PETER WEIR, THE AUSTRALIAN POINT OF VIEW IN CINEMA

Today, The Grandma has decided to stay at home watching some films, and she has chosen some of Peter Weir, who was born on a day like today in 1944.

Witness, The Year of Living Dangerously, Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show, Green Card, Gallipoli... are some of the best masterpieces of this Australian genius.

Peter Lindsay Weir (born 21 August 1944) is an Australian film director.

He was a leading figure in the Australian New Wave cinema movement (1970–1990), with films such as the mystery drama Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), the supernatural thriller The Last Wave (1977) and the historical drama Gallipoli (1981). The climax of Weir's early career was the $6 million multinational production The Year of Living Dangerously (1982).

After the success of The Year of Living Dangerously, Weir directed a diverse group of American and international films covering most genres -many of them major box office hits- including Academy Award-nominated films such as the thriller Witness (1985), the drama Dead Poets Society (1989), the romantic comedy Green Card (1990), the social science fiction comedy-drama The Truman Show (1998) and the epic historical drama Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003). For his work on these five films, Weir personally accrued six Academy Award nominations as either a director, writer or producer.

Since 2003, Weir's productivity has declined, having directed only one subsequent feature, the well received box-office flop The Way Back (2010).

 More information: FSR

Weir was born in Sydney, the son of Peggy and Lindsay Weir, a real estate agent.

Weir attended The Scots College and Vaucluse Boys' High School before studying arts and law at the University of Sydney. His interest in film was sparked by his meeting with fellow students, including Phillip Noyce and the future members of the Sydney filmmaking collective Ubu Films.

Weir's major breakthrough in Australia and internationally was the lush, atmospheric period mystery Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), made with substantial backing from the state-funded South Australian Film Corporation and filmed on location in South Australia and rural Victoria.

Weir scored a major Australian hit and further international praise with his next film, the historical adventure-drama Gallipoli (1981). Scripted by the Australian playwright David Williamson, it is regarded as classic Australian cinema.

The climax of Weir's early career was the $6 million multinational production The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), again starring Gibson, playing opposite top Hollywood female lead Sigourney Weaver in a story about journalistic loyalty, idealism, love and ambition in the turmoil of Sukarno's Indonesia of 1965. It was an adaptation of the novel by Christopher Koch, which was based in part on the experiences of Koch's journalist brother Philip, the ABC's Jakarta correspondent and one of the few western journalists in the city during the 1965 attempted coup. The film also won Linda Hunt (who played a man in the film) an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

Weir's first American film was the successful thriller Witness (1985), the first of two films he made with Harrison Ford, about a boy who sees the murder of an undercover police officer by corrupt co-workers and has to be hidden away in his Amish community to protect him. Weir directed Ford in his only performance to receive an Academy Award nomination, while child star Lukas Haas also received wide praise for his debut film performance.

It was followed by the darker, less commercial The Mosquito Coast (1986), Paul Schrader's adaptation of Paul Theroux's novel, with Ford playing a man obsessively pursuing his dream to start a new life in the Central American jungle with his family.

More information: NME

Weir's next film, Dead Poets Society, was a major international success, with Weir again receiving credit for expanding the acting range of its Hollywood star. Robin Williams was mainly known for his anarchic stand-up comedy and his popular TV role as the wisecracking alien in Mork & Mindy; in this film, he played an inspirational teacher in a dramatic story about conformity and rebellion at an exclusive New England prep school in the 1950s.

Fearless (1993) returned to darker themes and starred Jeff Bridges as a man who believes he has become invincible after surviving a catastrophic air crash.

After five years, Weir returned to direct his biggest success to date, The Truman Show (1998), a fantasy-satire of the media's control of life. The Truman Show was both a box office and a critical success.

In 2003, Weir returned to period drama with Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, starring Russell Crowe.

Weir wrote and directed his next film, The Way Back (2010), a historical epic about escapees from a Soviet gulag, which was well received critically but not a financial success.

On 14 June 1982, Weir was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his service to the film industry.

More information: Directors Guild of America

Movies tie things up in an arbitrary length of time,
but I have always liked things that aren't fully realized.

Peter Weir

H. P. LOVECRAFT, CREATOR OF THE 'CTHULHU MYTHOS'

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. 

 

She has decided to read, and she has chosen one of her favourite writers, H. P. Lovecraft, the American writer of weird, science, fantasy, and horror fiction, who was born on a day like today in 1890.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890-March 15, 1937) was an American writer of weird, science, fantasy, and horror fiction.

