The Chap Issue 109

ISSUE 109

AUTUMN 2021

EXPAND YOUR MIND, REFINE YOUR WARDROBE

The Sparks Brothers “People compliment us on what we’re wearing and ask who designed it. Well, it’s by nobody you’ve ever heard of!

If you wear the right tie you can make almost anything look good”

SEA SERPENTS

The marine explorer who devoted his life to searching for mythical creatures

CHICK HABIT

The connection between French ye-ye music, Serge Gainsbourg and Quentin Tarantino

PROHIBITION

The rise and fall of the bootleggers in the thirsty states of America 09>

9 771749 966087

ISSUE 109

£6.99

EXPLORE THE NEW COLLECTION

CAVANI.CO.UK

EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNT CODE ONLY FOR CHAP READERS: ‘‘CHAP 10”

A SUIT FOR EVERY OCCASION.

FOR EVERY MAN.

AWARD WINNING SKINCARE WITH NATURAL INGREDIENTS

SAVE 25% AT URBANJACK.COM USE CODE CM21 Valid until 31.12.21

Editor: Gustav Temple Picture Editor: Theo Salter Circulation Manager: Andy Perry

Art Director: Rachel Barker Sub-Editor: Romilly Clark Subscriptions Manager: Jen Rainnie

Contributing Editors: Chris Sullivan, Liam Jefferies, Alexander Larman

GUSTAV TEMPLE

LIAM JEFFERIES

CHRIS SULLIVAN

ALEXANDER LARMAN

DAVID EVANS

The editor of The Chap for the last 20 years is also the author of The Chap Manifesto, The Chap Almanac, Around the World in 80 Martinis (Fourth Estate), Cooking For Chaps and Drinking For Chaps (Kyle Books) and How To Be Chap (Gestalten). He is currently working on a book without ‘Chap’ in the title.

Liam Jefferies is The Chap’s Sartorial Editor, in charge of exploring new brands, trends and rediscoveries of forgotten gentlemanly fashions. Liam’s expert knowledge covers the dark heart of Savile Row to the preppy eccentricities of Ivy Leaguers. You can follow him on Instagram @sartorialchap

Chris Sullivan is The Chap’s Contributing Editor. He founded and ran Soho’s Wag Club for two decades and is a former GQ style editor who has written for Italian Vogue, The Times, Independent and The FT. He is now Associate Lecturer at Central St Martins School of Art on ‘youth’ style cults. @cjp_sullivan

Alexander Larman is The Chap’s Literary Editor.

When neither poncing nor pandering for a living, he amuses himself by writing biographies of great men (Blazing Star) and greater women (Byron’s Women). His book about Edward VIII’s abdication,The Crown in Crisis, was published last year. @alexlarman

David Evans is a former lawyer and teacher who founded popular sartorial blog Grey Fox Blog nine years ago. The blog has become very widely read by chaps all over the world, who seek advice on dressing properly and retaining an eye for style when entering the autumn of their lives. @greyfoxblog

ALF ALDERSON

DARCY SULLIVAN Darcy Sullivan writes about artists, aesthetes and algorithms. His articles have appeared in The Comics Journal, The Wildean and Weird Fiction Review.

He is press officer of the Oscar Wilde Society and curator of the Facebook pages ‘The Pictures of Dorian Gray’ and ‘The Arkham Hillbilly’.

JEAN-EMMANUEL DELUXE

JOHN MINNS

Alf Alderson is an awardwinning adventure travel writer whose work appears regularly in the world’s leading newspapers, magazines and websites.

He has also written and contributed to a wide variety of guidebooks on adventure travel, skiing, surfing, cycling, hiking, mountain biking and camping.

Office address The Chap Ltd 69 Winterbourne Close Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1JZ

John Minns has been a collector, buyer and seller Jean-Emmanuel is a French writer, music impresario and DJ. of antiques and collectables from the age of nine, when Born in Rouen, he studied in he first immersed himself Sheffield, where an association in the antique world by with Pulp led to him setting up foraging London antique his own record label in France. markets in the morning He brought the music of April March to the attention of French before school, then selling his finds to his eager school audiences and then to Quentin pals. His passion is still as Tarantino. He is the author of strong today.

Ye-Ye Girls of French Pop.

Advertising Paul Williams paul@thechap.co.uk +353(0)83 1956 999

Subscriptions 01442 820 580 contact@webscribe.co.uk

NICOLE DRYSDALE Nicole is a self-taught home cook who has been working as a freelance recipe developer and food stylist for the past 10 years.

She will be sharing recipes culled from her grandmother’s recipe notebooks. She is also a member of a ladies’ cricket team and is learning to play the double bass.

One day she hopes to have a pet ferret which she will call Mrs Washington. @nicolethechap

Email chap@thechap.co.uk Website www.thechap.co.uk Twitter @TheChapMag Instagram @TheChapMag Facebook/TheChapMagazine

Printing: Micropress, Fountain Way, Reydon Business Park, Reydon, Suffolk, IP18 6SZ T: 01502 725800 www.micropress.co.uk Distribution: Warners Group Publications, West Street, Bourne, Lincolnshire, PE10 9PH T: 01778 391194

THE CHAP MANIFESTO 1 THOU SHALT ALWAYS WEAR TWEED. No other fabric says so defiantly: I am a man of panache, savoir-faire and devil-may-care, and I will not be served Continental lager beer under any circumstances.

2 THOU SHALT NEVER NOT SMOKE. Health and Safety “executives” and jobsworth medical practitioners keep trying to convince us that smoking is bad for the lungs/heart/skin/eyebrows, but we all know that smoking a bent apple billiard full of rich Cavendish tobacco raises one’s general sense of well-being to levels unimaginable by the aforementioned spoilsports.

3 THOU SHALT ALWAYS BE COURTEOUS TO THE LADIES. A gentleman is never truly seated on an omnibus or railway carriage: he is merely keeping the seat warm for when a lady might need it.

Those who take offence at being offered a seat are not really Ladies.

14

4 THOU SHALT NEVER, EVER, WEAR PANTALOONS DE NIMES. When you have progressed beyond fondling girls in the back seats of cinemas, you can stop wearing jeans.

5 THOU SHALT ALWAYS DOFF ONE’S HAT. Alright, so you own a couple of trilbies. Good for you - but it’s hardly going to change the world. Once you start actually lifting them off your head when greeting passers-by, then the revolution will really begin.

6 THOU SHALT NEVER FASTEN THE LOWEST BUTTON ON THY WAISTCOAT. Look, we don’t make the rules, we simply try to keep them going. This one dates back to Edward VII, sufficient reason in itself to observe it.

7 THOU SHALT ALWAYS SPEAK PROPERLY. It’s really quite simple: instead of saying “Yo, wassup?”, say “How do you do?”

8 THOU SHALT NEVER WEAR PLIMSOLLS WHEN NOT DOING SPORT. Nor even when doing sport. Which you shouldn’t be doing anyway. Except cricket.

9 THOU SHALT ALWAYS WORSHIP AT THE TROUSER PRESS. At the end of each day, your trousers should be placed in one of Mr. Corby’s magical contraptions, and by the next morning your creases will be so sharp that they will start a riot on the high street.

10 THOU SHALT CULTIVATE INTERESTING FACIAL HAIR. By interesting we mean moustaches, or beards with a moustache attached.

138

78

CONTENTS 8 ASK THE CHAP

‘Wisbeach’ ponders queries from readers on matters sartorial

10 HOW TO DISAPPEAR

Torquil Arbuthnot outlines the various ways in which a Chap in need of anonymity may disappear off the face of the earth

14 A CHAP IN QUARANTINE

Brendan Kavanagh recounts a period of semi-lawful incarceration survived by maintaining Chappish standards

FEATURES 22 INTERVIEW: THE SPARKS BROTHERS

Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe meets the two mighty brothers whose artistic, human and sartorial journey is a force to be reckoned with

32 G ET THE SPARKS LOOK

arcy Sullivan looks back at the multitude of sartorial styles adopted D

by Sparks since the 1970s

36 T HE SCHNEIDER TROPHY

ctuarius reports on the 90th anniversary of The Coupe d’Aviation A Maritime Jacques Schneider, a race of waterborne aircraft won in perpetuity by Britain

•

AUTUMN 2021

22 SARTORIAL FEATURES 44 THE STANLEY BIGGS ADVENTURE

The new collection from upcoming new menswear brand is made for taking to the hills

56 FOX BROTHERS & CO

Chris Sullivan meets Douglas Cordeaux, who hauled the ancient fabric brand up by its bootstraps

62 C AMDEN WATCH CO

The Chap’s new wristwatch collaborators and how they brought Swiss expertise to north London

65 M ALLOCH’S KNITWEAR

Liam Jefferies on a knitwear brand that makes chunky sweaters and lambswool jumpers built to last the test of time

69 LOUNGEWEAR

Chris Sullivan advocates the noble tradition of wearing pyjamas and dressing gown while ensconced in one’s chambers

74 GREGORY FARMER

Liam Jefferies meets the man behind two Made in England brands combining deadstock and slow fashion with a penchant for subcultural icons

78 GREY FOX COLUMN

David Evans celebrates the sartorial splendour of Charlie Watts and broadens the black-tie palette at Glyndebourne

LONGER FEATURES 84 PROHIBITION

Chris Sullivan gallops through the dark days of the Volstead Act, which kept America involuntarily dry for thirteen years, with mostly disastrous consequences and a few rays of light

94 DRIVEN MAD BY THE SEA SERPENT

Charles G.M. Paxton explores the life of Captain George Drevar: sailor, inventor, sea serpent enthusiast, would be murderer, convict, award-winning life saver, aspiring Channel crosser and hero

Cover photo: © Anna Webber

ISSUE 109

100 C YCLING GEAR

Alf Alderson decries the Lycra outfit of the modern cyclist in favour of the more seemly cycling attire of yore

106 COOKING FOR CHAPS

Nicole Drysdale prepares for winter by making two heartwarming stews and a pear frangipane

110 F RANCIS BUCKLAND

Olivier Woodes-Farquharson on the eccentric naturalist who ate most of the animals he studied

120 T OP HATS AND TEA ON THE VILLAGE GREEN

Sam Knowles gives a detailed match report for an ancient fixture that provides the real fanfare to cricket’s newest format

REVIEWS 128 C RAIG TAYLOR

Alexander Larman meets the Canadian writer to discuss the similarities between interviewing farmers from Suffolk and therapists from Manhattan

134 BOOK REVIEWS

New books by Chris Paling, Nicholas Royle, Meg Mason and Rick Gekoski

138 JEAN-EMMANUEL DELUXE

The musical impresario who revived the obscure French genre of ye-ye music with such conviction that it caught the attention of Quentin Tarantino

148 DAVID DEVANT & HIS SPIRIT WIFE

The band that took their name from a 19th century magician discuss the art and magic of deception

157 ANTIQUES

John Minns on acquiring the sort of antiques that you can drink with a nice piece of antique Stilton

162 CROSSWORD

the Chap...

By Wisbeach

An advice column in which readers are invited to pose pertinent questions on sartorial and etiquette matters, and even those of a romantic nature.

Send your questions to wisbeach@thechap.co.uk

Shane Larkin: I possess several waistcoats, two of which have breast pockets. If sans jacket, would I be mocked mercilessly if I sported a small pocket square therein?

square into the upper left pocket of yours, everyone will assume it is an obscure eccentric tradition and will not dare to question it.

...

Montague Gristle: I have been reading the diaries of Sir Henry ‘Chips’ Channon, reviewed in issue 108. It has occurred to me that my failure to establish myself as a man of letters has been due to my lack of a nickname. Can you advise on a suitable appendage that would rest between my Montague and my Gristle?

WISBEACH: Sir, you would be mocked more mercilessly, at least by readers of this publication, were you to remove your jacket and there was no waistcoat underneath. What you choose to keep in your waistcoat pockets is your own affair. Mine, for example, contain a pocket watch, a cigar cutter, a meerschaum pipe, a pipe lighter, several pipe cleaners, a lucky netsuke stolen from Madam Sing-Sing’s house of ill repute (Shanghai), a silver snuffbox, a tin of Captain Fawcett’s Expedition Strength moustache wax and a small voodoo doll of Jeremy Clarkson. If you wish to insert a pocket

WISBEACH: What an agreeable task to be set, if I may say so, sir! Let us not forget that Chips Channon’s achievements included serving cocktails spiked with Benzedrine to the Queens of Spain and Romania “to make the party go” and a diary entry from 1938 that read “an unbelievable day in

8

a man needs a weapon, as much as he needs a pair of brogues.

He wants something traditional, discreet and affordable.

I have advised against a Taser as the battery life is short.

I have suggested an Assegai, or a Kukri. Either a spear or a machete will be a sufficient deterrent if the Rozzers challenge Pelham for not wearing a face nappy during the unpleasantness.

However, if Pelham chooses an Assegai, is he likely to offend the Nepalese Gurkhas, or, if he chooses a Kukri, will he offend the Zulu, Xhosa and other Nguni tribes of South Africa?

which two things occurred: Hitler took Vienna and I fell in love with the Prime Minister”.

Sir, I have no idea of your achievements thus far, except for your voluminous and admirable correspondence with this publication (see below). I therefore feel that a suitable nickname for you would be Montague ‘Chaps’ Gristle.

...

Montague Gristle: As soon as the Unpleasantness has finished, I shall be leaving my Sanatorium to trek across the Hindu Kush. Can you advise on a hat that will not only protect me from inclement weather, but will also pass muster in the event of my betrothal and wedding to a tribeswoman of good family and character?

WISBEACH: Given the current unpleasantness in that region, sir, the most suitable form of headwear would either be a ‘Desert Storm’ issue GS MK6 helmet with Desert DPM cover, or a turban. The latter is more likely to endear you to the local militia and may even result in ribald badinage at the caravanserai.

WISBEACH: A knotty conundrum for young Pelham, sir! Even were he to choose the Taser, he may offend the tribes in some of the less salubrious quarters of our nation’s cities. Whichever weapon he chooses, someone or other will be offended, so my recommendation is that you teach him the ancient martial art of Bartitsu. This self-defence system, created by Edward Barton-Wright in 1898, deployed the ordinary accoutrements of gentlemen, such as walking canes and umbrellas, to defend themselves against footpads and ruffians in the street. Pelham will therefore be armed every time he sets forth from his abode with his rain cover or walking aid.

...

Mike George: As a chap who has for the last two years been a police officer in what can only be described as very plain clothes, I carry a number of items which are linked to the martial arts. These are hidden away to prevent the ladies becoming all of a quiver. What can you advise that would be suitable for both looking dashing and also allow for the carrying of said weapons? I do need to flash the cuff.

...

Montague Gristle: I have found it increasingly difficult to have a face-to-face consultation with my Natural Health Physician. I have been told I need to be ‘triaged.’ How do I prepare for this ordeal?

WISBEACH: Sir, may I respectfully refer you to the above query and response. Simply by carrying a cane or umbrella, you would be in possession of items which are linked to the martial arts. It would also mean that the weapons would not spoil the line of your suit. I myself have found that a pair of nunchucks sticking out of one’s breast pocket causes the ladies to become such of a quiver that they run a mile. n

WISBEACH: Mr. Gristle (or ‘Chaps’ Gristle, if I may), triage is usually carried out in emergency rooms, disasters and wars, when limited medical resources must be allocated to maximise the number of survivors. Your GP is grossly exaggerating a situation that in reality consists of a few insipid individuals complaining of a persistent cough and not being able to smell their takeaway meals (in my humble opinion, not such a bad thing). I therefore suggest that you seek private medical care.

...

Montague ‘Chaps’ Gristle: My nephew Pelham is 14. He has reached an age and an understanding that, in life,

9

Advice

A Chap’s Guide to Disappearing Torquil Arbuthnot outlines the various ways in which a Chap in need of anonymity may disappear off the face of the earth

T

he desire to disappear off the face of the earth can arise from the simplest of motives, such as a broken heart, galloping accidie or a warrant out for one’s arrest. Often, however, the necessity of hooking on the false beard and escaping is due to circumstances beyond one’s control: the failure of the favourite in the 3.40 at Kempton Park; the lack of imagination of the Serious Fraud Office when it comes to understanding one’s accounting practices; the insistence, at the point of a shotgun, of a prospective father-in-law that one marries

his daughter; the unreasonable suspicion of the police at your explanation that you were using an oxy-acetylene torch in Mappin & Webb at 2 o’clock in the morning to search for a dropped cufflink. Turning one’s face to the wall and giving up is one way of dealing with life’s vicissitudes, as is retiring to the library with a glass of whiskey and a pearl-handled revolver. But beyond faking one’s death (the pile of clothes left on the beach, the empty yacht found drifting in the Channel) there are more alluring ways of evading the pettifogging inconveniences that life can hurl at us.

10

Running away to sea

Taking monastic orders

Although the Merchant Navy fleet is sadly reduced these days, the possibilities still exist for a life on the ocean wave. The more modestly minded Chap could consider starting at the lowest rung of the ladder as a cabin boy on a tea clipper, although one’s duties would be menial and the food weevil-ridden. There is, however, the possibility of deserting the tramp steamer at the first agreeable port-of-call and disappearing into the nearest stew.

For those of a more adventurous mien, there is always whaling in the South Atlantic, blackbirding in the South Seas, marooning oneself on a desert island with a parrot like Mr. Crusoe, diving for sunken Spanish galleons, or smuggling pearls in the South China Sea. Sailors’ garb is traditionally practical rather than aesthetic, although joining a pirate ship should satisfy one’s desire for more flamboyant rig. Tattoos among sailors are de rigueur, as is whiling away endless hours in opium dens.

Being known only by one’s first name (‘Brother Gustav’, for instance) is useful, as a lack of surname will baffle the police or creditors. How one gets taken on the staff at a monastery rather depends on one’s level of religious belief. Those of a messianic bent will relish the hours spent at devotion, while those whose only prayers are to Lady Luck will find numerous longueurs in the monastic life. The boredom can be relieved by replacing the Bible or psalter (while retaining the book’s cover as camouflage) with a volume of Surtees or Wisden. The crafty Chap will either wangle being put in charge of the communion wine or, even better, if joining the Bénédictine or Carthusian orders, will selflessly volunteer to oversee the liqueur making, in particular the quality control department. The Roman Catholic Church has a somewhat lax moral attitude to whom it offers sanctuary, so don’t be surprised to be sharing the cloisters with Serbian war criminals and Sicilian Mafiosi.

11

Hitching a ride with the circus

Joining an expedition Disappearing into the Amazonian jungle or up the Limpopo river are time-honoured means of disappearing. There is always a myriad of crackpot expeditions one can join, if one is a reasonable gun and doesn’t mind eating lizards. One can take one’s pick of macheteing into the Matto Grosso to seek the lost treasure of the Conquistadors, or camelling across the Sahara in search of King Solomon’s Mines. Before setting out, one will invariably be visited by a lean, scarred man from the Foreign Office who asks one to “have a shufti” at any foreign military bases one comes across in one’s travels. Good shootin’ is to be had, and plenty of adventure for those who grew up on a diet of Henty and Rider Haggard. One will either end one’s exploring days dead from a poisontipped arrow, sacrificed to a sacred crocodile, or worshipped as a god and fanned with palm-leaves all day.

The big top is a somewhat strenuous option, unless one has a natural talent for the trapeze or is possessed of a ‘freakish’ physique (being over 9 feet tall, having India-rubber bones). Being a crack shot or adept wielder of cutlery is an advantage, as circuses are always in need of trick-shooters and knife throwers. The element of disguise is a major benefit of the circus, whether one be slathered in droll make-up and outsized clothes as a clown, or sporting magnificent false moustachios and a leopardskin leotard as a lion-tamer. One can keep one step ahead of the law and bailiffs, as the circus caravans do not traditionally stay long in any one place. The presence of so many wild animals and circus strongmen will also deter one’s enemies from poking around the premises too assiduously.

12

Enlisting in the French Foreign Legion

Assuming a new identity in San Francisco

The French Foreign legion was established in 1831 with the sole purpose of providing a haven, no questions asked, for any ne’er-do-well or homicidal maniac who wanted to disappear. Under a practice known as the anonymat, one is allowed to enlist under an assumed name. Mum is very much the word when it comes to former identities, so if you find out your drill sergeant used to be Lord Lucan, keep it to yourself. The Legionnaire uniform is agreeably dashing, the marching songs reassuringly rousing, the company suitably dubious, and recruits are required to read PC Wren’s Beau Geste upon enlisting. True, one will spend an inordinate amount of time fighting restless natives, but if you have romantic notions of dying for a lost cause, and like sand and sunshine, then the Legion is the place for you.

Oscar Wilde noted, “It is an odd thing, but everyone who disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco”.

That city certainly has an agreeably louche atmosphere that will appeal. Of course, disappearing into a teeming metropolis comes with its own dangers, and the Chap who takes on a new identity in a foreign city is advised to have extensive plastic surgery. The surgery doesn’t have to be too neat a job, as poor stitchwork can always be mysteriously explained away as duelling scars or hints of torture at the hands of the Gestapo. If anyone asks where your money comes from, don’t tell them the truth (embezzled charity funds, forged wills) but intimate your moolah comes from a gold mine or breaking the bank at Monte Carlo. Ideally one wants to present an air of mystery, hearing people murmur as you walk by, “They say he killed a man…” n

13

Chap Life

A CHAP IN Brendan Kavanagh recounts a tale of survival with suitably Chappish standards during a period of lawful incarceration in a quarantine hotel

A

t the time of Dante, what was understood of the ancient texts was that there were stories which began well and ended badly, and these were tragedies. Conversely, those which started badly and ended well were comedies.

Dante’s tale of the journey to the Divine was thus a Comedy. Dante himself simply called his poem a Comedy, the Divine title being added later by others.

My tale is thus a comedy, embracing the terrestrial rather than the celestial; it is a history, exploring the practical, the ethical and the sensible response to the absurd, a discourse on the role of reason and the individual in society.

14

“My fellow inmates and I were asked to fill out a form; one fellow was promptly released with great ceremony as he was evidently undertaking work of great importance.

It transpired that he was a vending machine mechanic”

The successful conversion of breakfast into a proper repast

Midway through my journey in this life I found myself in a dark wood, lost, with the right way completely gone. More specifically, I was travelling from Melbourne back to Sydney. At the time of the Unpleasantness, such a journey required a travel permit and, being a law-abiding soul, I had obtained one. It clearly stated that I was allowed to enter the State of New South Wales unhindered, subject to certain conditions – I was to proceed directly to my home, self-isolate for 14 days, demonstrate that I was free of Covid-19, etc, etc – whereafter I was free to wander the streets unfettered.

