madge” (Mrs. Humphrey) includes helpful advice for husbands and wives about gift giving;
To bring home to an already overcrowded household a pair of vases which are “two things more to dust” is not the way to arouse rapturous sentiment in the bosom of one’s wife.
To buy cigars, socks, waistcoats or even ties for one’s husband puts him under a feeling of obligation, while, very often he execrates the”vile taste”, of the wife as he considers it, with the best intentions , trodden on his tenderest sartorial feelings.
The article tells us that “it is very bad for any husband for his wife to fetch and carry for him in a servile way.” and that “Men are very careless, as a rule, about their own clothes.”
There is even a handy pull out first aid guide for the reader to hang on the wall.
It’s a fascinating glimpse into the world that our grandmother’s and great grandmother’s lived in. My maternal grandmother was a young wife just before WWI so I can easily imagine her reading this perhaps with her older sisters in 1911.
I couldn’t think of the word posh without thinking of the story of Eliza Doolittle who wanted to learn how to talk like a lady.
I’ve seen the classic film “My Fair Lady” with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison more than once and I’ve seen a couple of amateur productions of it on the stage.
For those who don’t know it “My Fair Lady” is based on a play by George Bernard Shaw called “Pygmalion”. The play in turn was based on Greek mythology, the story of a sculptor who created a beautiful statue of a woman and fell in love with it.
In the film Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl, asks Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics to give her lessons on how to speak properly so that she can get a job in a flower shop. Professor Higgins was not really interested until his friend Colonel Pickering bet him that he couldn’t turn her into a lady who could mix in high society and not be found out.
I have to admit that although I like the film and the story I never cared for the Henry Higgins character. I thought he was snobbish and bad mannered. He may have been qualified to teach Eliza to speak nicely but he certainly did not act like a gentleman. As I was only a teenager when I first saw the film I also wondered why on earth Eliza would fall in love with such a nasty man. Perhaps it was just Rex Harrison’s portrayal, the last time I saw it as a play the actor playing Professor Higgins, who was just an amateur in a small local repertory company, actually made me feel some sympathy for his character at the end when he realises he misses Eliza.
There are some great scenes though, not only the ones where Eliza is learning to talk posh. The scenes with her father Alfred P Doolittle are fun too. Mrs Higgins, the Professors mother, has a couple of good scenes as well.
Eliza succeeded in learning to speak like a lady and fooled everyone at a grand function . The way we speak can influence what people think of us as much as the way we look.
One of my favourite Bloggers, Life in the Boomer Lane, recently wrote about her trials with flies around the house.
This prompted me to remember how trigger happy mum used to be with fly spray. I honestly don’t know if the fly sprays of the sixties and seventies are exactly the same formula as those of today but their smell was way stronger it seemed. Certainly by the time mum got through with it we were nearly choking.
When we were children in the mid sixties fly spray was dispensed from a different type of container, aerosol cans were just coming on to the market I think.
By Georges Jansoone (JoJan) – Self-photographed, CC BY 3.0, Link
In Australia the most well known brand was Mortein which was advertised on television with a catchy little jingle sung by “Louie the Fly”. Everyone knew it.
Louie the Fly, I’m Louie the Fly
Straight from rubbish tip to you.
Spreading disease, with the greatest of ease.
Straight from rubbish tip to you.
I’m bad and mean and mighty unclean.
Afraid of no-one, ‘cept the man with the can of Mortein.
Hate that word Mortein.
One spray and Louie the Fly,
Apple of his old mother’s eye was Louie,
Poor dead Louie, Louie the Fly a victim of Mortein.
Mortein.
Out of curiosity I looked up Mortein and learned some interesting bits of trivia about the advertising campaign.
Mortein was first developed in Australia in the 1870s by German immigrant J. Hagemann, the name being a combination of mort (French: “dead”) and ein (German: one). Mortein was manufactured by Samuel Taylor Pty Ltd from 1937. The company is now owned by the British company Reckitt Benckiser.
Louie first appeared in 1957, the year I was born. He was drawn and animated by Geoffrey Morgan-Pike.
The famous jingle was created in 1962 by none other than Bryce Courtenay during his time at advertising agency McCann Erickson.
Louie was voiced by Australian actor Ross Higgins. Australians will remember him from “The Naked Vicar Show” and especially for his character “Ted Bullpitt” in “Kingswood Country“which was a popular sitcom in the early eighties. It might not be considered very PC now but David and I found it hilarious although like most sitcoms the later series are not as funny as the early ones.
As an aside I remember seeing Ross Higgins advertising rival product Pea-Beu in the eighties. Pea-Beu also had a catchy jingle.
At the end of this post you can see an early Mortein jingle from the sixties and one of the many commercials Ross Higgins did for Pea-Beu from around 1980. I can still remember all the words to the Louie the Fly song. Only a year or so ago Mortein did an advertising campaign based on whether or not they should drop Louie.They didn’t and here is a piece about him on the Mortein website.
http://www.mortein.com.au/about/about-louie/
This is a photo I took of a cement truck sculpture at the Mona art gallery. It’s one of the only pieces I actually liked there. Mona is more for people who enjoys today’s art and cultures. I thought this one clever and well made and quite an interesting choice. Mona is a little weird but the place is really popular with locals and tourists. I selected this photograph randomly just for something to post today.
Today I’ve been scanning some old magazines again and wanted to share this one with you.
This is the English Woman’s Weekly. Mum read this magazine for most of her adult life. It was always her favourite although she enjoyed others.
This issue is from 1950 and I find it interesting for several reasons. It is quite a small magazine, not so many pages as ones that were to come in the future and entirely in black and white except for the header on the front cover. Of course at this stage many things in Britain were still rationed but there are signs from the advertisements that the austerity era is coming to an end.
There are ads for appliances for the home like hot water heaters and wringers. Some of the everyday items advertised are still around today. Some of the home remedies don’t sound so hot though. I know what gripe water is but I don’t like the sound of Bile Beans.
What I didn’t find amongst the advertisements were any for travel or holidays. In later years the magazine carried a lot of this type of advertising and had regular travel articles but as yet people can’t afford to travel for leisure very much.
Magazines are also a great way to see what people wore, what cosmetics they used and how they wore their hair. I’m sure many short of cash housewives found this advice useful.
There was always a lot of knitting in the Woman’s Weekly. I don’t recall ever seeing an issue that didn’t have at least one pattern in it. Often there were sewing patterns too. Sometimes there would be a printed pattern to enlarge and sometimes a coupon to send away for the pattern and fabric to make a dress, skirt or suit. There were also lots of patterns to make toys of all kinds, knitted, crocheted or sewn and mum would often save these as she enjoyed making toys and dolls clothes.
Mum also enjoyed the fiction in her magazines. Every week there would be a continuing serial or two and a couple of short stories. I have to admit that when thumbing through old magazines I often stop to read them too.
Finally the regular feature writers. For many years the Woman’s Weekly “Agony Aunt” page was a feature near the back of the magazine. Here she is formally called Mrs Marryat but by the time I started reading this column, probably in the early or mid seventies she was referred to as Mary Marryat, a sign of changing times. I’ve mentioned before how much I enjoy reading the problem pages. The British ones especially often dealt with matters of etiquette as well as romantic or personal problems. It is important to know when you should wear gloves and what the duties of the Mother of the Bride are.
Another regular was “Man Who Sees” who was obviously a parson and there were articles about the Royal Family and film or theatre celebrities of course although nothing like the media circus we have today.