Lovecraft is best known for his creation of a body of work that became known as the Cthulhu Mythos.

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft spent most of his life in New England. After his father was institutionalized for general paresis in 1893, he lived affluently, but his family's wealth dissipated soon after the death of his grandfather.

After this point, he was living with his mother in reduced financial conditions, until she was institutionalized in 1919. He became involved in the United Amateur Press Association and wrote essays for them. In 1913, he wrote a critical letter to a pulp magazine that ultimately led to his involvement in pulp fiction.

He became active in the speculative fiction community and was published in several pulp magazines. Influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and Lord Dunsany, he wrote and published stories that focused on his interpretation of humanity's place in the universe.

In his view, humanity was an unimportant part of an uncaring cosmos that could be swept away at any moment. This is the central point of Cosmicism, which was simultaneously his personal philosophy and the main theme of his fiction. His stories also included fantastic elements that represented the perceived fragility of anthropocentrism.

More information: Vox

Lovecraft moved to New York when he married Sonia Greene in 1924. He then joined the small Kalem Club, and would later become the centre of a wider body of authors known as the Lovecraft Circle. This group wrote stories that frequently shared details among them. They introduced him to Weird Tales, which would become his most prominent publisher. He also became a prolific letter writer, and maintained a correspondence with several authors and literary proteges.

According to some estimates, he wrote approximately 100,000 letters over the course of his life. In these letters, he discussed his world-view and his daily life, and tutored younger authors, such as August Derleth, Donald Wandrei, and Frank Belknap Long. Despite this, his time in New York took a toll on his mental state, which coincided with increased financial pressures.

Finding social and financial conditions there intolerable, he returned to Providence in 1926. After returning to Providence, he became increasingly active in his literary output, producing some of his most prominent works. Among these tales are The Call of Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow over Innsmouth, and The Shadow Out of Time. He would remain active as a writer and epistolerian until his death from intestinal cancer at the age of 46.

Throughout his adult life, Lovecraft was never able to support himself from earnings as an author and editor. He was virtually unknown during his lifetime and was almost exclusively published in pulp magazines before his death, but is now regarded as one of the most significant 20th-century authors of supernatural horror fiction. This is the result of a literary and scholarly revival that began in the 1970s and 1980s. His writings form the basis of the Cthulhu Mythos, which has inspired a large body of pastiches across several mediums that draws on Lovecraft's characters, setting, and themes.

More information: Reedsy

Lovecraft was born in his family home on August 20, 1890, in Providence, Rhode Island. He was the only child of Winfield Scott Lovecraft and Sarah Susan (née Phillips) Lovecraft.

Lovecraft himself guessed that they originated from Gothic novelists like Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, and Charles Maturin It was in this period that Lovecraft was introduced to some of his earliest literary influences such as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner illustrated by Gustave Doré, One Thousand and One Nights, Thomas Bulfinch's Age of Fable, and Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Lovecraft immersed himself in the world of amateur journalism for most of the following decade. During this period, he advocated for amateurism's superiority to commercialism.

Lovecraft commercialism as writing for, what he considered, low-brow publications for pay. This was contrasted with his view of professional publication, which was what he called writing for journals and publishers that he considered respectable. He thought of amateur journalism as training and practice for a professional career.

Back in Providence, Lovecraft lived with his aunts in a spacious brown Victorian wooden house at 10 Barnes Street until 1933. He would then move to 66 Prospect Street, which would become his final home.

Due to his fear of doctors, Lovecraft was not examined until a month before his death. After seeing a doctor, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer of the small intestine. He remained hospitalized until he died. He lived in constant pain until his death on March 15, 1937, in Providence.

In accordance with his lifelong scientific curiosity, he kept a diary of his illness until he was physically incapable of holding a pen.

More information: H. P. Lovecraft

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear,
and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.

H. P. Lovecraft

SAMLESBURY WITCHES, ACCUSATIONS OF 'MALEFICIUM'

Today, The Grandma has been reading about witches along history. She has remembered interesting cases like Salem in the United States and Samlesbury in England.

On a day like today in 1612, the Samlesbury witches, three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury, England, were put on trial, accused of practicing witchcraft, one of the most famous witch trials in British history.

The Samlesbury witches were three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury -Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley- accused by a 14-year-old girl, Grace Sowerbutts, of practising witchcraft.