I arrived in Sydney and manfully proffered my permit with a cheery smile, whose effect was diminished by a mask, and was met with blank indifference, bordering on insolence.

“Why are you here?”

The questions progressed with more complexity.

“What was I going to do and did it justify my being there?”

“Was it, or I, or anyone, truly of any importance or worth?”

I was initially both impressed and taken aback. I hadn’t realised that border control officers dallied in the area of epistemological speculation.

15

The hotel ‘lunch’ converted into a luncheon

However, it was soon clear that their interest was not so much an investigation into the reason as to why I was there, and was more accurately an expression of the fact that they wished I was somewhere else; more specifically, they wished I was anywhere else except there.

I live in Sydney and possessed a governmentissued permit entitling me to be there. These facts, I was told, were wholly inconsequential; they were simply an amuse bouche at what was to prove to be a demonic feast of indecision. I was informed that they were fully entitled to ask for anything that they might deem necessary, so as to make (or more accurately remake) a decision as to whether I could or should be there.

There followed a day of nonsense that would have driven a lesser man to homicidal rage. Each moment led to a potential decision which within a moment could be reversed. The vagaries of the situation were Byzantine. My fellow inmates and I were asked to fill out a form; one fellow was promptly released with great ceremony, for he was evidently undertaking work of great importance. It transpired that he was a vending machine mechanic.

My role as an expert working on a task worth several hundreds of millions of dollars, fulfilled in complete isolation in my apartment, was adjudged to be of lesser importance and of higher risk than ensuring that an already obese population had ready access to a supply of confectionary.

16

“The cryptic response, delivered by a person who had clearly graduated from the Franz Kafka School of Government Administration, was ‘the difference is that we haven’t decided; we’ve decided not to decide’”

After a long day at the airport, watching the health department, police and army personnel completely ignore the basic rules of hygiene and disease control, while randomly crosscontaminating everything they touched and generally acting as an infection distribution centre, a decision was reached. They decided they would decide the next day, but for now I was to go to a police quarantine hotel.

When I asked whether I could be released the next day, when a decision had been made, I was told that once I was in the hotel, I couldn’t be released for 14 days. When asked what the difference was between making a decision to incarcerate me for 14 days and delaying the decision by incarcerating me for 14 days, the cryptic response – delivered by

a person who had clearly graduated from the Franz Kafka School of Government Administration – was, “the difference is that we haven’t decided; we’ve decided not to decide.”

18

The ‘dinner’ provided by the hotel

The evening repast provided by my grocer

I was promptly bustled on to a bus and taken to a police quarantine hotel, where I was to be locked up for 14 days without a change of clothing or a book to read, and condemned to eat and drink whatever was pushed in my general direction, presumably at the end of a long pointy stick.

Being a man of standards and resourceful by nature, I had no intention of being cowed into submission. I promptly penned a list of the essentials that would see me through the fortnight, including several sets of linen sheets, several pairs of pyjamas, cotton napkins, a second tweed suit, several ties, an abundant supply of undergarments, socks and shoes, glassware, crockery, cutlery, books, food and wine, all of which a friend gathered together for me and delivered to the hotel soon after I arrived.

In the following days my wine merchant rallied around and began regular deliveries, and every few days my grocer made deliveries of fresh essentials. The hotel manager, on one occasion, called to ask, “What is it you are doing in your room?” to which I replied curtly, but politely, “Living” and hung up the telephone.

My unjust and unreasonable incarceration might have dimmed my spirits, leaving me embittered and vengeful. Abjuring the darker emotions, I knew that I should maintain my dignity and good cheer in the face of the onslaught of unreasoning, unfeeling malice and vulgarity.

In keeping to my standards, I would emerge perhaps bloodied but unbowed. Comforted by this conviction, I settled in for my stay.

No ladies of any sort or any temptations were provided for me, nor were there any angelic visitations. The only thing that was provided was food, though I use the word loosely.

Thus my 14 days passed and at the end, having been proven to be in sound health, despite the best efforts of all involved, I packed my worldly goods and was followed by a phalanx of porters to a car to make my journey home. I emerged from the strictures of my incarceration a deeper, wiser man, a man more ready to face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with equanimity.

A man perhaps more attuned to the Divine and the comical, as is surely the duty of any of us in journeying through this life. n

19

John Hepburn commences leather tanning in Bermondsey

Samuel Barrow & Brother is formed

Hepburn & Gale merges with Ross & Co

Make and supply saddles, belts and cases to officers and soldiers during the Great War

Hepburn & Gale merges with Samuel Barrow & Brother to become Barrow, Hepburn & Gale

Continue to make and supply official government Dispatch Boxes, notably for Churchill as Secretary of State

Major contribution to the war effort, notably “L” Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade

HRH Princess Elizabeth proclaimed Queen Elizabeth II and officially photographed with her Dispatch Boxes

1760

1848

1901

1914

1920

1921

1939

1953

Proper Chaps Carry Proper Bags.

Proper Bags From Barrow Hepburn & Gale.

‘Barrow, Hepburn & Gale have been making travel goods for generations, and although fashions are constantly on the change, their quality has always been superlative.

They are supplied not only to the home market, but the whole world, for the good reason that British craftsmanship in this class of goods has always been admired. At a time when a flourishing export trade is absolutely essential to the country’s survival, no manufacturer can do his country a better service than to produce goods so well made and designed that they may properly be called ambassadors of goodwill.’

Everything In Leather – The Story Of Barrow Hepburn & Gale, published in 1948.

thechap@barrowhepburngale.com | barrowhepburngale.com |

@barrowhepburngale

Features •

Interview: The Sparks Brothers (p22) Get the Look: Sparks Style 21 (p32) • The Schneider Cup

(p36)

Interview

The Spa r k s B rother s The release of Edgar Wright’s extraordinary and exciting documentary The Sparks Brothers, along with Leos Carax’s film Annette, gave CHAP French correspondent Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe the chance for a cheerful chinwag with two mighty brothers whose artistic, human and sartorial journey is a force to be reckoned with

“We don’t understand why in 2021 celebrities have to be associated with a designer company. Like no-one having any imagination outside being dressed by a fashion brand. They are being given clothes to wear for the night and then they give them back. So they don’t even own the clothing” 22

I

n these forced globalization times where, if we are not careful enough, we may all end up wearing, listening and eating the same things from Newcastle to Kuala Lumpur via Rouen, Sparks’ long career represents a glimmer of hope. ‘Neither quite the same nor quite another’, to use Verlaine’s lines, Sparks recall a huge host

of different images. Depending on your decade and geographical location, Ron and Russell Mael are at the same time a glam, a disco and a tongue-in-cheek cabaret act. They are known for collaborations with Rita Mitsouko, Franco-Belgian pop icon Lio, Jane Wielding of Go-Go’s hall of fame, Georgio Moroder, Tony Visconti and

23

Ron Mael

Todd Rundgren, among many others. Motion Pictures and Sparks have nurtured similarly diverse relationships, resulting in aborted projects with both Jacques Tati and Tim Burton, and in 1977 the film Rollercoaster, widely considered a bit of an odd turkey (though starring Henry Fonda and Richard Widmark).

As we discover by watching Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright’s new documentary, since their teenage years the Mael brothers have nurtured a real fascination for the auteur cinema of France and classic British pop. This is why for the British they are a little bit English, and for the French like friendly cousins from America. After many ups and downs, Sparks are finally being recognised up at the level of excellence where they belong. The brothers are slow burners, finally getting their grand prize of artistic recognition, and with no acrimony, for they are, above all, elegant souls and, dare one say, gentlemen.

LA would have dared. Early on, those were our role models. Then after a while, after trying to emulate stylistically those British bands, we veered into our own territory. Especially Ron, with his unusual persona and look.

How did you manage to stay stylistically relevant while not being too influenced by clothing fads?

RON: I think Russell and I are two separate cases.

I was the one in the original band that wasn’t able to follow that British band look. It looked great on the other four people in the band, including Russell, but ludicrous on me. So I went for a different look that was more natural to me. I was fortunate because I was able to maintain over time a similar kind of look to what I had back in the 70s. Through the years Russell has gone through various style evolutions much more than I did.

What determined your moustache evolution?

RON: I really liked silent comedians. My preference was always for Buster Keaton, obviously Charlie Chaplin, and Oliver Hardy. It was not very trendy but it was what appealed to me.

Unfortunately, in a certain sense it also took on negative political connotations, concerning an infamous Austrian leader who will go unmentioned.

After something like five years I realised that the moustache was getting in the way of our music, for some people. So I went for a more conventional single line moustache à-la Ronald Colman and Adolphe Menjou.

“After something like five years I realised that the moustache was getting in the way of our music, for some people. So I went for a more conventional single line moustache à-la Ronald Colman and Adolphe Menjou” JEAN-EMMANUEL DELUXE: Where did you get your sense of sartorial elegance?

RUSSELL: When we first started, we loved British bands more than what was happening in our Los Angeles hometown. We thought that they had a real sense of style that didn’t exist where we were.

Los Angeles for us was more represented by the Laurel Canyon sort of style, which was stuck in day-to-day clothing. We never associated ourselves with that sort of attitude and we preferred the British bands, who were so exotic to us and always dressed up, like the Move, the Kinks and the early Who. They were wearing ruffled and nehru shirts.

They had their hair done in ways that no-one in

Where do you pick up your clothes?

RON: Maybe I’m getting too specific, but from a trouser standpoint I buy much larger sizes than what I should buy. That’s counter to the slim fit look that everybody else has, but it suits my personality better. I’m fairly conservative when it comes to clothes but I’m not a fashion label snob.

Sometimes I’m surprised when people think that what I’m wearing is designer outfits. In reality my tastes are pretty simple. Basically it’s just all about choosing what’s right for you. I’m lucky because I can dress kind of anonymously. If you wear the right tie you can make almost anything look good.

25

Photo of Edgar Wright and the Sparks brothers by Jake Polonsky

RUSSELL: We were always surprised that at awards shows, for instance, both women and men, no matter how big stars they are, have to follow certain rules. Like Meryl Streep representing Prada or Jenifer Lopez for Chanel, whatever… We don’t understand why in 2021 everyone has to be associated with a designer company. Like no-one having any imagination outside being dressed by a fashion brand. They are being given clothes to wear for the night and then they give them back. So they don’t even own the clothing, unless they want to buy it. That whole philosophy seems so unmodern.

We travel a lot to places like Japan, Korea and France, where you can find ‘prêt a porter’ that is as interesting as designer clothes. People always compliment us on what we’re wearing and ask who designed it. Well, it’s by nobody you’ve ever heard of !

During the Cannes Festival, we were so surprised to witness that for every photoshoot there’s somebody like Tilda Swinton in her Hermes look, with the name of the brand right behind her. We were thinking, ‘Oh come on, people! You know you don’t have to be the pawns of those

big designer companies.’ Sometimes they make nice clothing, which is fine. But it seems like all the journals want to put that in their stories, what designers these stars were wearing that evening. It’s so old-fashioned and against the idea that stars are in positions of power and instead are indebted to a fashion brand.

RON: We did a collaboration with Rita Mitsouko and, aside from their musical angle, their style was so incredible. They were close to Jean-Paul Gaultier but they would combine all sorts of things.

In particular Catherine Ringer, who was mixing some Gaultier with basic clothes from Monoprix and other cut-price stores. That kind of idea was so refreshing to us. They ended up being more stylish than others who were totally dressed up by a designer.

In The Sparks Brothers film, your love of French cinema is very well featured. Do you see an evolution from la Nouvelle vague to Annette?

26

Russell Mael

Edgar Wright filming with the Sparks Brothers in Tokyo

RON: There still are people kind of carrying on that tradition. Not specifically stylistically but in their way of thinking, like Leos Carax, Gaspar Noé and Olivier Assayas. Maybe it isn’t quite like la nouvelle vague but they are still trying to reinvent filmmaking. Universally, films have turned more and more into franchises. During the nouvelle vague days there was an acceptance of experimentation and a general spirit that is less prevalent now. So the kind of directors that are working in their very independent ways deserve

more respect. I don’t mean independent film, but directors working independently from the outside forces of commercialisation. We were really fortunate to be able to work with one of those kinds of directors. Leos Carax was so uncompromising in making Annette. Contrary to the typical Hollywood situation, he didn’t have 10 or 12 films in development, juggling them all at the same time.

He was only focused with his one film for eight years. So we give him so much credit for that.

Carax, like you for your albums, has always made a point of having the final cut.

RUSSELL: Absolutely. That’s something that comes across a bit in the documentary. Where, for better or worse, we do have the final cut on our music and have to stand by it. So if it works for an audience that’s all the better, and if it doesn’t we only have ourselves to blame. But at least we were doing what we felt was absolutely right and had the most integrity for ourselves. Obviously when you’re doing a film it’s more of a collaborative process, as by nature there’s a director. In our case it was even more of an unusual situation, because the project was brought to him alongside a strong creative

“As an artist you should just be going on your own path, whatever happens.

Hoping you have some luck. Of course there has to be hopefully a little bit of talent as well. But so much of it is out of your hands that the only thing you can control is what you do creatively” 28

One more shot for the road, lads!

group and to the Sparks. So it was our music and our story. But we got along creatively so well with Leos. We were all in sync concerning our beliefs about what a movie musical should be.

know us before having watched the film. It seemed to help them see that if the Sparks could do it on their own terms, then they can try to do it on their own terms too. That’s really a nice theme that came out from the documentary

You had your up and downs career wise, but you kept up working every day. Lio was telling me how much she was touched and impressed how you seemed unaffected when she visited you in the 90’s, even thought all your hard work for Tim Burton had been junked.

RUSSELL: We were really happy that Edgar Wright was able to convey that. Among his many themes throughout the documentary, that’s really an important one. As an artist you should just be going on your own path, whatever happens.

Hoping you have some luck. Of course there has to be hopefully a little bit of talent as well. But so much of it is out of your hands that the only thing you can control is what you do creatively.

So you just have to stick to your own vision. We have gotten some really great and heartwarming feedback from a lot of young people who have seen the documentary. They said it was so inspirational for them, whether they knew the Sparks or didn’t

As you know, French film critique is still an important player. Were you wary of their reactions during the Cannes film festival?

RON: We have been cinema buffs for so long that a publication like Les cahiers du cinema is like a lofty kind of thing for us. So being accepted in a general sense by somebody like that meant a lot. We know the history of that publication and the history of French critics that became directors. We were aware that Annette was polarizing the critics but we embraced that. I don’t want to speak for Leos, but I think he does agree with the fact that if you’re not doing something that is polarizing then it’s not really strong. It’s not coming from a position of a real unique vision. In America, the critical thing really isn’t as important. Russell speaks French very well and I don’t, but I somehow sense that there’s a seriousness and a deep love of cinema that French film critics have.

29

Edgar Wright bookended by his two eccentric heroes

This is an element that is missing from most columnists in America. It’s almost like a historical thing, the idea that if somebody is a really good film critic they can also be a really good writer. The level of writing in America for film criticism is really low now. Everybody can just blog and everybody thinks that they’re a film critic. So I really like the seriousness of French film critics. Obviously if somebody is directing negative things towards you, then maybe you feel differently on that day, but in a general sense I really embrace that kind of feeling.

As it’s all being done in the sense of trying to elevate quality films, whether you agree with what they’re saying or not.

In your live shows I have seen some really precise mise-en-scene, not unlike film and theatre directors might do.

RUSSELL: We are of two minds. We both like the periods when we’ve used things like interaction between us and video projections. We’ve also liked when we just presented ourselves as a band. But even during these performances, people tended to think they’re really theatrical, just because of mine and Ron’s personalities. Along with the nature of the music being sort of theatrical in certain cases.

When can we see the Sparks live again?

RUSSELL: We will play a big show at the Roundhouse in London on 17th April next year, then at Le Casino de Paris on 19th April. After that we will do a world tour, performing two already sold-out nights at the Disney Hall in Los Angeles.

Then we play two nights in New York. Altogether we will play 18 shows in America and then we’re probably going to Asia after that. We have a full schedule coming up with live shows. n

RUSSELL: We breathed a sigh of relief and happiness at the end of the premiere night screening of Annette at Cannes. We knew the horror stories of certain films, even Fellini’s La Strada being booed at the end of a Cannes screening. So we were going, “Oh no, I hope it’s not going to be like that!” even thought obviously now La Strada is a classic movie.

So when there was this really rapturous ovation that came after the credits, we had a huge collective sigh of relief and happiness. At least from the audience perspective, it was really well received.

The Sparks Brothers documentary and Annette are both in selected UK cinemas

30

Get the Look

Sparks Style “Looks, looks, looks – far away, close at hand, it’s the only thing”

J

ust as Sparks sang on their 1975 album Indiscreet, their look has always been an important part of the experience. While the Chaplin/Hitler moustache would go, their core visual premise has remained: cool brother, nerdy brother. They also maintained this wasn’t a gimmick – Ron told a reporter in the mid1970s, “When I’m at home I still have the crappy tie on.”

Their look has, of course, evolved over the half-century since they were known as Halfnelson.

HERE ARE SOME OF SPARKS’ ICONIC LOOKS, FROM DAD CHIC TO SIMPLY CHIC

EARLY 1970s

This is the classic Sparks look: Russell in fashionable menswear (note the scarf around his neck) and Ron in what your dad wore.

33

LATE 1970s

By the time of Introducing Sparks and No. 1 in Heaven, the brothers were in simpler, more casual clothes, and the first display of their francophilia emerged.

1980s

As they returned from the electronic phase to a rockier sound, Russell borrowed Elvis’s oversized glitter suits and Ron was up for the gag in the photographs for the Angst in my Pants cover.

34

MID 1980s

A return to a more electronic-based sound also saw a return to a more minimalist, neo-noir look.

2000s

Ron switched to bow ties for a period, pairing them with some snazzy formal wear.

1990s

By the nineties, Ron’s moustache has been whittled down to a pencil, and Russell has finally had a haircut.

2020s

Having tried everything else, the brothers now tend to look simply chic.

35

36 The Schneider Cup at Venice in 1927

Aviation

THE SCHNEIDER TROPHY The Coupe d'Aviation Maritime Jacques Schneider, or Schneider Trophy, celebrates its 90th anniversary this year, as Actuarius reports

F

“Despite a lack of international opposition and the wider worries of living through the depression, the Schneider Trophy still held its fascination for the general public. Huge numbers congregated in the Portsmouth area the following day, hoping to witness history being made”

irst held in 1913, Joseph Schneider’s intent for his eponymous cup (more popularly, and accurately, referred to as a ‘trophy’) was that it should encourage the development of reliable, safe, waterborne aircraft. Before the dark days of World War 1, after which there existed a more formal land based aviation network equipped by a mature and competent industry, waterborne aircraft were seen as a more practical basis for commercial aviation. After 1918 the contest was therefore inherently outdated, but the Schneider Trophy continued before being won in perpetuity

by Great Britain, 90 years ago this year.

One of the rules of the contest was that if a country won three times within five years, it would bring the event to a close. A move from annual to biennial competitions after 1926 meant this equated to three consecutive wins. Although always competed for as nations, the entrants were private ventures until the mid 20s, when escalating costs led to it becoming a government-funded matter of national prestige. By the close, Italy and Britain had established themselves as the front-runners through sustained subsidised development and official military High Speed Flights. Sidney Webster

won 1927’s contest for Britain, held in Venice, with the tiny Napier Lion-powered Supermarine S5. R J Mitchell, the aircraft’s designer, considered the Lion to have reached the end of its distinguished competition career, so he created the S6 to house a proposed new engine built by Rolls Royce – known simply as the R.

37

The Supermarine S6

Achieving the power required to take the trophy a second time in succession proved difficult with the new supercharged V12. Eventually the minimum running time at rated power was achieved on 27th July, less than six weeks before race day. 1929 saw the British efforts vindicated with a win by the effortlessly rakish Richard Waghorn in one of the S6s. This left the 1931 event to secure possession of the cup forever, but there was a slight problem. Hit by the Great Depression and having faced sustained opposition to the High Speed Flight from the RAF's upper echelons, the British government withdrew funding.

Cometh the hour, cometh the woman. Lady Fanny Lucy Houston was born into unremarkable circumstances, but as a 16-year-old chorus girl started on a lucrative career of being the mistress or wife of several wealthy older men, who left her substantial amounts of money on their passing.

Even taking the most charitable view, stories of her ‘chasing’ Robert Houston and tearing up his will, demanding he re-write it to leave her more, are difficult to ignore. Even more problematic are her admiration of Hitler and Mussolini and her wish to install a similar leader in Britain. However, Lucy Houston was a multi-faceted woman and it would be unjust not also to mention her more palatable

activities. She gave support to the Suffragette movement, sent morale boosting gifts to Tommies in France during the Great War, created a rest home for nurses serving on the Western Front (for which she was awarded a DBE) and bankrolled the British 1931 Schneider Trophy effort.

Lady Fanny Houston

38

The effortlessly rakish Richard Waghorn

“Two years after that final victory, Rolls Royce fired up the first Merlin, an engine informed by the development of the R. Then in 1936 Mitchell’s Spitfire, again a design drawing on the high-speed hinterland of the Schneider Trophy, used it to climb into the heavens for the first time and ultimately on to an immortality forged in war”

wasn’t going well in any country. The RAF initially declined to release the aircraft or pilots for the event, France and Italy battled with major technical issues and the lone semi-private American entry failed to secure funds. All of which led to a petition for the contest to be put back a year, something America had sportingly done in 1924 but that Britain now refused to do.

As September 1931 approached, it looked like only Britain would make the start. Three aircraft were to be entered by the High Speed Flight with, in the event of no-one else turning up, a selfimposed minimum average speed of 340 mph over the course being set as a target for victory. This was an increase of 11 mph over the 1929 winning speed and would prevent the trophy being retained by a simple ‘fly over’. Lt. J.N. Boothman, F.W. Long and L.S. Snaith were selected as pilots.

Over in Italy, the dramatically beautiful Macchi MC.72 was suffering from an undiagnosed inlet tract backfire under load. It would later go on to set an outright air speed record that would stand for five years. The French entry promised much but delivered not enough. Thinly spread resources and the chaotic lead up to the event meant France wouldn’t even get a promising design into the air.

America’s one-man powerhouse Lt. Al Williams

To understand the 1931 event we must first look back to the start of 1930. The Royal Aero Club (RAeC) set out the rules and conditions in January of that year, requiring a deposit of 5,000 francs per aircraft. The fee was later changed to 20,000 francs per machine, after both France and Italy had already paid up. This led to a dispute only resolved at the end of the year with an acceptance of the revised cost. Meanwhile, development

39

The blue and silver paint scheme providing the aeronautical equivalent of high cheekbones

succeeded in getting some support for his beautiful but ineffective, and now elderly, Mercury racer, but he was relying on the projected postponement.

