Updating to digital photography

Starting this blog prompted me into upgrading to a half decent digital camera. The one I have bought seems fiercesomely complicated however. I have counted at least 22 different buttons and switches as well as a menu screen offering scores of barely comprehensibe options.

For my 21st birthday my father bought me my first proper camera, a Pentax K1000. Over the years I have added various lenses and bought another body, a Pentax MX - a very sweet little thing - all second-hand.

Rather than abandon this kit I thought I would look for a digital camera which would take my old lenses. A friendly chap in a shop in Tottenham Court Road pulled out a K20 model added an old lens clicked a few buttons and said "this is what you need - it's as easy as that". Costing more than I had budgeted for I said I would think about it, but I was back two hours later and bought it. I have always been a sucker for good salesmanship.

That was Thursday afternoon. After many fruitless hours with the manual I was still none the wiser about how to get it to work with my old lenses. Finally on Sunday evening I abandoned the manual and turned to Google. Sure enough, the solution was out there on the net.

When I bought a digital camera for my son, who was then 12, I handed him the manual and said "its important you read this first". "Don't be ridiculous Dad" was his reply as he flung it across the room. He switched it on, fiddled with the menu buttons and was away within a minute.

I dont doubt that I have bought a good camera, and with a degree in engineering I should be capable of mastering it, but the road ahead doesn't look like an easy one. Maybe I should just hand it over to my sons.

Is this Shakespeare's granddaughter?

In March 2007 this painting came up for sale at Sotheby's Olympia. It was catalogued as Circle of Willem Wissing: Portrait of Alice Countess of Drogheda (1625-c.1696). I put in an absentee bid but it sold for much more than my limit. It is now in a private collection in Ireland.

My interest in the picture was a family historical one. Alice was one of the daughters of the second Baron Spencer and his wife Penelope Wriothesley, daughter of Shakespeare's patron the 3rd Earl of Sounthampton. Alice's sister Anne married Sir Robert Townshend whose descendants settled in Denbighshire and Cheshire. It is the history of this branch which I have been studying.

Penelope Wriothesley - was Shakespeare her real father?

I sent a copy of the image of Alice to Professor Hildergard Hammerschmitt-Hummel, an expert on the known images of Shakespeare, who published a theory in 1999 that Penelope's mother Elizabeth Vernon had an affair with Shakespeare and that Penelope was his daughter, not Southampton's. The book unfortuantely has never been translated into English. http://www.hammerschmidt-hummel.de/translation/5dseptember2000.htm . The professor had not seen Alice's image before. We both agreed that she bears an uncanny resemblance to the bard and she very kindly sent me a copy of her most recent book.

Elizabeth Vernon, Countess of Southampton

If the professor's theories are correct then the number people who can claim descent from Shakespeare must number many thousands, including Winston Churchill and Prince William.

So little seems to be known for certain about Shakespeare's life but Bill Bryson's slim volume on the subject is well worth reading.

John Fowler and his exquisite curtains

As part of my research into curtain styles for my living room I came across Martin Wood's book John Fowler; Prince of Decorators. Fowler's curtains are so good that it is rather discourging to look at them before embarking on my own. He did of course have the advantage of working on a large scale with matching budgets. Here is an example of the real thing:

What I particularly like about these is the way they echo the carved detail in the chimneypiece and other architectural details. It is as if they had been carved by Bernini - fabric imitating marble imitating fabric.

I wont let it deter me however. I have acquired some patterns for swags and tails from Merrick and Day http://www.merrick-day.com/acatalog/The_Swag_and_Tail_Design_and_Pattern_Book.html and have done a mock up in lining fabric (see pic below). They need to look graceful and spontaneous, yet I fear this requires much judgement, planning and artistry. The risk is that they will look mechanical and feeble. In the finished version there will be tails on both sides and the swags will have fringes so will look bigger. I havn't yet decided about tie backs.

I was surprised to learn that John Fowler and I attended the same school. It seems he was not happy there. Felsted was not a great choice for a sensitive boy with homosexual leanings in the early 1970s, let alone the 1920s when he would have been there. My grandfather was a master at the school and may have taught him.

Family history and collecting antique silver

An interest in family history and the urge to collect things is a combination which can seriously damage your wallet. The internet makes it especially so.

Thanks to a diligent piece of cataloguing by Bonham's in Bath a couple of years ago and a chance Google search I am now the proud owner of an elegent late 18th century silver hot water jug made by William Chawner. It is engraved with the arms of John Stanislaus Townshend of Trevallyn, Denbighshire who is a first cousin several times removed.

More silver from the same family and their cousins from Wincham Hall in Cheshire has appeared on the market over the last few years. The most spectacular was a pair of cake baskets by Paul de Lamerie given as a gift to Lee Porcher Townshend - another first cousin - in recognition of his services on the bench. These came up for sale first at Christies in New York and then were with Marks Antiques in Mayfair. No price mentioned but I dont suppose one would have got much change out of half a million quid. Lee's father Edward Venables Townshend has the dubious distinction of having led the Cheshire Yeomanry in one of the cavalry charges at the Peterloo Massacre. These Townshends' Wincham Hall estate sat right on top of the Cheshire salt deposits, which must have been a significant souce of income for them. Only a fragment of the Hall remains and is now a hotel.

Earlier this year a rococco revival silver soup tureen engraved with the Townshend crest and motto came up at Christie's in London. It was catalogued as being from the Trevallyn branch but my hunch is that it would have been from Wincham where it would have sat alongside the de Lamerie baskets. The picture in Christie's catalogue was not very interesting but in the flesh it was so spectacularly vulgar I was very tempted to put in a bid. Unlike the de Lameries I could have afforded this but for the equivalent of a whole term's worth of school fees I resisted.

My tracking down of family related pieces of silver has been a rather ad-hoc affair. A nice pair of waiters engraved with the arms of Brooke Townshend, a closely related family, came up twice at Christies and I missed them on both occasions, in spite of browsing the catalogue before the second sale. Of course I dont need a pair of waiters like this, but that's not the point if you are a collector.

Some help may be at hand however. I notice that there is now a website which claims to be able to track down family items for you. http://www.myfamilysilver.com/ links a number of dealers and auction house catalogues to an online version of Fairbairn's crests and allows you to register an interest in particular families. Some quite grand dealers appear to have signed up to this including Koopmans and SJ Phillips. I have registered my interests and wait to see what happens.

Making my first set of curtains

My wife won't sew. I am pretty good with my hands and like interior design. Why shouldn't I make them myself I thought?

I like a challenge so I am not starting with simple ones. My living room has two windows, one facing North and one South requiring curtains some eight feet tall by eight feet wide. The period is early Victorian but the style still quite classical.

My chosen design is in gold silk, lined and interlined, with french pleat headings. These are to be hung from a brass pole. Above this is to be a three inch reeded oak pole with swags and tails, edged with a yellow and green bullion fringe and tails lined in olive green silk.

I have made the first pair of curtains and am now starting on the swags.

I dont know much about blogging, or whether I will have anything to say which will be of interest to anyone else, but here goes.