Their trial at Lancaster Assizes in England on 19 August 1612 was one in a series of witch trials held there over two days, among the most famous in English history. The trials were unusual for England at that time in two respects: Thomas Potts, the clerk to the court, published the proceedings in his The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster; and the number of the accused found guilty and hanged was unusually high, ten at Lancaster and another at York. ll three of the Samlesbury women were acquitted.

The charges against the women included child murder and cannibalism. In contrast, the others tried at the same assizes, who included the Pendle witches, were accused of maleficium -ausing harm by witchcraft.

The case against the three women collapsed spectacularly when the chief prosecution witness, Grace Sowerbutts, was exposed by the trial judge to be the perjuring tool of a Catholic priest.

Many historians, notably Hugh Trevor-Roper, have suggested that the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries were a consequence of the religious struggles of the period, with both the Catholic and Protestant Churches determined to stamp out what they regarded as heresy.

The trial of the Samlesbury witches is perhaps one clear example of that trend; it has been described as largely a piece of anti-Catholic propaganda, and even as a show-trial, to demonstrate that Lancashire, considered at that time to be a wild and lawless region, was being purged not only of witches but also of popish plotters.

King James I, who came to the English throne from Scotland in 1603, had a keen interest in witchcraft. By the early 1590s, he was convinced that Scottish witches were plotting against him.

More information: The Ibtauris Blog

His 1597 book, Daemonologie, instructed his followers that they must denounce and prosecute any supporters or practitioners of witchcraft. In 1604, the year following James's accession to the English throne, a new witchcraft law was enacted, An Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and dealing with evil and wicked spirits, imposing the death penalty for causing harm by the use of magic or the exhumation of corpses for magical purposes. ames was, however, sceptical of the evidence presented in witch trials, even to the extent of personally exposing discrepancies in the testimonies presented against some accused witches.

The accused witches lived in Lancashire, an English county which, at the end of the 16th century, was regarded by the authorities as a wild and lawless region, fabled for its theft, violence and sexual laxity, where the church was honoured without much understanding of its doctrines by the common people.

Since the death of Queen Mary and the accession to the throne of her half-sister Elizabeth in 1558, Catholic priests had been forced into hiding, but in remote areas like Lancashire they continued to celebrate mass in secret.

In early 1612, the year of the trials, each justice of the peace (JP) in Lancashire was ordered to compile a list of the recusants in their area -hose who refused to attend the services of the Church of England, a criminal offence at that time.

The 16th-century English Reformation, during which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the pope and the Catholic Church, split the Southworth family of Samlesbury Hall.

Sir John Southworth, head of the family, was a leading recusant who had been arrested several times for refusing to abandon his Catholic faith. His eldest son, also called John, did convert to the Church of England, for which he was disinherited, but the rest of the family remained staunchly Catholic.

One of the accused witches, Jane Southworth, was the widow of the disinherited son, John. Relations between John and his father do not seem to have been amicable; according to a statement made by John Singleton, in which he referred to Sir John as his old Master, Sir John refused even to pass his son's house if he could avoid it, and believed that Jane would probably kill her husband. Jane Southworth (née Sherburne) and John were married in about 1598, and the couple lived in Samlesbury Lower Hall. Jane had been widowed only a few months before her trial for witchcraft in 1612, and had seven children.

On 21 March 1612, Alizon Device, who lived just outside the Lancashire village of Fence, near Pendle Hill, encountered John Law, a pedlar from Halifax. She asked him for some pins, which he refused to give to her, and a few minutes later Law suffered a stroke, for which he blamed Alizon. Along with her mother Elizabeth and her brother James, Alizon was summoned to appear before local magistrate Roger Nowell on 30 March 1612.

Based on the evidence and confessions he obtained, Nowell committed Alizon and ten others to Lancaster Gaol to be tried at the next assizes for maleficium, causing harm by witchcraft.

Other Lancashire magistrates learned of Nowell's discovery of witchcraft in the county, and on 15 April 1612 JP Robert Holden began investigations in his own area of Samlesbury. As a result, eight individuals were committed to Lancaster Assizes, three of whom -Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierle- were accused of practising witchcraft on Grace Sowerbutts, Jennet's granddaughter and Ellen's niece.

The trial was held on 19 August 1612 before Sir Edward Bromley, a judge seeking promotion to a circuit nearer London, and who might therefore have been keen to impress King James, the head of the judiciary.