Race Day arrived: Saturday 12th September, 1931. The prevailing good weather broke only hours before the start, triggering a postponement.

Despite a lack of international opposition and the wider worries of living through the depression, the Schneider Trophy still held its fascination for the general public. Huge numbers congregated in the Portsmouth area the following day, hoping to witness history being made.

Lt. J.N. Boothman finally fired up Supermarine S6B ‘S1595’ at one pm and took off cleanly, before alighting and sitting on the water for two minutes. This was an anachronistic condition

for the event that had never been removed. Another take-off, then a turn and dive to flash past the start line at Ryde Pier with the throttle pushed to the firewall. The S6B was quite large for a racer, but tiny by any other standards. Stylistically it was the aeronautical equivalent of high cheekbones, perfectly accentuated by the blue and silver paint scheme. Combine that with the roar of a Rolls Royce R flat out and you would have to be made of stone not to feel a thrill at the thought of it firing up, even today. Although technically brilliant, Supermarine’s racehorse was designed to a simple principle: the minimum amount of aircraft to contain pilot, engine and fuel while maintaining the minimum degree of controllability, and the maximum amount of radiator to keep the engine

40

A Supermarine S6 at Goodwood Revival

cool. Mitchell himself referred to her as “the flying radiator”.

Seven laps later it was all over, with an average speed of 340.08 mph, sufficient to claim the win and bring down the curtain on an unparalleled era of aeronautical development. By contrast, the first Schneider Trophy in 1913 had been won at an average speed of 45.75 mph.

You may be left wondering if the effort and risk had any relevance beyond Boy’s Own derring-do and national pride. And whether the S6A at Solent Sky Museum in Southampton, or Boothman’s victorious aircraft, displayed with the trophy itself in the Science Museum in London, are no more than the remnants of a historical transport cul-de-sac. Well, two years after that final victory, Rolls Royce fired up the first Merlin, an engine informed by the development of the R. Then in 1936 Mitchell’s Spitfire, again a design drawing on the high-speed hinterland of the Schneider Trophy, used it to climb into the heavens for the first time and ultimately on to an immortality forged in war. As my father once told me, “The Battle of Waterloo may or may not have been won on the playing fields of Eton, but the Battle of Britain was certainly won over the Solent.” n

The Schneider Trophy itself

41

SARTORIAL

•

Photo Shoot: Stanley Biggs (p44) • Fox Brothers & Co (p56) Camden Watch Co (p62) • Malloch’s (p65) • Lounge Wear (p69) • Gregory Farmer (p74) • Grey Fox Column (p78)

Photoshoot

THE STANLEY BIGGS ADVENTURE Digby Fairfax explains why Stanley Biggs is the right choice for those in search of rugged clothing for adventures in the great British outdoors Photography: First set: Joe Hall. Second set: Harry Renton Models: Thomas Powell, Alice O'Shea, Jake Smithies WWW.STANLEYBIGGS.CO.UK @STANLEYBIGGSCLOTHIERS

A

s golden autumnal hues and crisp, clean air settles across the Northern Hemisphere, now is the time to enjoy the luxurious new clothing from Stanley Biggs Clothiers. With a revered and established collection, carefully crafted and created for longevity, Stanley Biggs has directed the same efforts and attention to detail that have defined the brand to expand their collection of clothing. The Biggs Collection now offers a wonderful range of footwear, accessories and trousers alongside their existing range of knitwear, scarves, and caps.

From leather boots, hand-made in The Peak District, to striking wide-leg trousers, made using the finest British wool and buttons, it is reassuring to see that Stanley Biggs Clothiers continue to collaborate with only the finest makers Britain has to offer. Furthermore, the brand is made for everyone and every occasion, no matter your style, gender or location. From an adventure that pushes your limits, to a social engagement in town, the versatility of the collection exudes a natural elán that will heighten any experience.

History runs through the core of the brand, starting with the name. Born in London in 1919, Stanley Douglas Biggs joined up to serve at the

beginning of the Second World War, as a medical orderly in the 181st Airlanding Field Ambulance Unit of the Royal Army Medical Corps. His unit would go on to take part in the Battle of Arnhem during the ill-fated Operation Market Garden in September 1944. On 25th September 1944, Private Biggs lost his life when a stray shell hit another hotel where he and other injured soldiers were holed up during a barrage of the Oosterbeek Perimeter.

Stanley Biggs is buried in Arnhem Oosterbeek Airborne Cemetery in the Netherlands, and it was here that Sophie Bainbridge, founder of the brand, looked up her great grandmother’s name, Biggs, and pieced together the story of her heroic ancestor, after whom she named her company.

The Biggs knitwear range, made in England from 100% British wool, is a speciality of the Biggs brand. A Chap favourite from their archive is the marvellously two-toned ‘Hannay’ roll-neck. Named after the protagonist of John Buchan’s The ThirtyNine Steps, Major General Sir Richard Hannay, the natural grey and Celtic green tones evoke images of the landscape of Britain described in the book, and as seen in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 adaptation.

The jumper features a high waistband and can be worn long (ideally tucked into breeks) or rolled

44

up to double down on the insulating properties of 100% British wool.

The design, development and manufacture of each woollen jumper embraces a network and history that reaches back thousands of years and spans the length and breadth of the British Isles. As they continue to add to this expanding range of knitwear, The Chap has been granted exclusive access to one of their new additions, The Loxley Rollneck, inspired by one of the most famous fictional outlaws of Northern England, Robin Hood.

Stanley Biggs is situated only a few miles east of the great Sherwood Forest, the legendary hideout for Robin and his Merry Men, and it was from the explorations of this forest and the history of Robin of Loxley that the rollneck was inspired. The deep and rich forest green rollneck, finished with golden hoops on the neck, cuffs and waistband, harks back to a favourite era for the brand: the 1930s.

As with all items in The Biggs Collection, The Loxley Rollneck went through rigorous testing before it ended up as the finished product. One such adventure saw the Biggs team head into The Peak District to capture a unique experience: Alport Castles at sunset. The stunning results of this photographic expedition are displayed over these pages.

The brand can be summed up in the words of its founder, Sophie Bainbridge: “We want to capture a bygone era but in our own ‘Stanley Biggs’ way. There are a lot of influences in there and we are proud to be a heritage brand, but this collection has been carefully curated to be worn comfortably and with versatility in mind for the modern-day man (or lady).”

So, if you are looking toward your next adventure, take Stanley Biggs along for the ride and share your experiences. n

CHAP readers may enjoy a 15% discount by using code BiggsChap2021

46

TOM WEARS: The Chatsworth Cap The Loxley Rollneck The Wingfield Trousers The Cromford Belt The Pentrich Derby Boots

TOM WEARS: The Chatsworth Cap The Falcon Rollneck

JAKE WEARS: The Hardwick Cap The Bryon Jumper The Cromford Belt The Melbourne Trousers ALICE WEARS: The Birkin Jumper The Melbourne Trousers

ALICE WEARS: The Byron Jumper The Melbourne Trousers

JAKE WEARS: The Marston Jumper The Melbourne Trousers

Sartorial

FOX BROTHERS & CO Chris Sullivan meets Douglas Cordeaux, the doyen of ancient British clothiers Fox Brothers, who hauled the brand up by its bootstraps a decade ago www.foxflannel.com

F

“Jeremy Hackett suggested I should go and take a look at Fox Bros in Wellington in Somerset. The last thing Jeremy said to me was: ‘Whatever you do, don’t buy the mill, as it’s a disaster.’

So I went out and bought the mill with my business partner because, as soon as I walked into the mill, I was enamoured”

ox Brothers and Company is a name that has echoed through the corridors of sartorial excellence for almost 250 years, but relatively recently the business has had a rather invigorating shot in the arm, when the company was bought in 2009 by style monger Douglas Cordeaux and his business partner Deborah Meaden, who have taken Fox Brothers back to its deserved pole position.

The company began as an offshoot of the Were family clothier business (who began producing rather fine serge under Elizabeth I) when in 1768 Thomas Were’s 21-year-old grandson Thomas Fox (1747-1821) joined the company. Mr. Fox became sole proprietor in 1796, introducing the Fox cloth mark and changing the name of the company to Fox Brothers. By this time the company owned five mills and employed nearly 5,000 workers. During

WW1, the company earned a government contract to provide 852 miles of khaki coloured wool for

56

Douglas Cordeaux

“As soon as I walked into the mill, I was enamoured”

“These items are not destined for landfill. They are to be coveted, loved and repaired and worn for a lifetime, then handed down to someone who truly appreciates the craft that went into making them.

They are beautiful things to own”

How did you get involved with Fox Bros?

Well, that’s a funny story. I worked for Hackett and was having lunch with the owner, Jeremy Hackett. I was talking about finding an English brand that I could turn into a clothing brand. He suggested I should go and take a look at Fox Bros in Wellington, Somerset. I was a little surprised, as I come from Bridgwater in Somerset, which is only 20 miles away, and had never heard of Fox brothers. As we parted company, the last thing Jeremy said to me was: “Whatever you do, don’t buy the mill, as it’s a disaster.”

So I went out and bought the mill with my business partner because, as soon as I walked into the mill, I was enamoured. It was the sound of the mills and the noise of people making stuff in the UK – very traditional English products in this dusty neglected traditional environment – unloved and uncared-for. As a company, they were underperforming and didn’t know they had a quality product or how to market it, but I did.

military puttees. Due to the far cheaper yet infinitely substandard cloth production in the third world, the company’s fortunes took a dip in the 1980s, but today produces some of the world’s finest suiting, still using looms over 50 years old.

I met the impeccably turned out Douglas Cordeaux, co-owner and creative director, to discuss what he’d done with the company since 2009.

58

Did you have a vision of where you wanted to take them?

Absolutely. I wanted to turn it from a textile mill into much more of a lifestyle brand. The company had been through so many eras and had been so influential. It will be 250 years old in 2022. The company invented the colour khaki, as well as the world famous flannel, owning the flannel trademark until the 1950s. Fox made the celebrated Prince of Wales check for the Duke of Windsor; Cary Grant always requested Fox brothers flannel and wore a few in Hitchcock’s Notorious. Then we have the most famous suit in the world, as worn by Winston Churchill holding a machine gun in World War II. That suit is made from Fox Brothers chalk stripe cloth, cut and tailored by Henry Poole.

I’ve been with Fox for 12 years now and, about five years in, I received a call from Joe Morgan of tailors Chittleborough and Morgan [12, Savile Row] who said, “I’ve got somebody who wants to meet you, if you’re in the area.” I thought he was going to introduce me to a cloth merchant or someone in the industry – but it was Charlie Watts.

Immediately, Charlie expressed his love and admiration for Fox flannel and said, “You used to do this beautiful blue flannel that I loved.” For me this was incredible, but there are so many of these stories.

Today we are involved in tailoring and produce a ready-to-wear line called Merchant Fox. We do a lot of collaborations. We did one with Adidas and made these striped patchwork trainers. Until then my teenage son thought we were pretty boring, but that changed his mind.

“I’ve got somebody who wants to meet you...”

What differentiates flannel from any other cloth?

Flannel is essentially a cloth that has been beaten against a piece of wood for around eight hours.

We use very, very fine Merino wool from Australia.

This is taken in dry, and after adding a lot of water it’s stitched together on a continuous roll and smashed against a beechwood board, which allows the fibres to burst. And then it is pressed, so that the fibres are pushed flat. This is how we achieve this fabulous melange, this richness. It’s called a ‘blind finish’ as you can’t see any of the weave. Flannel is a truly beautiful cloth.

they can be uncomfortable these days. Because I get very hot, most of my suits are not lined on the back and are made from a lighter cloth.

Who would you nominate as your three bestdressed men?

Charlie Watts, Jeremy Hackett and Mr. Yasuto Kamashita in Japan.

Do you subscribe to the Beau Brummell ideology that a well-dressed man shouldn’t walk into a room and stand out?

Yes, I think I do. But I think people notice welldressed people a lot more these days, as so many people care so little for their appearance and their clothes. I often get asked if I am going to a wedding or attending court, as I wear suits most of the time.

What constitutes a good suit?

For me I think it’s when you really don’t know you’re wearing a suit, as it fits so well. A lot of people get hooked up with a really heavy cloth, but

59

And of course now Fox have a ready-to-wear clothing line?

It started because we have a lot of customers from Japan, who love this British authenticity. We pick them up from Taunton station and they come through this wonderful countryside in our Land Rover. One lady started crying because she thought it was so beautiful! It is like Disneyland but it’s real.

Then we take them to the mill where we’re weaving cloth as they did over 150 years ago. After this tour, many customers wanted to take something home with them. They couldn’t take a big bolt of cloth, so we started producing ties, then scarves, made locally. More recently we’ve produced ready-towear lines using the same principle. I started to meet craftsmen and makers and then went abroad in search of similar artisans. I met tailors in Naples, shirt makers in Florence, glove makers in Venice and I saw all these wonderful things that, even though costly, are made as they should be by a craftsman with pride. These items are not destined for landfill. They are to be coveted, loved and repaired and worn for a lifetime, then handed down to someone who truly appreciates the craft that went into making them. They are beautiful things to own.

What other items have you made in collaborations?

We collaborated with Colnago and made a bicycle called the C64 Frameset. Ernesto Colnago started making bicycles in the basement of their family home in Milan, cutting down the family mulberry tree to use as a bench, and was soon was making bicycles for the world’s most famous cyclists. We always try to work with like-minded people who have a passion. I love the passionate Naples approach. You go see a tailor and he takes you for the finest coffee in the world and then for the best pizza you’ve ever had in your whole life, because he’s taken his own homegrown tomatoes to the restaurant to stick on their pizza.

You did a few casual jackets too?

Taking the iconic piece of the Spanish wardrobe, The Teba – a mixture between a jacket

Fox Brothers Teba jacket in Gun Club Check

and an overshirt – we teamed up with Justo Gimeno in Zaragoza and made a version of the jacket in Fox Brothers Somerset Jacketing in a classic gun club check. We also collaborated with Hervier, who have been making workwear in Chatillon Sur Indre since the 1920s, and made a classic charcoal and black French utility jacket from our herringbone cloth.

How do you see the future of Fox Brothers?

We are doing a big evening wear story next year, and a selection of pocket squares illustrated by artists such as yourself, printed using a traditional silkscreen method by Adam Lee in Chesterfield, using reactive dyes in the finest silk with hand rolled edges. I love the story about textile producer Ziggy Asher on Edgware Road, who came to London during the War with one piece of cloth that he kept in his top pocket for good luck. He started printing pocket squares illustrated by Jean Cocteau and Henry Moore; they were made commercially but were very popular and are now worth fortunes. I’ve always loved that art meets clothing idea. n

Watches

THE CAMDEN WATCH COMPANY Gustav Temple meets The Chap’s new timepiece collaborators, Jerome Robert and Anneke Short, founders of the Camden Watch Company www.camdenwatchcompany.com

W

“There are a lot of people who think watches are ‘easy money’, who buy pre-made watches straight off the factory shelf, print their logo on it and package it as a ‘brand’.

We want to design watches that not only provide great value, but that make you feel great when you wear them”

e first encountered the Camden Watch Company in 2017, when they had recently launched their ambitious company into a crowded market. The original aim of the brand was to use the founders’ extensive knowledge of design and watchmaking to create affordable timepieces, based around the Camden motto ‘Not for one, but for all’.

Founders Jerome and Anneke met in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the area of Switzerland known as ‘Watch Valley’ and where Jerome is from. “I wouldn’t necessarily say it comes naturally,” says Jerome, “but being Swiss certainly means that you’re surrounded by watches from a very young

62

age, which definitely provides a huge advantage and an understanding of how things work.”

From the start, they wanted the industrial, Victorian side of Camden and Britain as a whole to be a big part of the brand. “We love Camden,” says Anneke, “we’ve always loved it, ever since our first visit on some rainy day way back when.

It’s so inclusive, so perfectly imperfect. It’s like the whole of London condensed into one area, and, like all of London, it has such a rich and fascinating history.”

The watch market is viewed as being rather saturated, with all sorts of charlatans trying to dive in to make a quick buck. Jerome and Anneke had no intention of being part of that kind of enterprise. “We’re not ex-stockbrokers looking to start a business, or entrepreneurs trying to make a quick exit. We’re in this for the long haul. There are a lot of people who think watches are ‘easy money’, who buy pre-made watches straight off the factory shelf, print their logo on it and package it as a ‘brand’. We want to design watches that not only provide great value, but that make you feel great when you wear them.”

It is well known that most British watchmakers have their watches assembled in the Far East,

and the Camden Watch Co have found this was the only way to keep costs down. However, every element of their watches bar the movements are designed in-house and bespoke to them. “We do all of the research, design, and pre-production of our watches in our HQ in Camden,” says Jerome, “and then we outsource the production to the Far East. We work the old fashioned way, using a different factory for each element of the watch, which ensures the highest quality for the best price.

We’ve visited all the factories we work with and have been working with each one for years now. We also produce one-off, special editions that are assembled in our HQ in Camden.”

Since launching in 2014 with just a few timepieces, the

63

range has grown exponentially and now includes some ten different designs, all in further varieties of colourways, sizes and strap designs. The first flagship store was in Camden Market, followed by another in Shoreditch and then a third in Greenwich, with many pop-ups and festivals in between, including The Chap Olympiad in 2019.

The factory itself is smack bang in the middle of Camden Town in an old spectacle factory.

Not content with pouring all their watchmaking knowledge into their own timepieces, the Camden pair has also engaged in various collaborations to produce some special editions.

The Camden Giving Watch, limited to 250 pieces, was a collaboration with local charity Camden Giving. All profits from this watch are being donated to Camden Giving’s Future Changemakers, a campaign against street violence in Camden. Inspired by Victorian symbolism, the

edition features a hand-drawn heart design in the centre of the watch.

The No.88 was designed in collaboration with cyclist Kitty Pemberton-Platt, using a subtle spoke design in the centre of the dial. With jersey-style embossed letters on the strap and a gear-shaped crown, the No.88 is a watch full of details inspired by cycling and vintage bicycles.

The next collaboration for the Camden Watch Company is with this very publication. Based on the classic British watches of the early 20th century by companies like Smiths, the collaborative timepiece’s face will be an elegant, simple, black with cream-coloured numerals and a leather strap.

Design is still in its early stages, with the pictured drawing giving an indication of the final watch, which will be available for purchase by Christmas 2021. n

64

Sartorial

CHUNKY KNITS Liam Jefferies on a knitwear brand that makes chunky sweaters and lambswool jumpers built to last the test of time www.mallochs.co.uk

A

utumn is that most seasonal of seasons here in Blighty. Folded away are the cheesecloth, seersucker and (for the brave) patchwork Madras garments of those bygone Summer months, and so too are the pieces from the lighter end of the knitwear spectrum – Sea Island cotton and the like. When faced with the changing of the seasons, abrupt though it may be, one looks to the indefatigable woollen layers to keep out the first throes of Winter.

If, like in the experience of this humble columnist, the innumerable hours spent indoors and indeed couch supine have rendered the woollens in your possession a tad on the snug side, fear not, as a knitwear brand has taken up the call to provide timeless sartorial staples using the best in heritage manufacturing: Malloch’s.

65

“The designs consist of timeless wardrobe staples across knitwear and accessories, with an indefinite attention to detail and quality, inspired by a blend of the polished and classical style of mid-Century Hollywood royalty to the humble working peoples of town, country and coastline”

Malloch’s is the brainchild of graphic designer and art director Chris Chasseaud. With a background working in the fashion industry, Chris was able to connect with a plethora of British manufacturers, and has since championed the talent and rich heritage of local makers, utilising factories in Hawick, Scotland, Yorkshire, Leicester and London, accumulating hundreds of years of experience.

The designs consist of timeless wardrobe staples across knitwear and accessories, with an indefinite attention to detail and quality, inspired by a blend of the polished and classical style of midCentury Hollywood royalty to the humble working peoples of town, country and coastline. It is in this particular focus on functionality and traditional styling that lends a trustworthiness to the range, not fashion-led, but reliably lasting pieces that embed themselves into a capsule wardrobe with aplomb.

Being a staple item, knitwear is worth investing in. While a frivolously fringed suede jacket may

be en vogue at its time of purchase, a good knit is rarely met with such abject horror 6-12 months down the line. A chunky knit in a crew- or roll-neck will loyally serve for years, if not decades; even one of Malloch’s’ fine lambswool jumpers, given the same care and attention, could stay the course for so long.

It is because of the longevity and quality of their wares that Malloch’s need not rely on loud prints or designs. The fit, texture and substance of some of the finest wools in the world make a Malloch’s sweater stand out to those in the know.

One such wool used by Malloch’s for their scarves is Escorial, a type of wool obtained from the Escorial flock, named for the Escorial palace near Madrid built by King Philip II of Spain in the 16th Century, a unique species of sheep originating from the Mahgreb in North Africa.

Today, descendants of that same flock are found only in the southern grasslands of Australia and New Zealand, where a small group care for the

66

shoulders allowing the piece to be as adaptable to tailoring as under, say, a Norfolk jacket or whatever passes for mountainwear on Everest these days.

A colourway not oft seen in knits, the seaweed is a blend of deep greens, and a subdued navy in a marl with more depth than the aquatic reaches for which it is named. It is easy to spot that not only are the cuts directly influenced by utilitarian workwear, but so too are the hues inspired by the natural world. It is said that Scottish water is what gives the country’s knitwear its superlatively soft handle. Whether this is a factor cannot be proved; however, with generations of experience utilised in the Hawick Mills dating back over hundreds of years, one thing is for certain: Malloch’s wares are timeless luxury that can truly be said to last the test of time. n

endangered breed, while sustainably providing a wool that is not only ecologically sound, but also supple and luxurious enough to create a perfect drape and handle. A sustainable ‘slow’ method of production much in the same vein as the cork industry for wine bottles.

Elsewhere in the Malloch’s range are fine lambswool pieces knitted at a tight tension on special frames, for a lightness that belies their warmth and sturdy nature. Produced in small batches in 2-ply wool from pedigree sheep, they provide the ideal perennial layering staple.

