Turning back the hands of time ………… the ink pot

I have no idea of the age or origin of the carved bird’s head.

It has just always been part of my life, first as a child growing up in Well Hall, and then as an object which has travelled with me.

For years it sat on a bookshelf, was briefly hidden away in the cellar, and is now back on the desk in the study.

And its final resting place is where my parents intended it to be, when they gave it to me.

Just when that was I can’t remember, and a bit of me wonders if it was actually a present from my Uncle George, who would hunt out “interesting things” at jumble sales, and secondhand shops.

Wherever it came from I have to say it is indeed an “interesting thing”.

I think it is a unique piece of work, possibly owned by the person who carved it.

Nor is it just a decoration, because the head is hinged and when opened reveals a space for an ink pot, which suggests we are at a time beyond the ball point pen or the fountain pen.

And as the first mass produced fountain pens only date from the 1880s, I suspect our bird may predate that event, and come from that time when dip pens were still in use.

Of course, I have no way of knowing, and there lies the fun of it.

It may be that someone will be able to date it, and dispel my assertion that it was hand crafted, offering up the name of a firm or cottage industry which turned them out in their thousands.

We shall see.

Leaving me just to say that I did once use it for what it was intended for.

The ink came from a shop, and the dip pen from school, which would have been Samuel Pepys County Secondary Modern School, which  I attended from 1961 till 1966.

In the early 1960s, dip pens were still widely used in the school, as they had been in the Juniors I attended.

I may even have been one of the ink monitors who every morning and at the start of the afternoon, were tasked with filling the porcelain ink pots which sat in  recessed holes on each desk.

With them came blotting paper, and countless ink stains, from accidental spillages to deliberate acts of vandalism, which sometimes resulted  in inky walls, stained clothes and damaged textbooks.

Looking back, those who railed against the slow intrusion of the ball point pen, were not only attempting to hold back the future, but were condemning thousands of school children to blue fingers, the temptation of ink pellets, and a lot of grief from parents angry at the ink marks on shirts, ties and jumpers.

There was a brief moment when I thought about filling it again with some ink, but it lasted just a few seconds, and sat beside my dream of opening up the coal cellar and is as impossible as turning back the hands of time.*

And I was wrong, my Eagle ink pot is not home made but was indeed made by men of business, and this I know because David Millard told me so, but  not before he also admitted,

"I was a trusted ink monitor. Added water to powder, filled the inkwells and distributed them round the classroom in a special tray that looked as though it was meant for eggs. My god! Thanks for prompting that memory.

As for the inkwell it's Black Forest. They did bears, eagles, and a whole forest of animals. Benches, hat stands and inkwell holders were very popular. Yours is a good quality one from about 1880". 

Location; our house

Picture; the ink pot, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson


*Jimmy & David Ruffin - Turn Back the Hands of Time, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-knGjxcPms

Making stories out of our histories ……….

The last decade and bit have seen an explosion in the number of people engaged in researching family history, and for that we have the internet to thank.

The christening, Greenwich, 1981

When my sisters began digging into our family history in the 1970s, it involved long journeys from London to the east Highlands to trawl over dusty parish records, and stand in ancient graveyards recording names, and dates on memorial headstones.

It took weeks of preparation, endless letters and great chunks of time on trains, and buses, which today can be telescoped into a few hours wandering across the net interrogating a range of online records and genealogical platforms.

Once done, many are faced with that simple question of what to do next?

For some it is enough to have stripped back the centuries and made links with places and people long forgotten, but for others that is not enough and for them there is the desire to writ it down to share with family or just to see the process through from start to finish.

The conversation, Manchester, 2018

In my case, it was also to place our family in the context of where they lived, and when they lived, which in turn helped offer up an explanation of how they lived their lives. 

And in that I am always guided by something Ian McMillan, the Yorkshire poet, journalist, playwright, and broadcaster, said about his mum and dad, that they had, “lived out little their lives in a great century”.

But those little lives are the stuff of history, because while the “great events” shape and influence all our lives, we too bring something to the great events, whether it be as a mill worker toiling in a cotton factory in 19th century Lancashire, storming the Normandy beaches in 1944, or suffering the awful conditions on a slave plantation, cutting the sugar cane under a fierce unrelenting sun, and bullied by a brutal overseer.

At the market, Ashton-under-Lyne, 1979

The trick becomes how you tell that story, and for some that isn’t easy. 

They may lack confidence in their writing skills, particularly if their last attempt at formal writing was at school decades ago.

And there is that other challenge of how to process and organise the story, which for a few becomes even more challenging when instead of a factual piece they opt to create a fictional account, where the names have been changed but the substance stays the same.

Waiting for something to happen, Paris, 1980

All of which is a lead in to an interesting project by my friend Lois, who runs writing groups and is now engaged in assisting those who want to turn grandad’s war or aunty Mabel’s youthful experiences into a story.*

The group differ in what they want to say, and in both their writing skills and their confidence, but by sharing their research and pooling ideas of how to approach the tasks, each is learning.

And that for me is a brilliant start.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 1979-2018

* FAMILY HISTORY WRITING GROUP… INSPIRING STUFF!   https://loiselsden.com/2019/02/26/family-history-writing-group-inspiring-stuff/?c=74084#comment-74084