Before the trial began, Bromley ordered the release of five of the eight defendants from Samlesbury, with a warning about their future conduct. The remainder -Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley- were accused of using diverse devillish and wicked Arts, called Witchcrafts, Inchauntments, Charmes, and Sorceries, in and upon one Grace Sowerbutts, to which they pleaded not guilty. Fourteen-year-old Grace was the chief prosecution witness.

More information: Lancs Live

Grace was the first to give evidence. In her statement she claimed that both her grandmother and aunt, Jennet and Ellen Bierley, were able to transform themselves into dogs and that they had haunted and vexed her for years. She further alleged that they had transported her to the top of a hayrick by her hair, and on another occasion had tried to persuade her to drown herself. According to Grace, her relatives had taken her to the house of Thomas Walshman and his wife, from whom they had stolen a baby to suck its blood. Grace claimed that the child died the following night, and that after its burial at Samlesbury Church Ellen and Jennet dug up the body and took it home, where they cooked and ate some of it and used the rest to make an ointment that enabled them to change themselves into other shapes.

Grace also alleged that her grandmother and aunt, with Jane Southworth, attended sabbats held every Thursday and Sunday night at Red Bank, on the north shore of the River Ribble. At those secret meetings they met with foure black things, going upright, and yet not like men in the face, with whom they ate, danced, and had sex.

Thomas Walshman, the father of the baby allegedly killed and eaten by the accused, was the next to give evidence. He confirmed that his child had died of unknown causes at about one year old. He added that Grace Sowerbutts was discovered lying as if dead in his father's barn on about 15 April, and did not recover until the following day. Two other witnesses, John Singleton and William Alker, confirmed that Sir John Southworth, Jane Southworth's father-in-law, had been reluctant to pass the house where his son lived, as he believed Jane to be an evil woman, and a Witch.

Thomas Potts, the clerk to the Lancaster Assizes, records that after hearing the evidence many of those in court were persuaded of the accused's guilt. On being asked by the judge what answer they could make to the charges laid against them, Potts reports that they humbly fell upon their knees with weeping teares, and desired him [Bromley] for Gods cause to examine Grace Sowerbutts.

Immediately the countenance of this Grace Sowerbutts changed; the witnesses began to quarrel and accuse one another, and eventually admitted that Grace had been coached in her story by a Catholic priest they called Thompson.

Bromley then committed the girl to be examined by two JPs, William Leigh and Edward Chisnal. Under questioning Grace readily admitted that her story was untrue, and said she had been told what to say by Jane Southworth's uncle, Christopher Southworth aka Thompson, a Jesuit priest who was in hiding in the Samlesbury area; Southworth was the chaplain at Samlesbury Hall, and Jane Southworth's uncle by marriage.

Leigh and Chisnal questioned the three accused women in an attempt to discover why Southworth might have fabricated evidence against them, but none could offer any reason other than that each of them goeth to the [Anglican] Church.

After the statements had been read out in court Bromley ordered the jury to find the defendants not guilty.

More information: History Extra

I believe in all the qualities of being a liberal.
I keep going back to all the great social events in our country's history,
starting with the Salem witch trials,
where the conservative view was
that they're witches and should be burned at the stake,
and the liberal view was there's no such thing as witches.

George Clooney

SCOTT MCKENZIE, IF YOU GO TO SAN FRANCISCO...

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Hippie movement and she has been listening to some anthem of that age. One of the most beautiful songs was San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) sung by Scott McKenzie, the American singer and songwriter, who died on a day like today in 2012.

Scott McKenzie (born Philip Wallach Blondheim III; January 10, 1939-August 18, 2012) was an American singer and songwriter. He was best known for his 1967 hit single and generational anthem San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair).

Philip Wallach Blondheim III was born in Jacksonville, Florida on January 10, 1939 as the son of Philip Wallach Blondheim, Jr. and the former Dorothy Winifred Hudson. His family moved to Asheville, North Carolina, when he was six months old. He grew up in North Carolina and Alexandria, Virginia, where he became friends with John Phillips, the son of one of his mother's friends. In the mid-1950s, he sang briefly with Tim Rose in a high school group named The Singing Strings. He graduated high school from St. Stephens School for Boys in Alexandria.

Later, with Phillips, Mike Boran, and Bill Cleary, he formed the doo wop band The Abstracts.

In New York City, The Abstracts became The Smoothies and recorded two singles with Decca Records, produced by Milt Gabler. During his time with The Smoothies, Blondheim decided to change his name for business reasons:

[We] were working at one of the last great night clubs, The Elmwood Casino in Windsor, Ontario. We were part of a variety show... three acts, dancing girls, and the entire cast took part in elaborate, choreographed stage productions... As you might imagine, after-show parties were common.