The Chap’s favourite piece amongst Malloch’s wealth of products is the Newman Roll Neck, manufactured in Howick on the Scottish Borders from a 6-ply pure lambswool spun by Z. Hinchliffe & Sons of Yorkshire and renowned around the globe since 1766. With a slightly oversized fit, akin to the kind worn by Mallory, Shackleton, et al, the single cuff provides ample rolling when worn casually, with set in

@sartorialchap

67

Sartorial

CHAP ABOUT THE HOUSE Chris Sullivan advocates embracing the noble tradition of wearing pyjamas and dressing gown while ensconced in one’s chambers

O

“Noel Coward, Rock Hudson, Ronald Coleman and George Sanders claimed the item as their own, until the image of the louche bedchamber buccaneer, replete in monogrammed silk pyjama, dressing gown and slippers, with a cigarette holder, was ingrained in our consciousness”

f late, chaps the world over have been required by law to stay within the confines of their abodes, many working from home or at least pretending to, so surely the time is nigh for the well-dressed chap about the house to be suited, slippered and as well-dressed indoors as out? Some lesser mortals might consider the very concept of ‘well dressed’ at home a total anathema, as they slouch about in their ‘sweat’ pants and ‘sweat’ shirts, ‘sweating’ for Europe. But for the ready, willing, able and sartorially open-minded, the only possible solution is loungewear. This genre includes bedwear and its older relative, the dressing gown, and the luxuriously louche smoking jacket.

69

Silk dressing gown by www.geoffstocker.com

myself and others that ‘I am not going out.’

In days of yore, when I suffered the infernal yoke of marriage, before I was halfway through the door, ‘er indoors would order me to the shop to pick up necessities like endive, ikan bilis or filé powder. There could be no argument, as she had had the good sense to don flimsy floaty things after dark that she considered unseemly down at the corner shop. Sometimes I would feign the need for ablution and quietly don the PJ while in the bathroom, to emerge untouchable. Ever since, I believe that my brain has subliminally associated the pyjama with peace and relaxation and, now that she’s long gone to pastures less interesting, I use the conceit on myself and totally disallow yours truly to pop out for anything whatsoever once in pyjamas. The result is that sometimes I have to opt for tea without milk, gin without tonic and potatoes without salt.

It seems that others agree with my infatuation; pyjamas are the favourite garments of Iggy Pop and Christopher Walken, while the late Hugh Hefner, who often teamed his with a smoking jacket, was rarely seen out of them. ‘I have about 100 pairs of pyjamas,’ he once declared.

The word pyjama comes from the Hindi word pai jama, meaning leg clothing, as initially they consisted of just the pants worn underneath a knee length tunic in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Iran, and first appeared in the West during the Renaissance. Pyjamas were popular in the UK until the 17th Century, when the nightdress, for some unfathomable reason, usurped their place.

Their popularity took an almighty leap after the Opium Wars in 1847 when P&O, after shifting 642,000 chests of Bengal and Malwa opium, used their Steam Auxiliary Ship to bear adventurous chaps to the Far East and beyond. Soon cheeky scamps of all ages were dragging back Oriental curios such as Japanese prints, and stimulants such as opium and hashish. Smoking both was more suited to staying in and dressing in the incredibly groovy loungewear they’d also picked up than going about town suited and booted. Thus the imported pyjama, whether Chinese, Persian or Indian, became a huge status symbol that conveyed its owner’s familiarity with those regions, from soldiers such as General John Nicholson, adventurers like Richard Francis Burton or mad, bad and sexually incorrigible aristocrats such as Lord Byron.

“I picked these up in Phagwara in the Punjab for a song,” he said when asked of his pyjama. “I far prefer them to the silk pair that were bestowed upon me in Hong Kong.”

Some Edwardian chaps even went full kimono

A declaration of relaxation, the pyjama should command a sacred place in any man’s wardrobe for all manner of reasons. My Jama Dharma moment was delivered to my door in the form of a pair of Derek Rose pyjamas some years ago. Within a year I had accumulated another three pairs. Settling indoors after a hard day at the office, the switch to mufti is a declaration; a sartorial assertion both to

“It was not done for a chap to swan about in his singlet and boxers for, apart from being indecorous, it was also too blooming cold, while today’s fashion for T-shirt and sweat pants is just not good enough.

All they articulate is, ‘I am a slob’ whereas a pyjama says, ‘I care how I dress all the time”

71

Bohemians such as the sexually ambiguous Frederick Leighton – a frequent visitor to Algeria and Turkey – were often painted in loungewear against exotic and often erotic backdrops. Aesthetes such as Beardsley, Wilde and Whistler were often seen in dressing gowns or smoking jackets, while the monogrammed Chinese silk pyjama or authentic Japanese male kimono marked the true aficionado.

Post fin de siècle, the item took another drop in popularity that swung in favour of the nightshirt a-la-Scrooge. Perhaps the loose-fitting pyjama and the even loucher dressing gown had been so synonymous with the Aesthetic Movement, and especially the disgraced Oscar Wilde, that when he went down he took the pyjama with him, ushering in a new era of prudishness.

In the 1920s, men took to the pyjama en masse.

In those days, one didn’t lounge about in one’s suit or shirt and tie after work. One hung them up, made oneself comfortable and slipped into the jim jam, now being produced by a bevy of fine companies such as Turnbull and Asser, New and Lingwood and Derek Rose who, in 1926, under the auspices of Lou Rose, started the business in London, using the finest silks and cottons to create luxurious nightwear.

In 1930, when the Hays Motion Picture Production Code was implemented across all US movies, the pyjama solved all the problems that said moral code posed when depicting a man in his boudoir. The item boomed, some in Cossack style buttoned at the neck, while others in a Grenadier or Musketeer fashion, prompting Men’s Wear Magazine to ask in 1935. ‘Will little timid fellows with bald heads buy these sleeping garments or will they be purchased by great brawny athletic types?’ The jury is still out but, nevertheless, in the thirties the likes of Noel Coward, Rock Hudson, Ronald Coleman and George Sanders claimed the item as their own, until the image of the louche bedchamber buccaneer, replete in monogrammed silk pyjama, dressing gown and slippers, with a cigarette holder, was ingrained in our consciousness.

Consequently, the classic piped pyjama became standard mufti for every boy and man in the UK and US, right until the advent of sportswear. Of course, the pyjama answered all the problems. Back then it was not done for a chap to swan about in his singlet and boxers as, apart from being indecorous, it was also too blooming cold, while today’s fashion for T-shirt and sweat pants is just not good enough.

72

primarily functional and often made of wool or thick cotton in check or plain, with the trademark piping on the collar. Conan Doyle opted for said garment as essential mufti for his creation Sherlock Holmes; though functional, it still suggested the avant-garde that fitted his morphine and cocaine injecting sleuth. ‘He took off his coat and waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown, and then wandered about the room collecting pillows from his bed, and cushions from the sofa and armchairs. With these he constructed a sort of Eastern divan, upon which he perched himself cross-legged, with an ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front of him.’

After World War I, men became more conscious of their appearance and the dressing gown became a mainstay for the more moneyed classes. It was during the twenties that the enduring image of a playboy at home was born, sipping a Martini while slouching about in dressing gown and pyjamas, often with a cravat. To further add to this louche silhouette, many opted for the heavy silk brocade or jacquard article, with designs depicting everything exotic from Spanish bullfights to Persian dancers, Asian dragons and Oriental scenes.

But what’s the difference between a dressing gown and a smoking jacket, I hear you ask? Usually the smoker has frogged button closures and, although still soft, is cut more like a formal jacket using thicker fabric, often velvet or heavyweight silk. The jacket first appeared in the 1850s in the UK and evolved out of the dinner jacket, and was worn simply to soak up cigar and pipe smoke. In 1960 The Gentleman’s Magazine of London described it as a ‘kind of short robe de chambre of velvet, cashmere, merino or printed flannel, lined with bright colours and ornamented with brandebourgs, olives or large buttons’.

In 1902 The Washington Post was of the opinion that the smoking jacket was “synonymous with comfort” and so it was. Consequently, it was de riguer for the playboy. Celebrity wearers included the likes of Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, Dean Martin, Frederick March, Charlie Chaplin, Keith Richards and Brian Jones and, last but not least, Fred Astaire, who was buried in a smoking jacket.

The gentleman’s boudoir ensemble has, for the 21st Century gadabout, never been as relevant as it is today. We’ve been forced to stay in so much of late, and now that restrictions have lifted, it’s time to drop the bad habits – such as not shaving – and hang on to the finer customs, such as dressing for indoors. I promise you, your world will seem a whole lot better, both inside and out. n

All they articulate is, ‘I am a slob’ whereas a pyjama says, ‘I care how I dress all the time.’

But there’s more to lounge wear than the pyjama. As winter looms, another layer is often needed, and that quite naturally comes in the form of the dressing gown or the smoking jacket.

The dressing gown made its first appearance in the UK in the 17th Century and was so popular that Samuel Pepys, when having his portrait painted, had to rent one to appear seemly.

‘

hence home and eat one mouthful, and so to T Hale’s and there sat until almost quite dark upon working in my gowne, which I hired to be drawn in it – an Indian gown, and I do see all the reason to expect a most excellent picture of it.

– Samuel Pepys Diary, 30th March 1666

Originally, they were strictly only worn inside and were called Indian or Persian gowns, due to their Eastern origin and Oriental cut. Constructed from cotton, then jacquard silk or brocade, velvet or damask, they were entirely devoid of buttons, employing a rather jaunty sash to fasten. Due to the absence of central heating, most robes were

73

Sartorial

IN CONVERSATION: GREGORY FARMER Liam Jefferies meets the man heading up two Made in England brands, GFC and HE Sports, combining deadstock and slow fashion with a penchant for subcultural icons www.gregoryfarmer.co.uk www.hesports.co.uk

G

regory Farmer is standing head and shoulders above the rest of the patrons at the pub just off Beak Street, in both stature and sartorial elan. Greg is wearing his own sports slacks, fly-front Mac and seafood green Oxford popover. He is also wearing a self-confessed ‘day-one-of-lockdown’ face mask made from his mother-in-law’s curtains.

Gregory runs two new labels bringing about mid-century stylings, Gregory Farmer Clothing and HE Sports. As such, he is a busy fellow, but he nonetheless found time for a pint or three with me, to discuss his various collections, our shared obsessions with frogmouth pockets and collar rolls, and the kismet of catching a particular episode of TOTP2.

“The British manufacturing industry was so powerful and so great for so long, and I feel that it is almost out of reach now. But if lots of people like me do little things, creating small pockets of people making in England again using British cloth, slow fashion style, it can be really good again, and that’s what I’m after”

74

shirts. I always felt that, no matter what I did, I would surround myself with the best people. By all means have a go yourself to understand the workings of it, but if you get the best people around you, who know all the elements, then you’ll end up with the best product.

How did you come to be heading two brands at the same time?

With the Gregory Farmer Clothing (GFC) label, the whole tone is proper ‘Sunday best’ and I didn’t want to slip into the ‘lounging around in pants’ scenario at home. I wanted to keep up appearances and I’d been thinking already of doing a more traditional button-down shirt, as opposed to the British Sixties take on it.

I made what was called at the time the ‘home edition’ shirt, but then people were getting a bit confused on the Gregory Farmer website, and I knew that I needed to separate these completely, so it was turned into two brands: GFC and HE Sports.

Something you can put your name on.

Exactly. I grew up going to scooter rallies, northern soul events and gigs and I would look at the bar and see ten people wearing the same shirt as me.

Anyone who really takes pride in what they wear doesn’t want to see that. So a big thing for me was numbered pieces, so people know they’re not going to see anyone else wearing what they are.

When you look at GFC, the collection could almost be seen as a love letter to that period of British style.

The British manufacturing industry was so powerful and so great for so long, and I feel that it is almost out of reach now. But if lots of people like me do little things, creating small pockets of people making in England again using British cloth, slow fashion style, it can be really good again, and that’s what I’m after.

How did you first become involved with these subcultures that your work celebrates?

I was waiting for the Simpsons on channel 2 and I caught A Town Called Malice by The Jam on TOTP2, and I thought, ‘these guys are cool’. It was a cultural experience, and as a kid of 16 I hadn’t seen anything like it before. I watched this three-minute clip and it absolutely blew me to pieces.

I’ve got Asbergers, so when I get into something, it is all or nothing. Everything else went out the window, I thought I was a mod, but I must’ve looked like an absolute wally. I think my headlight was 11 inches. When you started it up it really lit up the sky!

You were creative director at Brutus. How did you set yourself up after you left?

I was working in the workroom of a Savile row tailor, one that did all the royal military stuff, and I spent many a late night down there, making my

75

PAB’S PIQUE Pab’s Pique, the incarnation of a watershed image from the archives, is available from Farmer’s H.E. Sports line. Inspired by a 1956 photograph by Arnold Newman of Pablo Picasso in his Cannes Studio, the piece is a thoroughly authentic reproduction in a 100% cotton Terry towel cloth and sports all the signifiers of the original garment: open collar, left side welted chest pocket and a slanted pocket on the right hip. As with all of Farmer’s wares, the piece is numbered, made to order and individually cut and sewn in London. For the very brave, a pair of matching terracotta shorts is available to complete the louche artist-at-play ensemble.

With H.E. Sports, the influences are undoubtedly mid-century. How does the golden age of menswear inspire your work?

Someone mentioned that coming out of lockdown will be a new age of expression, the new roaring 20s, and I thought that that’s exactly what this is, to have this kind of release and be able to really have fun with H.E. Sports. It also allows me to keep the line very definite on GFC, where I can still make the most authentic piece I can, knowing that the vision isn’t being diluted.

What are your plans for H.E. Sports?

For Autumn/Winter 21, H.E. Sports is all about outdoors, the ‘endless summer’. The name H.E. stands for Home Edition, so that we don’t forget it was born out of lockdown, but we’re taking it outdoors for AW21. I’ve got a great smock in the pipeline; I just bought 3,500 deadstock zips from a closed down factory in Whitney Bay near Newcastle. I’m zero plastic really, so deadstock was the only option. There’s no plastic packaging, everything is in wash bags. You’ve got to take that stuff into consideration these days. The next collection of pieces is directed towards the explorer.

A nice mix of lightweight and heavy cloths, treated cottons for our smocks and rain trousers. n

76

Style Column

GREY FOX COLUMN David Evans of www.greyfoxblog.com pays sartorial homage to Charlie Watts, and advocates experimentation within established formal dress codes www.greyfoxblog.com

A

“What goes round comes round in fashion and no doubt such Armani shapes will return in due course.

When it does so, it will be a form of fashion rather than style. To me, style is about enhancement, not draping concealment”

t the time of the late lamented Charlie Watts’ death at the age of 80, I was pondering on the nature of style. Why do some people look great in their clothes while many of us struggle? While thinking what a stylish man the Rolling Stones’ drummer was, I looked up an image of him I’d used my blog a few years ago. It shows Watts wearing a beautifully cut Prince of Wales check suit, looking very relaxed with a beaming smile on his face.

Another favourite picture shows him perched on

78

the end of a sofa, legs wide apart, wearing a threepiece brown corduroy suit. Again, he looks totally at ease, as if he’s wearing an old jumper and jeans.

Herein lies the secret of personal style; looking good almost irrespective of what you’re wearing. Feeling totally at home in your clothes, with no self-consciousness, somehow makes clothes sit better on your shoulders – you wear the clothes rather than allowing them to wear you. In both these pictures Watts’ personality shines through, his suits reflecting the man within.

Watts was no typical rock star. He patronised many tailors in and around London’s Savile Row; a far cry from the battered jeans and T-shirts of his fellow Rolling Stones. Many of us assume that it is only in well-worn casual attire that we will feel relaxed, but a well-fitting suit made from a forgiving cloth, something soft and flexible, whether wool, cotton or linen, becomes, with use, like a second skin. In my years as a lawyer I wore suits every day; generally either grey flannel or dark blue pinstripe.

I soon got used to the suit and tie uniform, and this familiarity removed any self-consciousness or stiffness after a few weeks. At that point I started to

look and feel comfortable.

I recently carried out a straw poll on my Instagram account (@greyfoxblog) to ask for help with a definition of personal style. The main themes that emerged were that clothes must fit well to look good, that we must feel comfortable in them and that they must reflect the personality of the wearer.

This last point is important; trying to wear clothes simply because they are fashionable, rather than because you like them and they suit you, leads to an awkwardness that means you won’t look your best.

One view that emerged from the poll was that not everyone felt the price of the clothes was important to achieve style. Certainly price buys quality which helps the fit, durability of construction and the feel of the fabrics, but it’s perfectly possible to look stylish with a small, well-selected and budgetpriced wardrobe. As a Rolling Stone, Charlie Watts was able to buy from bespoke tailors and he built up a large wardrobe of suits (he confessed to having over 200), but even in those images where he’s clothed more informally, he looks well-dressed.

Watts’ interest in clothes stemmed, like many men, from his father, who used to take the young

79

Charlie to his tailor when he was having suits made (probably unusual for a lorry driver). An interest in clothes, colour, proportion and an artistic sense all help a man in his search for style. Watts’ love of clothing gave a spark to even his most modest garments. In an interview on Desert Island Discs in 2001, he mentioned that he owned several items of clothing from the wardrobe of the late Duke of Windsor, and his understanding of the history of style enabled him to select clothes that had a slight edge. The wider lapel of the Prince of Wales check suits he wore (many of which suggest the work of Edward Sexton) is an example of a slight twist which prevents a suit from looking too ordinary.

It’s this ability to think slightly outside the box that adds something to personal style. I tried to take this approach on a recent visit to Glyndebourne.

I’d normally wear black tie on such occasions but on this one I felt that a change was needed. Black tie is not obligatory at the Festival in May to August (Glyndebourne’s ‘What to Wear’ guidelines suggest that formal wear is no longer required) but they ask that guests take the opportunity to dress up.

I decided to experiment and to try a velvet smoking jacket from Oliver Brown, with silk shirt from Budd, a cravat from Cravat Club worn with black derbies, and a pair of formal evening trousers from the late Chester Barrie. I leave it to you to judge whether the combination worked, and I mention it simply to say that thinking creatively to combine clothes in perhaps slightly novel ways is one way of marking the individuality of personal style.

I should add that if black tie had been required at Glyndebourne, I would have worn just that. I take the view that a host’s dress requirements should be respected. With the party season fast approaching, we see a bewildering array of dress codes on invitations. If you’re not sure what ‘smart casual’, ‘cocktail’ or ‘dress to impress’ means, it’s best to check with the host. However, the great thing about ‘black tie’ is its simplicity. It means a black bow tie (although coloured bow ties – and even patterned ones – are often seen), white dress shirt, evening suit or dinner jacket and plain black shoes. While some mock what they see as its artificial formality, black tie is a chance to dress up and enjoy an event. Dinner jackets can be hired or bought for reasonable sums as vintage or ex-hire items, so it’s quite possible to dress well without a large financial layout.

For some reason, no doubt related to its soft velvet and slightly wide shoulders, the smoking

80

jacket reminded me of the unstructured, slouchy styles of the 1980s, as exemplified by Armani – although my jacket has none of the Armani slouchiness. I have to confess that the eighties slightly passed me by. I was busy establishing a career and starting a family and my lawyerly suits were fairly traditional in cut. However, it was difficult to miss the wide-shouldered, oversized looks that developed in the Thatcher years, as laissez-faire politics and the ‘devil take the hindmost’ approach to business led to the dotcom bubble and ushered in the self-centred egotism still apparent today. The use of Armani costumes in films such as American Gigolo (above) reinforced these less attractive money-grabbing, high roller aspects of the 80s. But such philosophies needed power dressing and Armani provided it in spades.

What goes around comes around in fashion and no doubt such Armani shapes will return in due course. When it does so, it will be a form of fashion rather than style. To me, style is about enhancement, not draping concealment. I’ve never been a fan of eighties styles, which did little for most physiques.

Finally, as usual I’d like to introduce you to a few smaller brands that you may not have come across. James Darby is a Manchester-based clothes designer and tailor who makes clothes with a real twist. I have one of his Ventile smocks (above), which is beautifully made and came in useful during our unusually wet summer: vintage mountaineer meets contemporary outerwear (www. jamesdarbyclothing.co.uk). For those who like vintage clothes, try Ben’s Vintage Menswear or Butterworths Vintage Company (with a store in Totnes, England) – both on Instagram. I obtained a gorgeously soft recycled cashmere jumper recently from Cut & Pin, who take a sustainable approach to a variety of casual menswear, while for nicely made four season casual shirts in cotton pique, try Cast & Lane.

Oliver Brown: www.oliverbrown.org.uk Cravat Club: www.cravat-club.com Budd Shirtmakers: www.buddshirts.co.uk Edward Sexton: www.edwardsexton.co.uk n

81

F O R M A L W E A R | C A S U A L W E A R | A C C E S S O R I E S

SHOP BESPOKE

|

WWW.PRATTANDPRASAD.CO.UK

Tel: 020 3759 9890

SPECIAL OFFER

Free Travel Size Shower Gel (60ml)

LONGER FEATURES •

Prohibition (p84) • Sea Serpents (p94) • Cycling Gear (p100) • Cooking (p106) Francis Buckland (p110) • Gentlemen of Cricket (p120)

History

REAL AMERICANS DON'T NEED SALOONS Chris Sullivan gallops through the dark days of the Volstead Act, which kept America involuntarily dry for thirteen years, with mostly disastrous consequences and a few rays of light

“It is prohibition that makes anything precious”

T

oday is an apt time to look at that great American mishap named Prohibition, which banned the sale and consumption of alcohol across the whole of the USA for 13 long, dry years. Not only because it came in the wake of a deadly pandemic, but also because the movement was initiated, implemented and kept alive by small-minded extremists from the sticks.

But to understand the 1917 Volstead Act, we need to look a little further back to America’s relationship with booze. George Washington imbibed at least half a pint of 50% proof rum every day, and President John Adams had a few pints of the strongest cider every morning with his breakfast.

Doctors advised drinking beer instead of the often-foul river and well water and men drank an innocuous 2% beer all day, every day. Some might

MARK TWAIN

“Overnight a million alcohol related workers were unemployed.

Overnight gangs of armed men started hijacking liquor lorries and warehouses. Overnight mobsters in every city were rubbing their hands with glee. The Roaring Twenties had begun, but for many the only roaring was the sound of machine guns”

85

Prohibitionists with their version of getting totally smashed

THE ANTI-ALCOHOL CRUSADE

say alcohol is as American as the hamburger. But of course the hamburger originated in Germany.

In 1826, the average whisky consumption per man, per annum in America was 88 large bottles.

Yet only 10% of the country had a drink problem, and still do, but still the Prohibitionists believed that its absence would heal every social ill that had ever existed. Reverend Lyman Beecher, of the First Presbyterian Congregational Church of Litchfield, Connecticut, was one of the first to stand up in his pulpit and demand national Temperance. His wish was temporarily scuppered by the American Civil War, which caused quite a few folk to take to the bottle.