At one of these parties I complained that nobody could understand my real name... [and] pointed out that this was a definite liability in a profession that benefited from instant name recognition. Everyone started trying to come up with a new name for me. It was [comedian] Jackie Curtis who said he thought I looked like a Scottie dog. Phillips came up with Laura's middle name after Jackie's suggestion. I didn't like being called 'Scottie' so everybody agreed my new name could be 'Scott McKenzie'.

In 1961, Phillips and McKenzie met Dick Weissman and formed the folk group The Journeymen at the height of the folk music craze. They recorded three albums and seven singles for Capitol Records.

After The Beatles became popular in 1964, The Journeymen disbanded. McKenzie and Weissman became solo performers, while Phillips formed the group The Mamas & the Papas with Denny Doherty, Cass Elliot, and Michelle Phillips and moved to California.

McKenzie originally declined an opportunity to join the group, saying in a 1977 interview I was trying to see if I could do something by myself. And I didn't think I could take that much pressure. Two years later, he left New York and signed with Lou Adler's Ode Records.

John Phillips wrote and co-produced San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) for McKenzie. Phillips played guitar on the recording, and session musician Gary L. Coleman played orchestra bells and chimes. The bass line of the song was supplied by session musician Joe Osborn. Hal Blaine played drums.

It was released on May 13, 1967 in the United States and was an instant hit, reaching number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 2 in the Canadian RPM Magazine charts. It was also a number 1 in the UK and several other countries, selling over 7 million copies globally.

McKenzie released the single Like an Old Time Movie, which Phillips wrote, composed, and produced, and which was a top-40 hit (number 24 on Billboard; number 27 in Canada). His first album, The Voice of Scott McKenzie, was followed with an album titled Stained Glass Morning. He stopped recording in the early 1970s, living in Joshua Tree, California and Virginia Beach, Virginia.

McKenzie wrote and composed the song What About Me that launched the career of Canadian singer Anne Murray in 1968. Murray's United States breakthrough, with Gene McLellan's Snowbird, would not follow for several years.

In 1986, he started singing with a new version of The Mamas and the Papas. With Terry Melcher, Mike Love, and John Phillips, he co-wrote Kokomo (1988), a number 1 single for The Beach Boys.

By 1998, he had retired from the road version of The Mamas and the Papas, and resided in Los Angeles until his death. He appeared at the Los Angeles tribute concert for John Phillips in 2001, amongst other 1960s contemporary acts.

McKenzie died on August 18, 2012 at the age of 73 in Los Angeles. He had suffered from Guillain–Barré syndrome from 2010 until his death.

More information: The Guardian

I knew I didn't have the right name for a singer.
Having a name that nobody could pronounce was hardly an asset.

Scott McKenzie

BARCELONA-CAMBRILS, 2017 #17AVOLEMLAVERITAT

Esdevindrà la tarda,
cérvol, mort amagada.

Or, pregonera llum
als palaus de l'aranya:
claror de sol ponent
a poc a poc filava.

El corn del caçador
em cerca per la llarga
ferida de la set
en el mirall de l’aigua.

Com els ulls de la nit
m’acollien, em saben!
Molt lentament el glaç
allunya les paraules.

Final del Laberint, Salvador Espriu

THOMAS EDWARD LAWRENCE, AKA LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Thomas Edward Lawrence, the British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer, also known as Lawrence of Arabia.

Lawrence is one of the most amazing and interesting figures of the recent European history, and The Grandma has wanted to know more things about this man, who was born on a day like today in 1888.

Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888-19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer, who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918) against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, a title used for the 1962 film based on his wartime activities.

He was born out of wedlock in August 1888 to Sarah Junner (1861–1959), a governess, and Sir Thomas Chapman, 7th Baronet (1846–1919), an Anglo-Irish nobleman. Chapman left his wife and family in Ireland to cohabit with Junner. Chapman and Junner called themselves Mr and Mrs Lawrence, using the surname of Sarah's likely father; her mother had been employed as a servant for a Lawrence family when she became pregnant with Sarah.

In 1896 the Lawrences moved to Oxford, where Thomas attended the High School and then studied history at Jesus College, Oxford from 1907 to 1910. Between 1910 and 1914 he worked as an archaeologist for the British Museum, chiefly at Carchemish in Ottoman Syria.