Post Civil War, one of the first anti-alcohol crusaders was Eliza Jane Thompson, who in 1873 gathered 200 women to sit outside saloons singing, praying and attempting to prevent men from entering. They overlooked the true role of the saloon, where you could cash cheques, find a job and make deals. The saloon was the working man’s equivalent of a private members’ club.

Next up in the crusaders came Carrie Nation, who dressed like Queen Victoria, had a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp, a Ho Chi Minh style wispy beard and thick wire-framed glasses.

86

Carrie Nation: one nation under a booze hatchet

Initially, she entered bars with bricks and smashed the mirrors, windows and bottles. After a few brushes with the law, she adopted a hatchet for her endeavour and brazenly described her destruction as a ‘hatchetation.’ In 1893 the Anti-Saloon League was formed. It soon became one of the country’s most powerful political organs, forcing politicians to side with them or lose the powerful Southern and Mid-Western vote. Its leader Wayne Wheeler was indefatigable in his quest to close every bar in the US. He and his League soon controlled 10% of the electorate.

By 1900, mainly Catholic and Jewish new immigrants had flooded into the country, as per the

invitation. They brought with them their customs and their drinks and their evil un-American ways – smiling, dancing and singing – and settled mainly in the big cities. The newly arrived men populated the saloons as a place of refuge from the hovels they lived in. The League boomed ‘Real Americans don’t need saloons!’

The first big march on Washington was on 10th December 1913 and comprised hundreds of mid-western small-town termagants dressed in black, angrily demanding that the now drafted 18th Amendment should be implemented. They were met with astonishing support.

Nobody with any sense even considered that

87

VE NU E FO

NO COFFEE, NO CHINTZ – & – NO GUARDIAN

R

T H E AT R E , LIVE MUSIC, – & – P O E T RY

MORE THAN 50 LOOSE LEAF TEAS, A LICENSED B A R A L L DAY, DA I LY N E W S PA P E R S – & – FREE WIFI

THE BEST FULL ENGLISH IN LONDON, AFTERNOON TEAS, DINNER TILL TEN – & – A P RO P E R S U N DAY ROA S T

E-SHOP

T E A H O U S E T H E AT R E VAUXHA LL

D E L I C I O U S T E A S S E R V E D A L L D AY S P L E N D I D E N T E RTA I N M E N T S E RV E D A L L N I G H T 1 3 9 Va u x h a l l Wa l k , L o n d o n S E 1 1 5 H L Te l : 0 2 0 7 2 0 7 4 5 8 5 i n f o @ t e a h o u s e t h e a t r e . c o . u k • w w w. t e a h o u s e t h e a t r e . c o . u k

RE

B OA R D G A M E S , D E B AT E S – & – DA N C E S

HI

Relax, Take a load off & Have a Cuppa

31st July, 1917: last orders until closing time for the next 13 years

“Not everyone lost out.

Private members’ clubs were allowed to sell any booze that they’d bought before the Act was passed. Since the bill had taken three years to get through the Senate, clubs such as The Yale Club in Manhattan had amassed enough hard liquor and wine to keep them going for 14 years, while the beer in the saloons simply went off”

THE VOLSTEAD ACT On August 1st 1917, the senate voted for the 18th Amendment, AKA the Volstead Act, named after the man who’d drafted it, Andrew Volstead.

On January 16th 1920, the bill went into effect, enforcing a ban on the production, importation, transportation, sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages.

Overnight a million alcohol related workers were unemployed. Overnight gangs of armed men started hijacking liquor lorries and warehouses.

Overnight mobsters in every city were rubbing their hands with glee. The Roaring Twenties had begun, but for many the roaring was the sound of machine guns. Boozing went underground, swelling the coffers of politicians, judges, policemen, speakeasy owners, call girls, producers of bathtub gin and organised criminal gangs, who made enough money and power to establish a crime network that still exists today.

Prohibition had created a nation of criminals, from the humble worker having a swift beer to the producers who made thousands of gallons a week.

In 1924 the Boston Herald ran a competition for a new name to describe this new class. 25,000 people entered. The prize money was divided between two entrants who had both come up with the moniker

such a ludicrous notion would see the light of day.

Apart from anything else, tax on alcohol provided 70% of all internal government revenue. The Prohibitionists upped the ante. Failed statesmen used Temperance as a leg-up. Consequently 50% of the states, including West Virginia, Maine, Ohio Tennessee and Kansas, turned dry overnight.

89

Secret signals and passwords were required to enter speakeasies

THE RISE OF THE SPEAKEASY

‘Scofflaw’. The term ‘bootlegger’ entered the dictionary, derived from small-time liquor pushers who concealed the bottles of booze down their trouser legs and often in their boots.

What surprised many was the severity of the bill. The act criminalized anything that was over 0.05% alcohol, which meant that Worcestershire Sauce was illegal. Possession of a hip flask came with a higher sentence than possession of a firearm.

However, not everyone lost out. Private members’ clubs were allowed to sell any booze that they’d bought before the Act was passed. Since the bill had taken three years to get through the Senate, clubs such as The Yale Club in Manhattan had amassed enough hard liquor and wine to keep them going for 14 years, while the beer in the saloons simply went off.

Doctors were allowed to prescribe three bottles of distilled booze per month, so the prescriptions increased a hundredfold to six million in the first year. Sacramental wine was permitted, so church orders increased by millions of gallons.

Those who pushed Prohibition through had allocated just $698,855 to its enforcement – one eighth of the funds apportioned for the protection of fish and game. Only 1500 untrained agents were drawn from the streets and given a badge and a gun and the right to shoot on sight to enforce the new law. Innocent bystanders were killed or arrested, while the guilty simply lined the agents’ pockets.

Soon agents were turning up in brand new cars, sporting diamond rings, tailor-made suits and luxurious furs. A survey in New York in 1922 found that citizens were drinking three times as much as before the Volstead Act.

But not everyone who made a name for themselves was a bootlegger or a killjoy. In 1925 Lois Bancroft Long began writing a nightlife column for the recently launched New Yorker Magazine under the pseudonym Lipstick. With sexual innuendo and ribald wit, she wrote about the world of the New York speakeasies (also known as ‘blind pigs’ or ‘blind

90

Gadgets such as the tipple stick came into their own under Prohibition

some even kicking the gong around (opium) or at the black tar (heroin). They danced the Black Bottom to a cat’s pyjama (extra fine) jazz band, or beat their gums blotto (talking when drunk) after too much horse linament (cheap booze).

One such speakeasy was the dingy Krazy Kat Klub in Washington DC, situated in an old stable with a tree house at the back, and catering to all manner of sexual proclivities, where queer was more than accepted and free love encouraged. The entrance bore a hand-painted sign reading ‘The Krazy Kat’ along with a chalk-written warning that read, ‘All soap abandon, ye who enter here’.

Many gin joints were behind green doors – a common secret cypher among the hep cats, unbeknownst to the cops (coincidentally, the man who supplied booze to congress was known as ‘the man in the green hat’). Speakeasies went to great lengths to conceal their purposes. Passwords and false doors were common; the 21 Club on West 52nd Street, New York had a custom-built camouflaged door, a secret wine cellar behind a false wall and a bar that, with the push of a button, would collapse to drop the bottles of hooch into a chute to the cellar below.

Cocktails were invented during Prohibition simply to hide the taste of the often-foul bathtub gin and poor quality bourbon; jazz music established itself in speakeasies, which became the first-ever venues where black and white folk mixed.

Italian food became the main cuisine of inner cities, as mafia-ruled Italian owners served it in their bars paired with illegally imported wine.

SPEAKEASIES The term ‘speakeasy’ had been coined by saloon owner Kate Hester, who ran an unlicensed bar in the 1880s in McKeesport, supposedly telling her rowdy customers to “speak easy” to avoid attention from the authorities. Such women now led the fight against Prohibition.

It wasn’t just New York that had never been wilder than during Prohibition: all the big cities of America were roaring with all-night black and tan (racially mixed) juice joints and barrel houses (speakeasies) packed with cake-eaters and Tom cats (ladies’ men) and bearcat dolls (frisky flappers), getting fried on the giggle water (alcohol), the giggle smokes (marijuana), the nose candy (cocaine),

THE DARK SIDE OF PROHIBITION POLITICS

tigers’) of which there were an estimated 38,000, with names such as The Cave of The Fallen Angel and Club Pansy. Open until 7am, they allowed beautiful, young, sexually liberated flappers like Bancroft Long to have a ball. Her columns offered women a glimpse of a glamorous lifestyle, where they could enjoy many of the freedoms and vices of their male counterparts such as alcohol, cocaine and sex, but all illegally.

“They had a great blues orchestra and the most inferior collection of white people you’ve seen anywhere, possibly hired by the management to give the coloured people some magnificent dignity by contrast,” she wrote of one whites-only Harlem club. Most young people, unblinkered by prejudice, religion or some twisted version of patriotism, disagreed with Prohibition entirely.

In 1928, governor of New York Al Smith became the first Catholic to be nominated for president.

Half Irish, half Italian, he was fiercely and vocally anti-Prohibition. The Ku Klux Klan worked hand in glove with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and the Anti-Saloon League (ASL).

Together they marched on Washington, financially backed ‘dry’ politicians, kidnapped Catholics and tortured them to renounce their religion, burned down their businesses and proclaimed themselves the enforcers of the Volstead Act. The Klan attracted some four million new members in the 1920s.

When Al Smith’s campaign train rolled into Oklahoma City, the Klan amassed next to the

92

The repeal of the Volstead Act in 1933 led to the country’s biggest party ever

station and burned a 20-foot cross to welcome him. With the aid of the WCTU and the ASL they distributed leaflets stating that, if Smith was elected, the Pope would have a residence in the White House, that Smith was building a tunnel to the Vatican and that he would pronounce all Protestant children illegitimate. Smith responded with admirable sangfroid: “I’d rather be a lamppost in New York City than a senator in California.”

In the end, Hubert Hoover won the election.

This new victory spurred on the head of the ASL to usher in the 5 and 10 clause, which gave anyone caught drinking alcohol a five-year sentence and a $10,000 fine, along with another new law that punished with imprisonment those who didn’t inform on their boozy neighbours.

On 29th October, 1929, Wall Street crashed.

‘The most expensive orgy in history was over,’ said F. Scott Fitzgerald. The resulting depression caused the foreclosing of 5000 banks that took people’s life savings with them, 1000 families were evicted from their homes per day and six million were left unemployed. President Hoover claimed that the problem would soon blow over. In 1932, riding on the wet ticket, democrat Franklyn Delano Roosevelt won the Presidential Election by a bigger landslide than his predecessor. One of the first things he did was to repeal Prohibition on 7th April, 1933.

93

Prohibition had lasted 13 years, 10 months and 18 days. Described by Hoover as “a great social experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose,” it blew up in the face of its creators, eventually causing more harm and death than Chernobyl. 100 years ago it was easier to drink all night in the USA than it is now. Banning alcohol meant no age or class restrictions, no licensing laws, unregulated drinks were stronger, and the speakeasies gave rise to jazz, racial integration and women’s emancipation. So in the end, it wasn’t all bad. n

Biography

Driven Mad By the Great Sea Serpent Charles G.M. Paxton explores the life of Captain George Drevar: sailor, inventor, would-be murderer, convict, award-winning life saver, aspiring Channel crosser and sea serpent enthusiast

“Drevar’s mania with sea monsters was born, and the road to the Old Bailey was opened. In addition to collecting little sea snakes on his travels, Drevar wrote pamphlets arguing that the sea serpent was the Leviathan of the Bible and hence a vindication of God’s word. So Rothery was in league with Satan in teasing Drevar over his beliefs”

94

M

ay 1881 saw a rather curious case come before the Old Bailey. George Drevar was accused of sending threatening letters to the British Wreck Commissioner (the official responsible for investigating shipwrecks of British merchant vessels), Henry Cadogan Rothery.

Drevar had been captain and part owner of the Norfolk, which had stranded on Hartwell Reef in the Cape Verde Islands in July 1878. A mistake in navigation, overlooked currents, the ship’s cargo blocking the pumps and the lookout taken from his primary duty led no-one to realise the ship was heading straight on to the reef. In October 1879, the Wreck Commissioner judged Drevar responsible (the alcoholic second officer having absconded). Drevar’s captain’s license was suspended for six months.

Drevar strongly resented the outcome of the enquiry, but this was not Drevar’s sole bone of contention. “Some evidence was given showing that the prisoner believed in the existence of the sea serpent, and the prisoner himself stated that his conduct had been partly induced by the insults he had received from Mr Rothery, because Drevar, in his own words ‘was doing the Almighty’s work in making his wonders known’”. Drevar was obsessed with sea serpents. He had started by collecting some little sea snakes in the 1870s. Not really a chap of the hedonistic variety, he was so proud of one of his preserved snakes that when the Norfolk sank, his priority was to procure some rum from another shipwrecked vessel nearby – not to imbibe, but to pickle his serpents.

Drevar’s angry letters to the commissioner called him “an unfeeling brute” and a “modern Jesuit” as well as threatening Rothery with murder.

This led to Drevar’s arrest in April 1881 by Inspector Donald Swanson of the Yard (who would later lead the investigation into Jack the Ripper). When Drevar finally came to trial, the defending barrister admitted a variety of witnesses to Drevar’s good character. He argued that Drevar’s belief in the existence of the sea serpent, the incredulity with which it was received, the loss of his ship, his sense of injustice over the wreck report and his financial ruin had led to “his mind becoming temporarily unhinged”. With regard to the sea serpent, the defence admitted that he had “been suffering under a delusion respecting its existence but regards all other matters he was quite sane.”

Drevar was sent down for three months.

But Drevar had fallen in with a sea serpent not once, but twice. Drevar had been a witness of one of the more famous sea serpent cases on record, when the barque Pauline (Drevar being the master) saw the great sea serpent off Cape San Roque, Brazil in July 1875. It was, according to multiple witnesses, attempting to constrict a sperm whale. A few days later, Drevar would see the sea serpent again, this time without the sperm whale.

We still do not know for sure what the crew of the Pauline actually saw. It has been conjectured that the sea serpent was actually a giant squid being consumed by the sperm whale and fighting for its life, or the penis of one of the whales (who were described

95

A squid being devoured by an over-excited sperm whale, or a sea serpent attacking a whale?

Being imprisoned did not diminish Drevar’s enthusiasm for sea serpents and he continued to write letters and pamphlets in their favour, but after his release he wisely concentrated on his other great obsession, inventing life-saving gear. Motivated by his experience in the Cape Verde and an earlier shipwreck in 1870, he had invented, among others, a life-saving raft that could be built rapidly from a cask barrel surrounded by oars (see overleaf). He advertised his life saving inventions at the Great Fisheries Exhibition in London in 1883 and won an award.

Thus in September 1883 Drevar, along with another former exhibitor, ‘Professor’ Ward, an inventor of an insulated survival suit, teamed up to produce a demonstration at Dover. The plan was for nine-year-old Alfred Ward, supported by a cork buoyancy device, to paddle across the Channel, impervious to the cold by virtue of his father’s insulated costume. He would be accompanied by his father in a boat and Drevar in the ‘water velocipede’, a sort of hand-powered pedalo (see overleaf) of Drevar’s own design. The team arrived at Dover on 6th September and, after a few days’ delay, attempted a crossing on the 8th September, despite inclement wind conditions and poor Ward junior becoming seasick and nearly drowning. On

“Being imprisoned did not diminish Drevar’s enthusiasm for sea serpents and he continued to write letters and pamphlets in their favour, but after his release he wisely concentrated on his other great obsession, inventing life-saving gear” as being ‘frantic with excitement’), or that the sperm whale was entangled in debris. But none of these explanations can explain the second sighting, when the serpent menacingly advanced on the ship.

Whatever was seen, Drevar’s mania with sea monsters was born, and the road to the Old Bailey was opened. In addition to collecting little sea snakes on his travels, Drevar wrote pamphlets arguing that the sea serpent was the Leviathan of the Bible and hence a vindication of God’s word.

So Rothery was in league with Satan in teasing Drevar over his beliefs.

96

seen in all my travels. I was about two hours struggling hard to keep the boat clear of water, and at last a heavy sea—I should think quite 14 feet high—came right down on the top of her.

Still I stuck to her, but knowing it was useless to try to bail her out, I sat in her stern and kept the bow out of the water—the only way to keep her at all steady. I saw many passing ships, but they did not seem to come near me. A feeling of exhaustion came over me, and I began to think my last experiment was over, and to give myself up for lost. I must have become delirious at times, for I seemed to be speaking to men all round me when there were none. I had been for nine hours continually saturated with water … at nine o’clock I saw the German barque coming down on me, I had then lost my fog-horn, and could not signal. As the water from the barque’s bow crashed against my boat I went on one side, and those on board saw me. They threw me a line, but I could not catch it. I shouted out that I was dying. They attempted to lower a boat, but the ship seemed to go right away. The captain put about, and came back close to me. Seeing that the vessel was then going five knots an hour, I jumped out of my boat, and clung to a line which they threw over the boat, but I misjudged my strength, and slipped back into the sea. I thought I was done for, as I could not swim nor catch the rope, but two came down the side of the ship in a bow-line, and passing a rope under me, hauled me on deck. They wished to stand me on my head to let the water out, but to this I objected, and they carried me to the cabin, and

the 12th the courageous master Ward did finally make a voyage, albeit not across the Channel but from Dover to Folkestone.

Drevar set off later, against the advice of locals, in order to join the Wards at Folkestone, but broke down halfway and was initially feared lost. He was picked up by a steamer the next day. He was met with “anything but a cordial reception” upon landing. At this point the Wards, perhaps wisely, gave up.

Drevar, in contrast, was made of sterner stuff.

He first tried to cross the Channel again on 2nd October but was “beaten back by the surf ”.

Undeterred, he tried again three days later “in opposition to the advice of his friends”, but nearly sank and was picked up by a fishing boat. But Drevar was not done. On 22nd October he made his final attempt to, in his own words, “show what British pluck can do”. This voyage was quite an adventure, as his own account recalls:

By two o’clock in the morning I was half-way across the Channel. I had an umbrella, which I set as a sail, but the wind blew it inside out. Afterwards I passed several vessels and saw people looking at me through glasses, but I made no signals of distress. The weather having improved slightly, I had begun to hope that I might make land on some port of the Continent.

At that time the waves were more boisterous than I had ever

97

Luxury capmakers and handweavers

Distinctive tweed and linen caps for discerning Chaps and Chapesses.

Now stocking triple-layer linen face masks.

Contemporary model of Drevar’s life-saving raft built from a ship’s barrel and oars

More on the life of Captain George Drevar and his sea serpents can be found in the journal Mariner’s Mirror on www.tandfonline.com

showed me the greatest kindness. When passing Dover they sent me ashore.”

The newspapers were somewhat scathing, calling the attempt “ludicrously foolhardy” and “like a deliberate evasion of the law against suicide”. The humour magazine Punch suggested “Drevarication” should be a synonym for foolhardiness. Drevar complained that he had only received “abuse and advice” and the cask and velocipede had been stolen. Yet he remained optimistic: “I have the quiet conviction that the world will one day acknowledge the importance of my ‘help yourself ’ life-saving gear, and duly appreciate the risk and sacrifice I made in proving that my gear is all that I claim for it.”

Drevar and his (presumably long-suffering) wife then made their way to Australia. Drevar resumed his merchant marine activities but also continued to promote his water velocipedes and cask-based life rafts. He also rented them out to people at Centennial Park, Sydney for paddling as part of the amusements. Drevar was a popular man in Sydney.

He also gave talks on marine life, including the great sea serpent. Unfortunately in 1890 a punter capsized in one of his cask-rafts. Drevar dived in to save him but got into difficulties and drowned. The punter survived. The resultant flattering obituaries did not mention his criminal conviction of 1881, nor his obsession with sea serpents. n

Captain Drevar in his ‘Uncapsizable’ boat

99

Cycling

SARTORIA VELOCIPEDA Alf Alderson decries the Lycra outfits of the modern cyclist in favour of the more seemly cycling attire of yore

P

icture the scene: a pleasant Sunday afternoon in the English countryside and a family sitting down for Sunday lunch at a rustic hostelry. All is well with the world, as fine ales and meat and two veg (plus Yorkshire puddings, of course) are served up, and then suddenly – whoa! Alarm and disarray despoil the bucolic scene.

For a group of cyclists have entered the establishment, clad in garish, eye-poppingly tight Lycra; rotund bellies cast shadows across the floor, and the meat and two veg on display is no longer restricted to the dinner plates.

I dare say many of us have been exposed to this scenario (which would be illegal in a less liberal nation) and wince at the memory. There is nothing

“Yes, there were amateur racers who wore slimfitting jerseys and shorts made from woollen fabrics, maybe discreetly featuring the name of a sponsor or team, but they were in the minority; the average Cyclists’ Touring Club member looked as much like a rambler as a cyclist while rolling elegantly along the tarmac” 100

“The various excuses used today for wearing taut Lycra would have held no truck with hardy midcentury ‘wheelers’, who were content to amble along the byways in sturdy heavyweight cotton or corduroy shorts, replete with pockets for essentials such as pipe, tobacco and lighter (and there are even rumours of bicycles with handlebar-mounted ashtrays)”

need to wear luridly-patterned fabrics that appear to have been painted on to their flabby bodies, and which seem to shock the elderly and scare the horses more than helping them to cycle more speedily?

Thankfully we can (indeed we must) blame the French for this outrage. Their national ski team wore Lycra outfits at the 1968 Winter Olympics, since when millions of sports enthusiasts around the world, cyclists in particular, have gone on to emulate this obsession with skin-tight sportswear, causing the rest of us regularly to encounter hideous sights whilst on our daily perambulations; images seared into our memories that we may never successfully erase.

Before this assault on our visual faculties, the cycling enthusiast was barely recognisable from any other keen outdoor type of a weekend – it might justifiably be said that a fellow enjoying a day of cycling in 1955 could stop off in a public house along his route and be recognised as a bicyclist only

wrong with the velocipede as a means of transport and exercise, but do bicycling enthusiasts really

102

from the cycle clips around the ankles of his tweed pantaloons.

Mid-20th century cycle clothing, as worn by the majority of those who rode Raleigh, Viking and other sturdy British-built velocipedes, was designed to be both practical and hardwearing, rather than loudly to advertise both the hobby of the wearer and the manufacturers of said clothing. Yes, there were amateur racers who wore slim-fitting jerseys and shorts made from woollen fabrics, the former maybe discreetly featuring the name of a sponsor or team, but they were in the minority; the average Cyclists’ Touring Club member looked as much like a rambler as a cyclist while rolling elegantly along the tarmac.

Headwear may have consisted of a flat cap, perhaps a woollen bobble hat or balaclava for colder conditions, or for the more earnest rider maybe a traditional racing cyclist’s cap with an upturned peak; helmets simply did not exist in those happy days before the Health and Safety

police took over. The upper body would be kept warm perhaps by a string vest in place of what would today be called the ‘base layer’, with a regular cotton or flannel shirt worn above this, along with a sleeveless jumper or woollen crew neck for additional warmth, while a brightly coloured neckerchief might be sported by the more flamboyant rider; more conservative types were often seen wearing a tie.

Shorts, thankfully, were loose fitting and generally came to the knee or a little above. The various excuses used today for wearing taut Lycra would have held no truck with hardy mid-century ‘wheelers’, who were content to amble along the byways in sturdy heavyweight cotton or corduroy shorts, replete with pockets for essentials such as pipe, tobacco and lighter (and there are rumours of bicycles with handlebar mounted ashtrays).

Beneath the knee, thick, full-length woollen hiking socks were de rigeur, although warmer weather may have seen the more exhibitionist rider

103

take to ankle-length white cotton socks; tanned legs were generally regarded as something for louche continental types, however, and not actively encouraged. In cooler conditions, both men and women would don knickerbockers or plus-fours, usually of a woollen, corduroy or tweed fabric, which, as well as keeping cold winds at bay, also provided a modicum of protection from showers, if not full-on rain.

This choice of legwear was infinitely more pleasing to the eye than modern Lycra cycling shorts, and at the same time the loose cut allowed for a comfortable experience on the bike, with plenty of freedom of movement (the modern necessity to be as aerodynamic as a nuclear missile not being a consideration in those more innocent times). In addition, there was no excess fabric around the ankles to come into contact with chain and/or freewheel and result in disasters that may vary from ripped clothing to injured limbs.

Those riders who preferred to wear full-length trousers kept chain-related mishaps at bay by using

cycle clips or simply tucking the hem of their trousers into their socks. Needless to say, the pantaloon de Nîmes never got a look-in – from a practical point of view, the seams chafe if one is riding a bike for any length of time, and should they get wet they become cold and clingy and most unpleasant in all respects.

One of the few items of equipment that might have been specifically designed for cycling at this time was cycling shoes. Italian styles were popular, made from soft, pliable leather and often featuring holes punched in the surface, which served to keep the feet cool in warm weather and allow water to drain out during wet conditions. These would often have a smooth sole for ease of use with pedals and toe-clips, the latter allowing a more efficient pedalling motion. For more adventurous cyclists looking to explore rough trails, Vibram soles were utilised.

For the velocipedist not prepared to shell out for specialist footwear, stout walking shoes, often of the brogue variety, would easily suffice.

104

Traditional cycling shoes are still available today for the more discerning bicyclist, with companies such as William Lennon in the Peak District manufacturing shoes on a wider British last, while Isle of Wight-based Dromarti produces what some would say is a more elegant but perhaps less robust Italian-style shoe, featuring the aforementioned ventilation ‘holes’ (see photo on previous page).

Of course, for the British bicycling devotee, inclement weather was and still is an ever-present consideration. But whereas today lightweight, waterproof and breathable fabrics are ten-a-penny, back in the day this was not the case and protection from the elements generally came in the form of Ventile jackets and waxed cotton cycling capes.

Ventile, developed in the 1930s in Manchester, provides waterproofing almost equal to that of today’s high-tech fabrics, although it is heavier and bulkier. The fabric’s fibres swell when wet to keep rain from soaking through, while the material is also breathable when dry.

Cycling capes give protection not just to the rider but also to the bicycle and any luggage which may be carried upon the machine, since they sit over the bike and attach to the frame via internal tapes and loops. That same loose fit allows air to flow around the rider to keep them cool. Facsimiles of these traditional cycling garments can still be obtained from a limited number of suppliers – Lancashire Pike in Bolton manufacture a classic hand-made Ventile cycling jacket (pictured right) inspired by a 1950s design, featuring a two-way zip and six exterior pockets, with an additional interior slip pocket and adjustable side straps. Carradice in nearby Nelson produce a hand-crafted, lightweight, reproofable waxed cotton cycling cape, signed by its maker.

This weather protection was often topped off with a waxed cotton or oilskin sou’wester, providing a rugged look of derring-do as well as keeping one’s Brylcreemed cranial topiary in shape.

Essentials such as puncture repair kits, tools and sandwiches were carried in a waterproof waxed cotton duck saddlebag, as opposed to the modern fashion for stuffing everything into the elasticated rear pockets on one’s cycling jersey, which gives a lumpy and misshapen profile and a less comfortable ride. Such bags can still be purchased from the aforementioned

Lancashire Pike Cycling Jacket

Carradice, with many of their designs having changed little over the decades; their rugged construction will last most cyclists a lifetime.

Fortunately, recent developments in the world of chainrings, derailleurs and shaved legs (perish the thought!) mean that there is now some respite from the modern-day horror of Lycra. The recently developed niche of ‘gravel biking’ (a cross between road cycling and mountain biking that the esteemed ‘Rough Stuff Fellowship’ cycling club has been quietly getting on with since 1955) has seen a move away from bright Lycra to looser and more subtly coloured cycling clothing, made from natural fabrics such as merino wool.

This happy turn of events in cycling means that it is now possible to encounter a ‘gravel biker’ about their activities without fear of having to cover the eyes of children and shield the feeble minded from their presence. Indeed, one might even take Sunday lunch among such individuals, safe in the knowledge that your fellow diners will not take offence. n

Cooking

COOKING FOR CHAPS Nichole Drysdale suggests preparing for winter with some warming stews, accompanied by potato boulangere and pear frangipane Share your creations with Nicole on Instagram @nicolethechap

T

he changing of the seasons brings with it a change of food cravings, so my mind turned to autumnal stews, casseroles and warming comfort food.

One pot cooked low and slow, sometimes even the day before.

The great thing about casseroles is they can be a bit of a fridge raid, using up a mixture of root vegetables, depending on your taste and the contents of your fridge. Sometimes I make my casseroles with minimal vegetables, so I can make separate side dishes, but here I’ve given you complete recipes. The Coq au Vin includes optional carrots but otherwise I suggest staying true to the recipe. Although marinating the chicken in the red wine the night before isn’t completely necessary, it definitely brings a fuller flavour.

The beef stew can be played with by swapping the butternut squash for parsnips, perhaps. Or you could include potatoes in your stew, then it really is a one-pot meal, ready to be dished out into bowls and eaten off laps in front of a roaring fire.

The potato boulangere goes well with both stews and is truly delicious and full of flavour, but not as heavy as potato dauphinois. This is

actually a great way to serve potatoes with many other meat dishes. It could even be a complete meal, with the addition of leftover ham hock and peas in the bottom of the dish. If I was making a beef bourguignon with red wine instead of Guinness, I’d be more tempted with dauphinois, but I think it’s too rich with the addition of the dumplings. Ah, the dumplings! I love a dumpling, and the ones in this recipe come alive with the cheddar cheese. You could always add some fresh herbs or a little creamed horseradish into the mix too.

With both of these casseroles, I would normally go for green beans or Savoy cabbage to serve alongside. Anything green works well and cuts through the beautiful depth of flavours of both stews.

A heart warming meal wouldn’t be complete without a desert of some sort. Fruit crumbles are perfect for this time of year, using apples, pears, rhubarb or berries, and the same goes for a frangipane. The obvious flavour is apple, but I prefer mine with pears. Peach would also be delicious. Serve your frangipane hot with a good vanilla ice cream, or cold with a drizzle of cream if you need a breather or a little nap after the main course.

I’m not quite ready for the winter woolies yet (in food terms, a full-on roast) but hopefully these recipes offer the feel of a comforting Autumn cardigan.

107

Coq au Vin Serves 4 Prep Time: 20 Minutes plus overnight marinating Cooking Time: 1 ½ Hours

Ingredients 4-6 Large chicken thighs or legs (skin on) 1 Bottle red wine (ideally a Burgundy or Pinot Noir) 200g Bacon lardons 2 Cloves garlic, crushed 200g Button mushrooms 15-20 Round shallots 1 tbsp Plain flour 2 Carrots (optional), cut into thick slices Thyme, a couple of sprigs Salt & Pepper Glug of olive oil Method 1. Marinate the chicken in the red wine overnight.

2. Pre-heat oven to 180.

3. Peel the shallots but keep whole. Lightly brown the shallots and chopped carrots in a large casserole dish for 5-10 minutes, then remove and set aside on a plate.

4. Remove the chicken from the marinade and brown it in the casserole dish for 5 minutes on each side, then remove and set aside.

5. Add the red wine to the casserole dish and bring to the boil. Add the crushed garlic and thyme. Once boiled for 10 minutes, whisk in the flour, ensuring no lumps. Return the chicken and vegetables to the dish.

6. In a frying pan, lightly fry the bacon and mushrooms, then add these to the casserole dish and season.

Pop the lid on and place in the pre-heated oven for around 1½ hours, or until the chicken is tender and the sauce has thickened.

Beef Stew with Cheese Dumplings Serves 4 Prep Time: 15 minutes Cooking Time: 4 Hours

Ingredients 1kg Stewing steak Drizzle olive oil 2 Carrots, cut into large chunks 1 Onion, sliced 2 Sticks celery, roughly chopped ½ Butternut squash (optional) Couple of sprigs fresh rosemary 1 tbsp plain flour Beef stock 300-400ml (enough to cover) 1 can of Guinness 2 tbsp Tomato puree Salt & Pepper 100g Self-raising flour 50g Suet 40g Grated cheddar cheese Couple of tbsp cold water

Method 1. Pre-heat oven to 160.

2. Take a large casserole dish (with lid) and brown the beef in the oil in small batches. Remove from the dish and fry the vegetables for 5 minutes.

3. Return the beef to the dish and stir through the flour, coating the beef and vegetables. Cook for a couple of minutes.

4. Pour in the Guinness and stock, and season.

5. Stir through the tomato puree and rosemary and bring to the boil.

6. Place in the pre-heated oven with the lid on and allow to cook for approx 4 hours. Check after a couple of hours to ensure there is still enough liquid.

7. Once the beef is tender and the sauce has thickened, make the dumplings.

8. In a bowl, combine the flour, suet and cheese.

Season. Add a couple of tablespoons of cold water to form a dough. Shape the dough into small balls.

9. Remove the stew from the oven and place the dumplings around the edge of the dish.

Replace the lid and pop back in the oven for 20 minutes.

Remove the lid and cook for a further 5-10 minutes until the dumplings have browned slightly.

Potato Boulangere Serves 4 Prep Time: 20 minutes Cooking Time: 1 ½ hours (approx)

Ingredients 6-8 Large potatoes 1 Onion Couple sprigs of fresh thyme – leaves only 2 Cloves of garlic, crushed Stock – chicken or vegetable, approx 600-700ml Salt & Pepper Couple of knobs of butter Drizzle of olive oil Sprinkling of grated cheese – cheddar or parmesan (optional) Method 1. Pre-heat oven to 180.

2. Peel and thinly slice the onion.

3. Gently soften the onion in the olive oil. You don’t want to colour it.

4. Peel and slice the potatoes. A mandolin works best for this, otherwise use a sharp knife to slice them as thinly as possible.

5. Take a medium sized lasagne dish and start to layer up the boulangere.

6. Start with a layer of potatoes, a sprinkling of the onion, a little thyme and seasoning. Repeat until layered up to the top. Don’t forget to lightly season each layer.

7. Once you’ve layered up the dish, pour over the boiling stock until it’s just reached the top, dot the knobs of butter on top and place in the pre-heated oven.

Once the dish is almost cooked (check the potatoes are cooked all the way through with a sharp knife after 1 hour 20), sprinkle with the grated cheese and return to the oven for a further 10 minutes.

Pear Frangipane Serves 6 Prep Time: 15 mins Cooling Time: 45 mins

Ingredients 13 Pears 1 Pack readymade sweet shortcrust pastry (or make your own) 115g Unsalted butter – at room temperature 115g Caster sugar, plus extra to sprinkle 100 Ground almonds 30g Plain flour 3 Eggs Couple of drops almond essence

Method 1. Pre-heat oven to 180.

2. Roll out the pastry and line a 9-inch loose-bottomed tart tin. Use a fork to prick tiny holes all over the bottom.

3. Line the pastry with baking paper and fill with baking beans (or dried pulses) and blind bake for 15 minutes, then remove from the oven. Remove the paper and beans.

4. Place the butter and sugar into a stand mixer and combine until smooth.

5. Add the ground almonds and flour to combine.

6. Add the eggs one at a time until mixture is smooth. Stir through the almond essence.

7. Pour the mixture into the cooled pastry case.

8. Peel, half and core the pears. Cut them into slices but keep their shape.

9. Gently place the pears, equal distance apart, on top of the tart. Sprinkle over a little caster sugar.

Place in the oven and cook for approx 45 minutes or until the tart has set and is nicely golden in colour.

Food

GROTESQUE GOURMAND Olivier Woodes-Farquharson discovers that there is a happy medium between saving and eating every animal possible – at least, there was if you were Francis Buckland, a scientist whose confusing legacy hid a greater contribution to ecological thinking than was first apparent

S

ir David Attenborough is on screen, informing us of the charming quirks and perilous life challenges of the animal beside him, which happens to be, say, a shrew. In his inimitable tone, he lovingly discusses its reproductive cycle, its mating habits, and more. And then, without pausing from his monologue, he picks up the creature, gently throttles it, pops it into a frying pan for a few minutes, before casually telling us in detail how it tastes.

It is a scene that is unlikely to play out anytime soon. But incongruous as these two behaviours of naturalist and omnivore seem to us now, they were two halves of the same walnut to Victorian oddball Francis Buckland. Much as he would love to have been remembered as a fisheries expert and

“While other young children would ride a hobbyhorse, Francis instead happily made do with riding the corpses of dead crocodiles.

His first forays into proper natural history – at least as he saw it – was by sampling different animal urines and gradually being able to distinguish each one at blind tastings”

110

scientist, instead we now think of him overwhelmingly as keeper of a ludicrous and ever-changing menagerie, who would eat pretty much anything which once had a pulse.

Born on 17th December 1826, Francis Trevelyan Buckland was fortunate enough to grow up within the confines of Christ Church College, Oxford. Unquestionably it was his father William, future Dean of Westminster and one of the godfathers of geology, who instilled in him his bizarre eating habits. Buckland junior’s childhood was one where mice were served up on buttered toast as an afternoon snack, while Buckland senior experimented with eating boiled mole – ‘ghastly’ – and what he believed to be the worst dish that he had ever tried: stewed bluebottles.

“Moving to a new home near Euston Station gave Buckland extra pleasure, as it put him within relative proximity of London Zoo. He ensured that he had good contacts there, who would tip him off if an animal were soon to shuffle off its mortal coil, giving Buckland a chance to put the oven on”

113

The lunch menu at Francis Trevelyan Buckland’s house

Theirs was a household where the dining table would have chunks of lava from Mount Etna in one corner and lizard faeces in another. While other young children would be pleased to ride a hobbyhorse, Francis instead happily made do with riding the corpses of dead crocodiles. His first forays into proper natural history – at least as he saw it – was by sampling different animal urines and gradually being able to distinguish each one at blind tastings.

Yet Buckland Junior would outdo his father in nonconformist behaviours with animals. Sent to board at Winchester School, and with an aversion to the school dinners, he kept a mini-zoo in his room to supplement his calorie intake, with squirrel pie, boiled hedgehog and mice in batter featuring regularly. He was told to cease these habits when classmates complained that he had left a dissected cat rotting under his bed. But the trend continued when he went back to Oxford to study, with his rooms being home to two monkeys, a jackal, an eagle and a sugar-loving bear called Tig. The less health-and-safety-conscious deans of the day seemed astonishingly to have accepted this as

acceptable, right until the day when the eagle decided one Sunday to attend the morning Eucharist, launching its massive body around the church and providing harmonic screeches to the Te Deum which was already well underway. The monkeys, Jacko and Jenny, were barely better, biting almost anyone who approached – unsurprising when one considers that Buckland gave them beer every night and a glass of port on Sundays.

By this stage, the short, rotund but robustlybuilt and cigar-chomping Buckland had also chosen what would be his primary outfit for life: a bowler hat was usually perched on his heavy-set head, with an old flannel shirt largely hidden by trousers raised almost to his armpits by absurdly short braces. He loathed wearing shoes and boots unless absolutely necessary, so was invariably out and about barefoot.

It made for quite a sight among the usually quite conservative dreaming spires of Oxford.

Yet he didn’t shine at university, with pure academia proving to be too constraining for his bohemian instincts. He struggled to complete his essays, and was likely the only person to have ever told his teacher – with no hint of irony – that his

115

marmoset ate his homework. His love of pulling animals apart being clear, it was perhaps no surprise that he chose instead to become a surgeon, enrolling at St George’s Hospital in London.

Surgery remained a deeply unpleasant and hideously unsanitary business at the time, but his gentleness and jolly demeanour made him popular with patient and fellow surgeon alike.

off if an animal were soon to shuffle off its mortal coil, giving Buckland a chance to put the oven on.

‘Cooked a viper for luncheon’ he casually remarked in his diary, adding that he supplemented it with elephant trunk’s soup which, despite considerable boiling, still left the trunk itself inedible. When the zoo’s panther died, he managed somehow to persuade the curator to dig it up and send him some panther chops, which, to his surprise – but perhaps not to ours – ‘were not very good’. Buckland was the only happy person in London when fire ravaged the zoo’s giraffe house, as it would provide him with weeks’ worth of pre-roasted giraffe, which tasted, according to the guests at one of his famed dinner parties, similar to boa constrictor.

Buckland’s lack of genuine understanding of nature’s balance led him, in 1860, to formalise his zoophagic tendencies and become a founding member of one of the strangest initiatives, even by the standards of Victorian Britain: The Acclimatization Society. It was his belief – shared, it seems, with a few others – that the UK’s rising post-industrial population needed nourishing with new and cheaper sources of meat. What better, he figured, than to introduce yak, bison, kangaroos and reindeer to Britain? He envisioned ‘…troops of eland gracefully galloping over our greensward, and herds of kudus and other representatives of the antelope family which are so numerous in Africa’. Yet most failed to breed, and capybara steaks weren’t the juiciest. The one critter that did succeed in repopulating in vast numbers after introduction was the grey squirrel, which has remained the scourge of parks, bird feeders and red squirrels ever since.

The 1862 annual dinner of the Society had a huge menu including roast curassow and deer sinew soup, all leading up to the one that Buckland was most excited about: Japanese sea slug. ‘They are said to be the most succulent and pleasant food, not unlike the green fat of turtle’, wrote Buckland in his diary, his mouth watering in Pavlovian anticipation.

The next day’s entry was less positive: ‘It tasted like something between calf ’s head jelly and the contents of a glue pot’. But one positive development did occur from this lunatic venture, namely the establishment of trout, perch and salmon fisheries and rearing ponds, with the first hatchery set up in his house in Albany Street.

Buckland selflessly put his money into founding The Museum of Economic Fish Culture in South Kensington, impressing none other than Queen Victoria. She, in turn, invited him to her Windsor home at Frogmore where, we hope, he was

“Buckland selflessly put his money into founding The Museum of Economic Fish Culture in South Kensington, impressing none other than Queen Victoria. She, in turn, invited him to her Windsor home at Frogmore where, we hope, he was coerced into wearing shoes” In parallel, being a natural showman, Buckland was now selling himself as an expert in natural history, giving talks on ‘nature’s curiosities’, with audiences at his lectures lapping up his ‘fascinating facts’, which, as one biographer wryly observed, were more fascinating than factual. Unsurprisingly, he drew the ire of a certain Charles Darwin – his polar opposite in terms of scientific method and humour – who found him vulgar and coarse: ‘He was incited more by a craving for notoriety, which sometimes made him act like a buffoon, than by a love of science’. Buckland, in turn, made it clear wherever possible that he thought that Darwin’s new-fangled Theory of Evolution was codswallop.

Buckland was a man of action, not philosophical thought, so he immersed himself instead with publishing popular ‘science’ articles with titles such as The author poisoned by a cobra – a narrow escape, The head of poacher shot dead, and A queer mode for dislodging a newt from a man’s stomach. Ludicrous nonsense, thought Darwin, yet conspicuously it was Buckland to whom the great man turned to verify a claim that a dog and a lion had successfully bred in a remote corner of Russia.

Moving to a new home near Euston Station gave Buckland extra pleasure, as it put him within relative proximity of London Zoo. He ensured that he had good contacts there, who would tip him

116

BURROWS AND HARE LUXURY MENS CLOTHING, LIFESTYLE AND GROOMING PRODUCTS. OUR VISION FOR EVERY ITEM, IS THAT IT BE BEAUTIFULLY CRAFTED AND BUILT TO LAST FOR YEARS TO COME. WE BELIEVE IN OPTING FOR A HIGHER QUALITY OF PRODUCT, MADE BY SKILLED AND TALENTED PEOPLE. THROUGH CLASSIC STYLING, QUALITY MATERIALS AND METICULOUS FINISHING, EACH PRODUCT BECOMES TIMELESS. MAKING IT A MODERN CLASSIC. OVERALL, WE ALIGN OUR LIFESTYLE PHILOSOPHY WITH "BUY LESS BUT BUY BETTER QUALITY GOODS" WE STRIVE TOWARDS REDUCING WASTE, POLLUTION AND MISCONDUCT AGAINST LABOUR FORCE. BE IT IN A SMALL WAY, WE HONOR THE CRAFT AND PRODUCT ITSELF.

www.burrowsandhare.com 10% DISCOUNT FOR CHAP READERS PLEASE QUOTE CHAP10

@burrowsandhare

coerced into wearing shoes. Around this time, he managed somehow to find a wife, Hannah Papps, who displayed near-industrial levels of patience in tolerating her husband’s idiosyncrasies, not least when his pet monkey Jacko died, Buckland ensuring that he would not be forgotten by having him skinned and turned into a tablecloth.

This more realistic and constructive line of fishery work led to him being appointed Inspector of HM Fisheries in 1867, where his developing knowledge, boundless energy and endless experimenting ensured that he made life more comfortable for salmon in particular, building salmon ladders in every corner of the country to help them negotiate weirs and other obstructions.