Soon after the outbreak of war in 1914 he volunteered for the British Army and was stationed at the Arab Bureau (established in 1916) intelligence unit in Egypt. In 1916 he travelled to Mesopotamia and to Arabia on intelligence missions and quickly became involved with the Arab Revolt as a liaison to the Arab forces, along with other British officers, supporting the Arab Kingdom of Hejaz's independence war against its former overlord, the Ottoman Empire.

He worked closely with Emir Faisal, a leader of the revolt, and he participated, sometimes as leader, in military actions against the Ottoman armed forces, culminating in the capture of Damascus in October 1918.

More information: Historic UK

After the First World War, Lawrence joined the British Foreign Office, working with the British government and with Faisal.

In 1922, he retreated from public life and spent the years until 1935 serving as an enlisted man, mostly in the Royal Air Force (RAF), with a brief period in the Army.

During this time he published (1926) his best-known work Seven Pillars of Wisdom, an autobiographical account of his participation in the Arab Revolt. He also translated books into English, and wrote The Mint, which detailed his time in the Royal Air Force working as an ordinary aircraftman. He corresponded extensively and was friendly with well-known artists, writers, and politicians. For the RAF, he participated in the development of rescue motorboats.

Lawrence's public image resulted in part from the sensationalized reporting of the Arab Revolt by American journalist Lowell Thomas, as well as from Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

In 1935, Lawrence was fatally injured in a motorcycle accident in Dorset.

More information: Smithsonian Magazine

Thomas Edward Lawrence was born on 16 August 1888 in Tremadog, Carnarvonshire, Wales, in a house named Gorphwysfa, now known as Snowdon Lodge.

His Anglo-Irish father Thomas Chapman had left his wife Edith after he had a son with Sarah Junner who had been governess to his daughters. Sarah had herself been an illegitimate child, having been born in Sunderland as the daughter of Elizabeth Junner, a servant employed by a family named Lawrence; she was dismissed four months before Sarah was born, and identified Sarah's father as John Junner, Shipwright journeyman.

Lawrence's parents did not marry, but lived together under the pseudonym Lawrence. In 1914, his father inherited the Chapman baronetcy based at Killua Castle, the ancestral family home in County Westmeath, Ireland. The couple had five sons, Thomas being the second eldest. From Wales, the family moved to Kirkcudbright, Galloway, in southwestern Scotland, then to Dinard in Brittany, then to Jersey.

At age 15, Lawrence and his schoolfriend Cyril Beeson cycled around Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire, visiting almost every village's parish church, studying their monuments and antiquities, and making rubbing of their monumental brasses.

From 1907 to 1910, Lawrence read history at Jesus College, Oxford. In July and August 1908 he cycled 3,500 km solo through France to the Mediterranean and back, researching French castles. In 1910, Lawrence was offered the opportunity to become a practising archaeologist at Carchemish, in the expedition that D. G. Hogarth was setting up on behalf of the British Museum.

At Carchemish, Lawrence was frequently involved in a high-tension relationship with a German-led team working nearby on the Baghdad Railway at Jerablus. While there was never open combat, there was regular conflict over access to land and treatment of the local workforce; Lawrence gained experience in Middle Eastern leadership practices and conflict resolution.

In January 1914, Woolley and Lawrence were co-opted by the British military as an archaeological smokescreen for a British military survey of the Negev Desert.

Following the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, Lawrence did not immediately enlist in the British Army. He held back until October on the advice of S. F. Newcombe, when he was commissioned on the General List. Before the end of the year, he was summoned by renowned archaeologist and historian Lt. Cmdr. David Hogarth, his mentor at Carchemish, to the new Arab Bureau intelligence unit in Cairo, and he arrived in Cairo on 15 December 1914.

More information: IWM

At the Arab Bureau, Lawrence supervised the preparation of maps, produced a daily bulletin for the British generals operating in the theatre, and interviewed prisoners. He was an advocate of a British landing at Alexandretta which never came to pass. He was also a consistent advocate of an independent Arab Syria.

The Arab Revolt began in June 1916, but it bogged down after a few successes, with a real risk that the Ottoman forces would advance along the coast of the Red Sea and recapture Mecca.

On 16 October 1916, Lawrence was sent to the Hejaz on an intelligence-gathering mission led by Ronald Storrs. He interviewed Sharif Hussein's sons Ali, Abdullah, and Faisal, and he concluded that Faisal was the best candidate to lead the Revolt.