Many parliamentary Acts were subsequently passed as a direct result of Buckland’s reports, resulting in better quality water for fish and human alike. He used the lengthy railway journeys as a chance to write these reports, guaranteed not to be disturbed, for by now his luggage and his very personage stank so remorselessly fishy that he was invariably given a carriage to himself.

months, during which time he wrote more ‘scientific’ insights. Then, nearly recovered by November, he promptly went out in a huge Norfolk snowstorm in utterly inappropriate clothing.

By now he had dropsy, bronchitis and gradually failing heart and kidneys. The end was near, yet this extraordinary and possibly slightly insane man seemed unperturbed, and wrote in his will: ‘God is so good, so very good to little fishes.

I do not believe he would let their inspector suffer shipwreck at last. I am going on a long journey where I think I shall see a great many curious animals… this journey I must go alone’. Sweet release finally occurred on 19th December 1880, when Buckland was still only 54.

Buckland’s legacy remains a complicated if entertaining one. His left-field takes on anatomy and natural history are so far from modern scientific thinking that he is seen by some as an embarrassing showman. Yet this perhaps misses the greater point. Buckland’s fisheries work alone forms the basis of global fish husbandry, and his genuine appreciation of nature’s bounty, either as something to interact with or to roast and scoff with gravy, demonstrates the first green shoots of ecological thinking in what was then a desert, as far as nature was concerned. And which of us now wouldn’t, given half a guilty chance, try a piece of Buckland’s rhinoceros pie? The man himself described it as ‘like very ancient, very strong beef ’, which is exactly what some of us pay a fortune for at Waitrose. n

“God is so good, so very good to little fishes. I do not believe he would let their inspector suffer shipwreck at last. I am going on a long journey where I think I shall see a great many curious animals… this journey I must go alone”

But Buckland’s lack of self-care sadly proved to be an eccentricity too far. He seemed superficially ambivalent when wading, year in year out, barechested through icy rivers. Even in the harshest winters, he would merely rub himself in hair oil and don a supposedly waterproof suit, which itself would usually freeze solid. Once, when challenged on why he was sitting half naked on an opentopped London bus, he simply responded: “I like to get wet through, and the harder it rains or blows the more I enjoy my ride.” Such a positive embrace of what others would deem a deep irritation was undoubtedly charming but, being an asthmatic and heavy smoker, this behaviour could only end one way. In January 1879 his lungs enflamed and haemorrhaged, leaving him near bedridden for

119

Firle’s openers Yearsley and Samuel, with suitable protective headgear for this ancient fixture

Cricket

Top hats and Tea on the Village Green Sam Knowles provides a detailed match report for an ancient fixture that provides the real fanfare to cricket’s newest format

“A match of cricket will be played at Firle Park on Thursday Sept 4, 1851, between eleven Gentlemen of Lewes and eleven Gentlemen of Firle. Wickets to be pitched at ten o’clock.

A dinner will be provided by Mr. Mockett, of the Ram Inn, at two o’clock”

W

ith the imminent spectre of The Hundred – the newest, most glitzy form of cricket – lurking on the horizon, a disgruntled Daily Telegraph reader expressed extreme distaste for innovation in the noble game on the paper’s letters page:

with ‘one thing and another’ postponing the launch of The Hundred. Or so they thought.

The past 18 months have seen much confused decision-making at the heart of Whitehall and many a U-turn. But none have been more rapid and dramatic than the U-turn on cricket. At breakfast time on 3rd July last year, Boris Johnson told a radio interviewer that “changing rooms and teas and whatnot” meant the noble game of WG Grace faced an indefinitely prolonged hiatus. By the teatime press conference, Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty made his boss look silly – not for the first or last time during the pandemic.

“So long as players arrive changed, don’t use the pavilion, bring their own teas, and elbow bump rather than hug when they take wickets, cricket can

Sir – I see that The Hundred cricket is to employ “an allstar line-up of DJs and rappers” in an effort to attract a more diverse and younger audience. Have nightclubs considered earlier hours and softer music in an effort to attract a more diverse, older audience? No. I thought not.

Hilary Mathews, Tring, Hertfordshire The England & Wales Cricket Board was thwarted in its efforts to modernise the game in 2020, what

121

Photo by Graham Carlow

start again next weekend.” Cricket is, after all, a game whose field placings are the very quintessence of social – and indeed physical – distancing.

In a rebellious corner of East Sussex, the birthplace of Gentlemen vs Players cricket, the news was greeted with glee. And to celebrate the return of the noble game, it was decided that one of the oldest fixtures in recorded sporting history should embrace modernity – though with a decidedly Chappish twist.

Since at least 1851, the Gentlemen of Lewes have been entertained by the Gentlemen of Firle in the deep back garden of Lord Gage on the Firle Estate. While the first literary reference to the Gentlemen of Lewes emerges in 1753 – a fact celebrated on the badges of a club reborn in 2009 – the first documentary evidence of this fixture survives from almost a century later. In the Firle

Cricket Club pavilion, a faded poster proudly announces: “A match of cricket will be played at Firle Park on Thursday Sept 4, 1851, between eleven Gentlemen of Lewes and eleven Gentlemen of Firle.” Wickets were pitched at ten o’clock, while dinner was provided by the most generous Mr. Mockett of the Ram Inn at two o’clock.

For the 2020 fixture, the captains of both the Gentlemen of Firle and Lewes decided to jab a finger in the eye of Covid. The long-awaited Hundred – long-awaited by all but Hilary Mathews of Tring and her ilk – may have been yet another pandemic postponement. But that was no reason for the format not to get its first airing as soon as Whitty had sanctioned the game’s return.

And so it was that the first recorded game of The Hundred took place on 22nd July, 2020. But there were no highlighter pen-coloured pyjamas,

122

disc jockeys or sheets of flame to greet every boundary. The teams may have decided to bowl ten, ten-ball overs, but there was no reason for this ancient, august fixture to be anything other than Victorian elegance itself. Players eschewed artificial fibres so far as they could, preferring Oxford bags and co-respondent shoes over Sport’s Direct’s plasinated whites. Umpires wore white tailcoats. And helmets were sometimes replaced by rather more suitable headgear.

The Gentlemen of Lewes invited the Gentlemen of Firle to bat, and Firle’s two openers – Yearsley and Samuel – strode elegantly to the crease in top hats. With this, the first game of The Hundred ever played, neither side had much of an idea what a ‘par’ score might be from 100 balls, fully 20 fewer than in The Hundred’s noisy, older brother, Twenty20. Yearsley was in hungry form, top scoring with 27, and the Lewesians restricted their hosts to just 72 from the first 80 balls. But

“Again, the Gentlemen of Lewes invited their hosts – in top hats once more – to bat. Despite the imposing presence of Gandalf the White and the agriculturally effective touring manager of the Glyndebourne Opera House in the Firle line-up, they were restricted to a rather more gettable 86-6 this time. 13 of these were gifts from Lewes, nine of them wides” 124

Match photos by Graham Carlow

in the last 20, Firle skipper Treloar and Christie hauled the home total to a respectable 109-5.

The visitors looked in rather too much of a hurry to see if the spirit of Mr. Mockett would be on hand at the Ram Inn, squandering wickets cheaply. Nevertheless, at the halfway stage, Lewes were 54-4, up with the run rate and with wickets to spare. But as the shadows lengthened, the ideas and runs started to dry up and the wickets tumbled.

After a brief flurry in the middle order, the Gentlemen of Lewes lost their last five wickets for just 13 runs and were all out for a measly 79.

A year to the day since the first Hundred game played in England, the ECB tournament started in earnest, a year late, with the Oval Invincibles hosting the Manchester Originals (aka KP Nuts vs McCoys), attracting a world-record crowd for a women’s cricket match. That very evening, the second-ever men’s Hundred game took place… at Firle, with the rivalry from 2020 resumed. Again,

the Gentlemen of Lewes invited their hosts – in top hats once more – to bat. Despite the imposing presence of Gandalf the White and the agriculturally effective touring manager of the Glyndebourne Opera House in the Firle line-up, they were restricted to a rather more gettable 86-6 this time. 13 of these were gifts from Lewes, nine of them wides.

At the halfway point at 41-3, again the chase looked secure. Yet despite some glorious cameos and a six into the Firle Place deer park from Lewes skipper Hall, the visitors this time fell but three runs short, on 83-8. So near and yet not really.

Residents of Hertfordshire may object to the newest form of the game, but perhaps – if they chose to visit the Gentlemanly swaths of green on the Firle Estate and drink in the glory of the oldest fixture in the newest format, top hats, tails and all – they might be rather less Mr. & Mrs Angry from Tring. n

125

1940s/50s REPRODUCTION CLOTHING

ozoneclothing.co.uk

The Chap Cravat is finally here!

Modelled on the Peacock Pocket Square, The Chap Cravat has been designed so that each one is slightly different. The one you purchase is a completely unique display of silk peacockery at your throat.

" "Ding dong, sir!

PRODUCTS FOR CHAPS Not one, but two new lapel badges have been added to our stock.

Choose from the traditional round shape, or dare to wear the dazzling new star-shaped badge. Slip a pair of Chap Cufflinks into your shirt cuffs to complete the collection.

Al l i tems ava ilable from WW W.T HECHA P.CO.UK

REVIEWS •

Author interview: Craig Taylor (p128) Book Reviews (p134) • Interview: Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe • David Devant & His Spirit Wife (p148) • Antiques and Collectables (p157)

(p138)

Author Interview

CRAIG TAYLOR Alexander Larman meets the Canadian writer to discuss the similarities between interviewing farmers from Suffolk and therapists from Manhattan

T

“That’s the secret: ask people to talk about their context. Hope for the best.

Everyone has a folk song, a story they tell again and again, but most people have other stories that lay beneath their usual anecdotes. They’re the ones that often crackle with life”

he age of writers travelling to cities and interviewing their residents, once such a mainstay of travel literature, is now largely behind us, for any number of tiresome reasons. Yet writer Craig Taylor has produced a series of fascinating books about places ranging from New York to the Suffolk countryside, all of which draw on verbatim conversations with their residents. In addition to being an author, Taylor co-edits the literary magazine Five Dials, writes miniature plays and, as we shall see, has a fine line in functional attire. We talked to him about writing about place, the nature of literature and why he’d like to be remembered with a song that Leonard Cohen covered.

CHAP: There are, I believe, two other Craig Taylors who are both writers. Are you ever confused for either of them?

TAYLOR: Not by passing strangers. I wish them all the best. I was nearly named Luxton Taylor, which would have been helpful. I’d love to free myself from ‘Taylor’ and leave the surname to those who truly own it: Elizabeth, James, Chuck.

CHAP: Writer, editor, ‘psychogeographer’ and more – you are indeed a Renaissance man. Which of these various hats are you most comfortable wearing?

TAYLOR: Writer. Just writer. Maybe reporter.

Certainly not Renaissance person. I’m barely a resident of the 21st century.

128

CHAP: Our paths first crossed when you were editing Five Dials. How did you drift into literary journalism of that nature?

TAYLOR: I started Five Dials with Hamish Hamilton publisher Simon Prosser in 2008. He was looking to produce an interesting magazine. So was I. We had no idea the project would continue barrelling along for thirteen years. We recently revitalized the magazine, thanks to the work of co-editors Hermione Thompson and Hannah Chukwu. It’s heading in an engaging direction. Of course, it’s still free.

conversations that filled the afternoon. I was new to England, I knew very little about Blythe’s connection to figures of importance. He’d tell me stories of Benjamin Britten, John and Christine Nash, Patricia Highsmith, E.M. Forster. He sat there surrounded by his books and paintings, gently leading me back into British cultural history. Ronald is now nearly 100 and is an extraordinary storyteller. No-one else has captured the beauty and brutality of rural England.

CHAP: While researching Return to Akenfield, Londoners and New Yorkers, what have been the most striking similarities between the three locations?

TAYLOR: While working on my books I’ve been lucky to meet individuals who employ the rich vernacular of their surroundings. Farmers in Suffolk and therapists in midtown Manhattan speak in their own specialised professional language. That’s the secret: ask people to talk about their context.

Hope for the best. Everyone has a folk song, a story

CHAP: You returned to Akenfield in 2006, for your book of the same name. Was Ronald Blythe’s original a major influence on your writing?

TAYLOR: Absolutely. The original Akenfield is a book like no other. I researched my follow-up in 2004-5. The research consisted of hanging around a small English village for months. Occasionally I travelled to Blythe’s Suffolk cottage, Bottengoms, for

130

CHAP: Londoners was published in 2012.

Do you think that a post-Brexit version of the book would have been substantially different, or do you not believe that much would have changed?

TAYLOR: Londoners was a celebration of the London I love, and that London is where cultures intersect. Are cultures still intersecting in London?

Sure. But is it happening in the same way? London is tough to live in, tough to negotiate, but my conversations with foreigners, new immigrants and migrant workers were much more optimistic.

I haven’t heard much optimism from Londoners post-Brexit. Where are all these optimistic Londoners? Maybe they’re hiding out in Penge?

CHAP: New Yorkers was strongly influenced by the covid pandemic. If you’d published it in 2019, do you think that it would have had a more optimistic feel?

TAYLOR: I’m thankful the book didn’t come out in 2019 or early in 2020. But no iteration of the book was gong to be too optimistic. New Yorkers are always dealing with some devastation – Sandy, 9/11, the 2008 recession, the Mets. Without mention of covid, the book would have been instantly irrelevant.

I spent most of the summer of 2020 interviewing patients, doctors and nurses who’d been caught up in the first wave. They were trying to make sense of the tragedy as it unfolded. This most important section of the book was added at the last possible moment. they tell again and again, but most people have other stories that lay beneath their usual anecdotes.

They’re the ones that often crackle with life.

CHAP: Are you still in touch with many of the people who you’ve interviewed?

TAYLOR: One just called me a second ago – Dan Bauso, the lawyer who fought through covid. With many of them, yes, we’re still in touch. To sit with someone and listen to them talk about their life for six hours is a good way to kick off a lasting friendship.

They’re characters, obviously, but not fictional characters. Their lives go on. They change. I love hearing about how their New York lives continue.

CHAP: And what have been the most notable differences, other than the obvious?

TAYLOR: New Yorkers tend to talk about the Mets more than Suffolk farmers.

CHAP: Do you find that researching and writing books of the kind that you produce is emotionally tiring or vastly rewarding?

TAYLOR: Both. But how else are you supposed to write a book? I love reading about Georges Simenon and his prolific output. I can’t do that.

I can’t imagine working on books that don’t feel lived in. I didn’t mean for New Yorkers to take so long but the result is, I hope, depth and the feel of time passing. Reward and exhaustion are built into the process. Books like mine can’t be researched over the internet. They’re tethered to the world.

CHAP: What stories did you have to omit, and why? Do you have any regrets about any excised material?

TAYLOR: Much was cut. There were a few legally problematic sections that disappeared. There was one incredibly confrontational scene that was cut. Both Londoners and New Yorkers have shadow versions. There are entire books made up of all that couldn’t fit into the published edition. Like remixes, the shadow versions are revealing in their own way.

131

RAFFISH THE NEW EAU DE COLOGNE FROM THE CHAP

AVAILABLE FROM WWW.THECHAP.CO.UK

CHAP: What are your best and worst experiences producing the books?

TAYLOR: Doing this kind of work is a license to ask meaningful questions, which often lead to meaningful answers, which often lead to an improvisation of sorts. At best, something of meaning is created in the interview, a space where a person can assess their life. Occasionally the conversation changes us both. A current passes through the air. An afternoon disappears. The worst experience is when the improvisation fails, for one reason or another. But even then, walking away from a failed interview in New York, I was always surrounded by a loud city that seemed to be saying: How about this person next? How about this person?

CHAP: Other than Blythe, who have been your greatest influences as a writer?

TAYLOR: I like writers who linger and do a lot of legwork. Adrian Nicole Leblanc. Robert Caro. Tony Parker, Joseph Mitchell. And I love writers who capture the ineffable aspects of city life. Maeve Brennan springs to mind. I admire Janet Malcolm’s precision and the way Miriam Toews writes with heart. I’m sad there will be no further Stephen Dunn poetry.

CHAP: Which cities or areas would you like to produce similar books about?

TAYLOR: I’m not sure I want to write another city book. Maybe I’ll work on a project about climate change.

TAYLOR: Ali Smith created something special with her ‘Seasonal Quartet’. Tamara Payne helped finish her father Les’s incredible The Dead Are Arising.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s As We Have Always Done changed my entire perception of Indigenous culture. I loved Natalie Diaz’s Postcolonial Love Poem.

And if you’re looking for a great book about algae, I recommend Ruth Kassinger’s Slime: How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us.

CHAP: You turned your hand to drama in One Million Tiny Plays About Britain – did that make you want to revisit the form on a grander scale?

TAYLOR: I’m still writing tiny plays. I’m up to around 500.

CHAP: What advice would you offer to a literary editor?

TAYLOR: Look for writing coming from outside major metropolitan centres. Look out for the next hot book about algae.

CHAP: Is there a ‘Craig Taylor writing ensemble’ that should be in the boutiques and gentlemen’s outfitters?

TAYLOR: I’ve been pretty much wearing the same blue Dickies workshirt since covid hit. Pair that with some jeans I bought from a little shop downtown owned by a man who once whispered to me: ‘These. These are the jeans best for you.’ And finally a pair of white plastic shoes so that when it’s too hot I can walk straight across the barnacles and into the Pacific. That’s the ensemble.

CHAP: And what would be your epitaph, if you could have one?

TAYLOR: Leonard Cohen didn’t write the song, but I’ve always loved his version of Passing Through, so I’ll go with: Passin’ through, passin’ through Sometimes happy, sometimes blue Glad that I ran into you Tell the people that you saw me passin’ through n

CHAP: What are your favourite books written over the last few years?

133

WHITE SPINES: CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK COLLECTOR

A VERY NICE REJECTION LETTER

by Chris Paling (Constable, £16.99)

by Nicholas Royle (Salt, £9.99)

“These days, one has to diversify in order to make even the humblest of livings. The era of being able to publish one book every couple of years, set off on an adulatory book signing tour and then have a six-month holiday (or ‘writing retreat’) is long gone”

Reviewed by Alexander Larman

T

o be a pale, male, middle-aged literary novelist is, as Jane Austen did not quite put it, to be very much not in possession of a fortune these days. The want of a wife, or otherwise, is largely immaterial. Many writers who these days are struggling to make a crust look back wistfully on the glory days of the eighties, when the likes of Julian Barnes, Martin Amis and Ian McEwan bestrode the literary world like tweed-jacketed Colossi, pocketing substantial six-figure advances and prizes for novels that were received with giddy adulation by the books sections of the newspapers and customers in their tens of thousands.

Oh, how things change. The hottest writer of the day is Sally Rooney, the stern-faced 30-year old Marxist chronicler of millennial mores; humour and japes are seldom to be found within her intentionally po-faced work. Yet as publisher after

editor make their disinclination to publish literary novels by white men quite clear, the pickings that they find within the industry grow slimmer and less productive by the year. Time, in many cases, to find a different sideline altogether.

134

Book Reviews

“A big-shot Hollywood director expresses a desire to work with Paling, and showers him with meals, cash and creative suggestions. Most of us, on our uppers, would welcome such attention, but Paling stubbornly asserts his artistic integrity, and the film is never made”

A big-shot Hollywood director expresses a desire to work with Paling, and showers him with meals, cash and creative suggestions. Most of us, on our uppers, would welcome such attention, but Paling stubbornly asserts his artistic integrity, and the film is never made. On another occasion, he is offered a book deal by a respected literary publisher, but is shocked to be informed that his advance will be a mere thousand pounds; he instructs his no doubt weary agent to check that a zero (or, more optimistically, two zeroes) has not been omitted somewhere from the offer.

Royle comes across as a rather jollier and more contented figure, although his saga is a rather more modest one. He has a great penchant for collecting the distinctive white-spined Picador paperbacks, and, over the course of this highly readable memoir, details his visits to various bookshops and charity shops of varying degrees of eccentricity, in search of titles of increasing degrees of scarcity and interest. Now that Picador seems to be less of a thing than it once was – Royle’s publisher, Salt, has painstakingly created the look of their iconic publications, in a pleasing example of actually making an effort – some of Royle’s references may seem archaic to many. Yet anyone who has found one of the two most common titles, Graham Swift’s Last Orders and DM Thomas’ The White Hotel, lurking somewhere in a Picador edition will surely enjoy Royle’s good-natured and enjoyably unpretentious quest.

It is not for me, a hardy venturer at the base camp at the mountain of literature, to make sweeping statements about what the modern world of books ‘is’, or ‘should be’. The vast majority of people who buy books, especially fiction, these days are women, as men have been fobbed off with podcasts and Netflix and pornography and the like. It remains unsurprising that the market is therefore geared towards their tastes and interests, and the likes of Paling and Royle might, justifiably, feel like they are yesterday’s news. But it would be an enormous pity to neglect such engaging and talented writers simply due to a lack of modishness.

Their abilities remain both vital and vibrant, and these enjoyable books demonstrate their continued ability to tell fascinating stories, and to do so exceptionally well.

This is exactly what the novelists Chris Paling and Nicholas Royle have done in their new books, respectively entitled A Very Nice Rejection Letter and White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector. Paling is a former BBC radio producer who published nine critically acclaimed but commercially negligible novels between 1995 and 2010, and who has found it difficult to replicate his earlier success in an entirely changed market. And Royle, meanwhile, is, according to the ever-accurate Wikipedia, ‘an English novelist, editor, publisher, literary reviewer and creative writing lecturer.’ Only the harshest might point out that that makes him sound like five different people; these days, one has to diversify in order to make even the humblest of livings. The era of being able to publish one book every couple of years, set off on an adulatory book signing tour, and then have a six-month holiday (or ‘writing retreat’) is long gone.

Paling’s book is splendidly entertaining, although I was unsure how funny it was supposed to be. He bears more than a passing resemblance to Ed Douglas’s splendid comic creation Ed Reardon, a misanthropic failed writer who takes immeasurable pride in his modest achievements, and although Paling is obviously a good deal more self-aware than Reardon (whom he compares himself to at one point), one cannot help but feel that this diary of rejection is shot through with a certain amount of unintentional Pooteresque comedy.

135

HOT OFF THE PRESS FROM DOGBERRY BOOKS! Revel in James Bloom's perilous Australasian adventures from the safety of your armchair!

Chortle at Auriel Roe's slipshod attempts to become a sensible grown up!

Are you a freelance editor?

Visit www.dogberrybooks.com for more information and to place your order We are looking for freelance editors who'd enjoy our brand of literary writing.