In November, S. F. Newcombe was assigned to lead a permanent British liaison to Faisal's staff. Newcombe had not yet arrived in the area and the matter was of some urgency, so Lawrence was sent in his place.

In late December 1916, Faisal and Lawrence worked out a plan for repositioning the Arab forces to prevent the Ottoman forces around Medina from threatening Arab positions and putting the railway from Syria under threat. 

 

Newcombe arrived and Lawrence was preparing to leave Arabia, but Faisal intervened urgently, asking that Lawrence's assignment become permanent. Lawrence's most important contributions to the Arab Revolt were in the area of strategy and liaison with British Armed Forces, but he also participated personally in several military engagements.

Lawrence returned to the United Kingdom a full colonel. Immediately after the war, he worked for the Foreign Office, attending the Paris Peace Conference between January and May as a member of Faisal's delegation.

Lawrence served as an advisor to Winston Churchill at the Colonial Office for just over a year starting in February 1920. He hated bureaucratic work, writing on 21 May 1921 to Robert Graves: I wish I hadn't gone out there: the Arabs are like a page I have turned over; and sequels are rotten things. I'm locked up here: office every day and much of it.

He travelled to the Middle East on multiple occasions during this period, at one time holding the title of chief political officer for Trans-Jordania.

He campaigned actively for his and Churchill's vision of the Middle East, publishing pieces in multiple newspapers, including The Times, The Observer, The Daily Mail, and The Daily Express.

More information: National Trust

On 13 May 1935, Lawrence was fatally injured in an accident on his Brough Superior SS100 motorcycle in Dorset close to his cottage Clouds Hill, near Wareham, just two months after leaving military service. A dip in the road obstructed his view of two boys on their bicycles; he swerved to avoid them, lost control, and was thrown over the handlebars. He died six days later on 19 May 1935, aged 46.

Lawrence was a prolific writer throughout his life, a large portion of which was epistolary; he often sent several letters a day, and several collections of his letters have been published. He corresponded with many notable figures, including George Bernard Shaw, Edward Elgar, Winston Churchill, Robert Graves, Noël Coward, E. M. Forster, Siegfried Sassoon, John Buchan, Augustus John, and Henry Williamson. He met Joseph Conrad and commented perceptively on his works. The many letters that he sent to Shaw's wife Charlotte are revealing as to his character.

Lawrence was a competent speaker of French and Arabic, and reader of Latin and Ancient Greek.

Lawrence published three major texts in his lifetime. The most significant was his account of the Arab Revolt in Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Homer's Odyssey and The Forest Giant were translations, the latter an otherwise forgotten work of French fiction. He received a flat fee for the second translation, and negotiated a generous fee plus royalties for the first.

More information: Clio History

The foreigners come out here always to teach,
whereas they had much better learn, for,
in everything but wits and knowledge,
the Arab is generally the better man of the two.

T. E. Lawrence

WALTER SCOTT, GREAT MASTER OF SCOTTISH LITERATURE

Today, The Grandma is still relaxing at home. She has decided to read some works of one of her favourite writers, Walter Scott, the Scottish historical novelist, poet, playwright, and historian, who was born on a day like today in 1771.

 

Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771-21 September 1832), was a Scottish historical novelist, poet, playwright, and historian. 

 

Many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and Scottish literature. Famous titles include the novels Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Waverley, Old Mortality or The Tale of Old Mortality, The Heart of Mid-Lothian and The Bride of Lammermoor, and the narrative poems The Lady of the Lake and Marmion.

Although primarily remembered for his extensive literary works and his political engagement, Scott was an advocate, judge and legal administrator by profession, and throughout his career combined his writing and editing work with his daily occupation as Clerk of Session and Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire.

A prominent member of the Tory establishment in Edinburgh, Scott was an active member of the Highland Society, served a long term as president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1820–1832) and was a vice president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1827–1829).

Scott's knowledge of history, and his facility with literary technique, made him a seminal figure in the establishment of the historical novel genre, as well as an exemplar of European literary Romanticism.

He was created a baronet of Abbotsford in the County of Roxburgh, Scotland, in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom on 22 April 1820, which title became extinct on the death of his son the 2nd Baronet in 1847.

More information: Historic UK

Walter Scott was born on 15 August 1771, in a third-floor flat on College Wynd in the Old Town, Edinburgh, a narrow alleyway leading from the Cowgate to the gates of the University of Edinburgh (Old College).

He survived a childhood bout of polio in 1773 that left him lame, a condition that would have a significant effect on his life and writing. To cure his lameness he was sent in 1773 to live in the rural Scottish Borders at his paternal grandparents' farm at Sandyknowe, adjacent to the ruin of Smailholm Tower, the earlier family home. Here he was taught to read by his aunt Jenny Scott, and learned from her the speech patterns and many of the tales and legends that later characterized much of his work.

Scott began studying classics at the University of Edinburgh in November 1783, at the age of 12, a year or so younger than most of his fellow students. In March 1786, aged 14, he began an apprenticeship in his father's office to become a Writer to the Signet. At school and university, Scott had become a friend of Adam Ferguson, whose father Professor Adam Ferguson hosted literary salons.  

Scott met the blind poet Thomas Blacklock, who lent him books and introduced him to the Ossian cycle of poems by James Macpherson.

More information: The Conversation

Scott was prompted to embark on his literary career by the enthusiasm in Edinburgh during the 1790s for modern German literature. Recalling that period in 1827, Scott said that he was German-mad.

In 1796, he produced English versions of two poems by Gottfried August Bürger, Der wilde Jäger and Lenore, publishing them as The Chase, and William and Helen.

On a trip to the English Lake District with old college friends, he met Charlotte Charpentier, a daughter of Jean Charpentier of Lyon in France, and a ward of Lord Downshire in Cumberland, an Anglican. After three weeks of courtship, Scott proposed, and they were married on Christmas Eve 1797 in St Mary's Church.

Between 1805 and 1817 Scott produced five long narrative poems, each in six cantos, four shorter independently published poems, and many small metrical pieces. Until Lord Byron published the first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage in 1812 and followed them up with his exotic oriental verse narratives, Scott was by far the most popular poet of the time.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), in medieval romance form, grew out of Scott's plan to include a long original poem of his own in the second edition of the Minstrelsy: it would be a sort of Romance of Border Chivalry & inchantment. Three years after The Lay Scott published Marmion (1808) telling a story of corrupt passions leading up to the disastrous climax of the Battle of Flodden in 1513.

The remaining two long narrative poems, Rokeby (1813), set in the Yorkshire estate of that name belonging to Scott's friend J. B. S. Morritt during the Civil War period, and The Lord of the Isles (1815), set in early fourteenth-century Scotland and culminating in the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Both works had generally favourable receptions and sold well, but without rivalling the enormous success of The Lady of the Lake.

Scott also produced four minor narrative or semi-narrative poems between 1811 and 1817: The Vision of Don Roderick (1811); The Bridal of Triermain (published anonymously in 1813); The Field of Waterloo (1815); and Harold the Dauntless (published anonymously in 1817).

The beginning of Scott's career as a novelist is attended with uncertainty. As the number of novels accumulated they were from time to time republished in small collections: Novels and Tales (1819: Waverley to A Tale of Montrose); Historical Romances (1822: Ivanhoe to Kenilworth); Novels and Romances (1824 [1823]: The Pirate to Quentin Durward); and two series of Tales and Romances (1827: St Ronan's Well to Woodstock; 1833: Chronicles of the Canongate to Castle Dangerous).

In the last years of his life, Scott marked up interleaved copies of these collected editions to produce a final version of what were now officially called the Waverley Novels: this is often referred to as the Magnum Opus or Magnum Edition.

In 1825, a UK-wide banking crisis resulted in the collapse of the Ballantyne printing business, of which Scott was the only partner with a financial interest; the company's debts of £130,000 (equivalent to £10,700,000 in 2019) caused his very public ruin.

Download The Quentin Durward by Walter Scott

By then Scott's health was failing, and on 29 October 1831, in a vain search for improvement, he set off on a voyage to Malta and Naples on board HMS Barham, a frigate put at his disposal by the Admiralty. He was welcomed and celebrated wherever he went, but on his journey home he had a final stroke and was transported back to die at Abbotsford on 21 September 1832. He was 61.

Scott was buried in Dryburgh Abbey, where his wife had earlier been interred.

Scott was raised as a Presbyterian in the Church of Scotland. Scott's father was a Freemason, being a member of Lodge St David, No. 36 (Edinburgh), and Scott also became a Freemason in his father's Lodge in 1801, albeit only after the death of his father.

In 1925 Scott's manuscripts, letters and papers were donated to the National Library of Scotland by the Advocates Library of the Faculty of Advocates.

Download Ivanhoe by Walter Scott

Teach your children poetry; it opens the mind,
lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.

Walter Scott