Please do get in touch if you're interested at contact@memoirist.org

Book Reviews

SHORT REVIEWS

By Alexander Larman

SORROW AND BLISS

GUARDED BY DRAGONS

By Meg Mason (Weidenfeld & Nicolson £14.99)

By Rick Gekoski (Constable, £18.99)

F

I

leabag meets Patrick

have been known, now and again, to sell antiquarian and second-hand books to dealers, and generally speaking to turn a profit. But compared to the legendary rare book dealer Rick Gekoski, I remain an amateur. In this latest volume of memoirs from a life in books, Gekoski has a wealth of entertaining and revelatory stories about dealing with writers, publishers and collectors, many of whom regard him with a mixture of suspicion and distaste, not to mention a soupcon of anti-semitism.

Gekoski abandoned an academic career (‘it made me feel a little like a hooker’) in order to deal in books, and swiftly found that he could acquire items of near-legendary rarity, such as Sylvia Plath’s annotated copy of The Great Gatsby, and sell them on at a profit. Sometimes, he would acquire them again later at a significant mark-up, and sell them on again at an even higher price. Although Gekoski is dealing in rarefied and hugely valuable items, I was able to relate it to my own experience: there are countless books that I sold for comparatively small sums, only to wish that I had put them aside and could sell them again. But one of the delights of this enjoyable book is to bring a world of cunning and even venal types to life, with Gekoski as the fast-talking, hard-bargaining but always honest and literate connecting thread between them all. n

Melrose’. So sayeth the publisher’s blurb of Meg Mason’s brilliantly written and engaging novel, and indeed there are a great number of comparisons to Phoebe WallerBridge’s superb show. Mason’s protagonist Martha Friel is a bright but deeply unhappy woman, who has struggled for most of her adult life with an unnamed mental illness that has laid waste to any possibility of her finding any kind of peace.

Even marriage to the apparently saintly Patrick has failed to save her from the abyss on the edge of which she teeters. Time, perhaps, to invest in a pointless tattoo. But does salvation lie at hand?

Mason’s novel has attracted considerable praise since its publication and it isn’t hard to see why. The prose style is effervescently sparkling and witty, its protagonist believably flawed but somehow entirely sympathetic, and some of the minor characters, in particular the worldly aesthete Peregrine, are a particular joy. It threatens to become buried in navel-gazing around two thirds of the way through, and there are a surprising number of parallels with Bridget Jones’s Diary, but it triumphantly resurrects its pathos, charm and humour to rally towards a stirring, surprising and wholly satisfying conclusion. This will undoubtedly be one of the best novels of the year.

137

Music

JEAN-EMMANUEL DELUXE Gustav Temple meets the musical impresario who revived the obscure French genre of ye-ye with such conviction that one of the tracks he championed ended up on the soundtrack to a film by Quentin Tarantino

W

e first got in touch because you recommended an artist named Bertrand Burgalat. Why did you think we’d like him?

I’ve been a long-time reader of The Chap and Bertrand is a long-time friend. He is one of these French artists who is about to cross the Channel.

His new album Rêve Capital was blessed by BBC Radio 6. Bertrand has his own special universe, musically and as a character. I don’t like the word ‘dandy’. Bertrand is some kind of modernist, from the original term of the word – not the mods who want to stay in 1966 their whole lives.

Bertrand is the essence of a French aesthete and gentleman. He saw the Pink Floyd when he was very young and became influenced by bands

“Bertrand was one of the first people to revive Burt Bacharach but at the same time he was listening to Kraftwerk, Debussy and Ravel. He has no notion of good or bad taste. If there is a hit song he likes, he isn’t ashamed to add it to his influences from more obscure artists” 138

Bertrand Burgalat

like Gong and Can, kind of a free form sound.

Later on I introduced him to April March and he worked with her, using the Ye-Ye Girl sound with a modern twist. He also worked with your British Count Indigo and picked up the ‘Easy Listening’ tag, but that was just one teeny part of his music; he wasn’t a revivalist at all. He was one of the first people to try and revive Burt Bacharach, but at the same time he was listening to Kraftwerk, Debussy and Ravel. What I like about Bertrand is he has no notion of good or bad taste. If there is a hit song he likes, he isn’t ashamed to add it to his influences from more obscure artists.

In the early sixties there was an invasion of British and American pop music in France. French newspaper Le Monde coined the term ‘ye-ye’ because the French artists trying to imitate the British and American sound always sang ‘yeah-yeah-yeah’.

These girl singers started out doing faithful copies but there were also some big French arrangers behind them, and it was the start of the careers of singer/ songwriters like Francois Hardy. After a while it was no longer a copy but something uniquely French and slightly more risqué in the lyrics. 1963-68 was the heyday of ye-ye. After the uprising of ’68, the singer/songwriter became more popular in France.

American publisher Feral House wanted to publish my book on ye-ye before anyone in Britain, and then it was finally published in France by Cocorico.

Perhaps you should explain to our British readers what you mean by Ye-Ye?

139

Serge Gainsbourg

“I think Gainsbourg was a very clever, talented guy who borrowed a lot of ideas from others, like Babatunde Olatunji, a Nigerian musician who he didn’t credit on his first album Percussion, although the songs from Olatunji’s Drums of Passion album are all the same”

Jacques Dutronc was the best-known male singer in the ye-ye genre. He was covered in England by lots of bands. It was a French take of rock and pop with its own personal attitude, a

140

humorous, modernist distance. The lyrics to many ye-ye songs was important. There was a lot of irony, especially in the work of Dutronc, for example in a song about ‘les minets’, mods living in the 16th district of Paris trying to be British. Someone like Johnny Halliday was more of a carbon copy of British pop music, but the ye-ye artists were doing something more French. Jarvis Cocker is a big fan of this sort of music. The revival of ye-ye was never a mass movement, though.

Serge Gainsbourg is the biggest French cult figure in the UK. He’s been covered by everyone from Nick Cave to Scott Walker.

Does he still have the same status in France?

In the eighties he had a reputation a bit like Oliver Reed in Britain. Nowadays he would have been absorbed by the #metoo campaign. Some of his lyrics were very dodgy and wouldn’t be tolerated

Jacques Dutronc

Gainsbourg in the late 70s sang Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and by then he’d become a caricature of himself. He was known as Gainsbarre and he was more known for being drunk all the time. People would give him more drinks to be sure to make a spectacle. I don’t think Gainsbourg was a genius; he was a very clever, talented guy who borrowed a

today. Also we mustn’t forget his arrangers Jean Claude Vannier, Michel Colombier (who worked with the Beach Boys in America later) and Alain Goraguer, and the singers he worked with like France Gall. Gainsbourg sometimes forgot all the people who helped him and tried to dismiss them.

But without them he wouldn’t have made it so far.

142

lot of ideas from others, like Babatunde Olatunji, a Nigerian musician who he didn’t credit on his first album Percussion, although the songs from Olatunji’s Drums of Passion album are all the same. Before ye-ye, Serge Gainsbourg was considered very Rive Gauche (Left Bank), playing a kind of sophisticated jazz. But the women like Brigitte Bardot, France

Gall and Francois Hardy reached a much wider audience. They took ye-ye out of the seedy nightclubs and into the rooms of French teenagers.

So how did you end up credited on the soundtrack to Death Proof by Quentin Tarantino?

143

Serge Gainsbourg and France Gall

They asked April March for the rights to use one of her songs because Tarantino had heard her record.

I was part of the process of securing the rights but didn’t earn any money from the soundtrack.

“Quentin Tarantino seems to use music in his films that he genuinely likes. As well as being a film geek, he is also a pop music geek. I don’t think he has a team of people researching the music” Did you have to deal with Gainsbourg’s estate to bring about Chick Habit, the song that was used in Death Proof?

We had to ask permission from the estate for the April March version of Gainsbourg’s song Laisse Tomber Les Filles, which became Chick Habit. We didn’t deal directly with the family, but a whole string of lawyers and music publishers. It got very complicated and stuck, but Bertrand was very helpful because he knew some key people. The Gainsbourg family ended up saying it was ok to use the song, but they kept nearly all the money earned by it!

Does Tarantino use researchers to find the songs on his soundtracks?

No, he seems to use music that he genuinely likes. As well as being a film geek, he is also a pop music geek. I don’t think he has a team of people researching the music.

Did you think Death Proof was not his strongest movie?

There are some good parts but it isn’t his strongest.

I think the soundtrack proved more popular than the movie itself ! Pulp Fiction is probably the best of all his films.

Chick Habit was the English version that April March had originally recorded in French. Is that her real name?

No, her real name is Elinor Blake and she’s American, from Francophile parents. She recorded the Gainsbourg covers in both French and

145

April March and Olivia Jean

English. It is interesting because Gainsbourg is untranslatable, with all his plays on words, so it’s more of an adaptation than a cover version. The original song was called Laisse Tomber Les Filles. It’s a bit like the adaptations that Boris Bergman did for Marianne Faithfull in the sixties. He told me that he took the meaning of the song and its atmosphere rather than a literal translation.

When April March and I first met, she gave me a cassette of some obscure ye-ye artists I had never heard of, and I’m supposed to be the expert! Then people like Wes Anderson and Sofia Coppola’s brother Roman used some of the ye-ye songs on their soundtracks, and one of them turned up in Mad Men. So for some reason a few people in Los Angeles knew about these obscure French artists.

Gainsbourg, borrow everything from other people’s work?

Yes, but at least he credits it; he’s open about his sources. With Django Unchained he invited Franco Nero from the 1966 original Django to be in the movie. These days it’s more difficult to hide, whereas Gainsbourg didn’t have the internet to reveal his sources. These days, it’s like being in a fancy restaurant where, in the old days, you couldn’t see the kitchen. But today we can see the kitchen. If you can’t see the kitchen, you are free to idealise the work. n Jean Emmanuel Deluxe’s book in English, yéyé Girls of sixties French pop (Feral House) and in French, Tricatel Universalis & les Filles de la Pop (Cocorico) For more information about the Monsieur Deluxe universe, visit www.martyrsofpop.com

But doesn’t Tarantino do the same thing as

146

April March

Magic

DAVID DEVANT & HIS SPIRIT WIFE Gustav Temple meets Graham Carlow, the drummer in the band that took their name from a 19th century magician, to discuss the art and magic of deception

H

“Mickey was an illustrator and once when I went round there he was working on an illustration showing a woman levitating, titled David Devant & His Spirit Wife.

In the band we ended up doing a version of it on stage, using my wife’s nightie on a stick”

ow did David Devant & His Spirit Wife get their name?

Mickey the singer is known in the band as ‘The Vessel’, and when we started he felt he was the vessel for the spirit of the original David Devant, a 19th century magician, to pass through.

He’s really into the complexity of the stage persona – wearing a mask and a wig, being another person on stage. If you know him, it’s clear that the person on stage is very different to the person you know, and they’re both quite strange. I used to go and meet him every Wednesday night and eat beans on toast, and then we’d write a few songs.

148

David Devant performing his most famous trick, ‘Any Drink Called For’

John Nevil Maskelyne

After he’d finished eating, Mickey would quietly say, ‘Thank you beans, thank you toast’. And that’s his real character, as opposed to his stage persona. He teaches illustration, he’s an artist and a writer. His various outlets seem increasingly impenetrable.

A bit like the original David Devant?

Yes! I always think of Devant as the partner of John Nevil Maskelyne, who was the engineer side of their act. He created the mechanics of their shows.

A lot of their shows were much more ambitious mechanically than anything else from that time.

They were huge stage shows with massive props – much more akin to David Copperfield today.

Devant was more the charming conjurer of the act. Originally it was Maskelyne and George Alfred Cooke, but then Cooke died and Devant became the new partner.

“Classic illusion – legerdemain. Point people in the wrong direction. Which is what the band was all about. This is why we were fascinated by the Maskelynes, the idea of the deception of illusion”

Yes, I’ve spent most of my musical career trying to get away from playing the drums! Anyway, as soon as I saw that illustration, I thought David Devant & His Spirit Wife was a brilliant name for a band.

Especially as all the other bands of the time had single names, like Pulp. Our first single was called Pimlico, where Foz had grown up. We spent two weeks building a set to make a video for it. That got shown on MTV for about a month, and then we were signed to a big record label.

Mickey was an illustrator and once when I went round there he was working on an illustration showing a woman levitating, titled David Devant & His Spirit Wife. In the band we ended up doing a version of it on stage, using my wife’s nightie on a stick. Each of the early shows we did was an individual show in itself, with a different theme.

Our first show was upstairs at the Rock Inn, in Kemp Town. They were always supposed to be more like happenings than just music shows.

Also in the band was Foz, who used to be the guitarist in the Monochrome Set. When Mickey met him in a photocopy shop he was bowled over.

Then Foz invited us to come and play him some of our songs, probably thinking we’d bring a tape over.

But we took our guitars and sat on his bed to play him the songs.

There’s no equivalent to MTV now, is there?

It totally shifted how you marketed music. You could now see what the bands actually looked like.

Nowadays you can be any old weirdo in a room putting a record out.

When you watch old episodes of Top of the Pops from the seventies, you realise how ugly most great bands were! They looked like just a bunch

So you were the guitarist then, but now you’re the drummer?

151

A WWII tank disguised as a supply truck, of the sort designed by Jasper Maskelyne

“The delusion of illusion was something he felt that people actually craved. That has always informed the band, the idea of the suspension of disbelief. Everyone knew that Mickey was wearing a wig, but they bought into that”

There is a lot of confusion about his involvement in the War, on top of what was obscured by the official secrets act. Maskelyne was in some sort of camouflage unit that went to North Africa, claiming it was called ‘The Magic Gang’, but I don’t think that was ever corroborated by anyone else. There was a story about him using Worcestershire Sauce to make camouflage paint. He claimed to have worked on ways to make tanks look like supply trucks, and fake tanks that were painted remarkably like some of our stage props. That kind of quick, illusional painting that is just enough to look convincing from a distance.

Classic illusion – legerdemain. Point people in the wrong direction. Which is what the band was all about. This is why we were fascinated by the Maskelynes, the idea of the deception of illusion.

Around John Nevil’s time, there were lots of detractors trying to expose his magic tricks, but he never claimed to have any supernatural powers.

of geezers from the pub. That was the power of MTV. It forced everyone to try and be beautiful.

Our next gig at the Rock Inn was at Christmas, and we served a Christmas dinner to 70 people before the gig, cooked by the pub’s owners. Mickey was on stage under one those massive domes you cover plates with, and he sang the first song with his head sticking out of it.

In fact he wrote a book about that, called Sharps and Flats: A Complete Revelation of the Secrets of Cheating at Games of Chance and Skill, the card sharp’s bible, apparently.

Yes, he was more interested in the public’s willingness to be fooled. The delusion of illusion was something he felt that people actually craved.

That always informed the band, the idea of the

Going back to the Maskelyne influence, I’d only heard of his grandson, Jasper.

He worked on decoy construction during the Second World War, building inflatable tanks, disguised tanks and fake harbours in Portsmouth.

152

David Devant

DEBONAIR MOUSTACHE WAX M ade by Captai n Fawcet t fo r T h e Ch ap

Availab le fro m W W W.T HECHA P.CO.UK

suspension of disbelief. Everyone knew that Mickey was wearing a wig, but they bought into that.

Are you still thought of as a Brighton band?

There always seem to be fewer of those than you’d imagine.

There are more nowadays, like British Sea Power, but Brighton audiences are notoriously fickle. If you start touring and come back to play Brighton, you think of it as a home gig, but there’s very little loyalty. I always put it down to the amount of choice there is. Once you start touring, they flick to something else. Compared to Manchester, for example, or Liverpool. You get a real vivid, vociferous fanbase. I think music, like football, is a more deeply held passion in those cities. n

Is the band still going?

Well Mickey has just written a whole album’s worth of new material, which he was going to release as Mr. Solo. We could have recorded them all as Devant, but because of lockdown it ended up just being me and him recording them remotely. The other members of the band are all busy doing other things. Foz is obsessed with Flamenco, spending as much time in southern Spain as possible.

155

John Minns on the joys of collecting antique items that can also be consumed with an antique stilton

Collecting vintage wines and spirits There are usually a number of factors that make an item or items collectable: the trending fashion and popularity at that time, a certain aesthetic, perhaps some historical content. However, as time passes, there is often an ebb and flow of style and the popularity, and collectability of that particular genre wanes. Murano glass figurines of clowns and the ubiquitous ceramic poodles of the 1960s and 70s now lay covered in dust in dank basements throughout the country.

Vintage wines and spirits, however, have had an unblemished and consistent track record, their popularity and collectability never having diminished. Added to which they cover all of the requirements for the avid collector, including a good financial return for the investor.

One of the intriguing aspects of buying old wines and spirits is the circumstances of its discovery and often the mystery surrounding it, facilitating many an after-dinner tale from the new owner. In 2015, a whole cache of some of the earliest known surviving bottles of Madeira was

found behind a hastily plastered wall in the basement at Kean University in New Jersey. The treasure trove included many incredibly rare bottles of 1796 Lenox Madeira, part of a collection of other wines and spirits believed to have been stashed there during the prohibition era of the 1920s.

New York wine merchant William Sokolin was given a consignment (sale or return) of a bottle of 1787 Chateaux Margaux that had once belonged to the American president Thomas Jefferson, distinguishing its ownership by having the initials

THJ carved into the bottle. It was one of a number of ‘Jefferson’ wines found behind a bricked-up wall in a Paris cellar in 1985. Based on other bottles of Jefferson wine previously sold, Sokolin valued his bottle at $500,000. One evening he was showing off his bottle to a crowd of Oenophiles at the swanky Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan, when he inadvertently bumped into a metal-topped table, shattering the Chateaux Margaux. Sokolin rushed out of the building in distress, commenting that he had “committed murder”. Hearing the kerfuffle, the maître d’ rushed over to the scene, parted the shocked crowd and scooped up a wine-filled shard from the floor. After tentatively tasting it, he was heard to utter the word “Yuck!”

SHIPWRECK FINDS up the Jönköping, sending it to the icy depths of the Baltic Sea. And there the story should have ended. But in 1997, sonar picked up a schooner lying 64 metres beneath the surface.

Due to the advancements of high-definition sonar, more and more shipwrecks are being located on the beds of the oceans around the world. The retrieval of these contents is a huge business in its own right and, because of the potential booty, is backed by eager financial investors.

In 1916 a German U-boat sank the Swedish schooner Jönköping off the Finnish coast on its way to Russia. On board lay some of the finest wines and spirits destined for the imperial Russian court of Tsar Nicholas. However, an unusual anomaly occurred before the sinking of the vessel.

The captain, viewing what he thought was a small island in front of him, then realised it was in fact a U-boat that had just surfaced.

The captain of the U-boat informed the captain of the Jönköping that he intended to blow up their vessel, but before doing so invited the captain and crew to come aboard the submarine, eventually taking them all back to a safe harbor, after blowing

Over 2000 bottles of wines and spirits were found, most notably a number of bottles of 1907 Heidsieck champagne, which was not only still drinkable but also described as one of the finest ever. Having laid dormant and undisturbed beneath the silt, in darkness at a temperature of 4 degrees centigrade with a sea pressure at 64m, the conditions were almost identical to the pressure inside the champagne bottle, preventing the ingress of water and creating perfect storage conditions. It is therefore not surprising that today these bottles change hands for around £ 163,000 each.

In 1924 Mouton Rothschild introduced its first bottle of wine to bear the label featuring the artwork of a contemporary artist named Jean Carlu. It would be the beginning of a tradition that still remains to this day, and later to include artists

such as Picasso, Miro, Chagall and Bacon. Probably its most famous and iconic label, and the one that lifted Chateau Mouton Rothschild into the superleague of winemakers, was the 1945 vintage, with artwork

by Phillipe Julian, bearing the V for victory sign on the label. Despite surviving a severe frost and snow in May, the vines fought back, followed by a blisteringly hot summer that produced a stunningly brilliant wine, still drinkable today. If it has been stored correctly it will set you back around £15,000 a bottle.

ACQUISITION & COLLECTION Over the last few years it has been estimated that around 12,000 public houses, restaurants and hotels have closed in the UK, many of them shutting their doors for good.

Sad as this undoubtedly is, one silver lining of these closures is the wines and spirits that have emerged from cellars, many from old and once-vibrant establishments. They have landed into the hands of general clearance dealers, local auctions and legal entities handling probate. Establishing connections with these various groups could pay dividends to the potential collector.

A WINE AND SPIRITS BROKER

THE FLUMMOXER

This is also someone with whom you can either buy or sell. In most cases, they can give you an online valuation for an item you may wish to sell, or they can facilitate your purchase and also give you regular updates for future investments.

MAJOR AUCTION HOUSES

All of the major auction houses in the UK have their own wine and spirits department, at which you can either bid in person or bid online from the comfort of your armchair. Commission charges are usually around 21%.

SLEUTH WORK

Readers are invited to ponder the purpose of this issue’s antiquity conundrum, and one provider of the correct answer wins a sterling pair of Fox Cufflinks.

It is inevitable that some of the wines and spirits of today will be the sought-after commodities of the future. Study the form and chart their progress, gleaning as much information as possible.

Online wine clubs can give you invaluable updates, and at private wine tastings you can meet other kindred spirits. Your local specialist wine shop can be just as knowledgeable as the team at a major auction house.

WHISKY GALORE

Specialist brokers make it possible to buy a barrel or indeed barrels of whisky insured, stored and secured in an HMRC bonded warehouse, while you sit back and watch your investment grow, typically at around 20% per annum.

James Matthews correctly identified last issue’s flummoxer as a napkin holder that one attaches to one’s shirt.

Send your answer to chap@thechap.co.uk

FAKES

Unfortunately, when so much money can change hands in a single transaction, it can leave room for fakes to rear their ugly heads. It is possible to buy a bottle of wine in perfect condition with the label intact, of a popular contemporary wine such as Screaming eagle from the USA, whose wines sell for thousands of pounds, for just £500 on eBay. However, in some cases, what you will receive is indeed a bottle – just the empty bottle.

POWELL AND AND PRESSBURGER'S CLASSIC WARTIME THRILLER

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURING NEWLY RECORDED AUDIO COMMENTARY AND ARCHIVE CONTENT INCLUDES REPRODUCTION OF ORIGINAL STORYBOOK PLUS LANDMARK DOCUMENTARY TARGET FOR TONIGHT

SPECIAL SUBSCRIPTION OFFER

T

ake out an annual subscription today and receive a FREE copy of Best of The Chap, our 300-page hardback book celebrating 20 years of anarchodandyism. At only £28 for a full year’s subscription, this offers a saving of £15.

EXPAND YOUR MIND, REFINE YOUR WARDROBE AUTUMN 2020

WINTER 2020

ISSUE 105

ISSUE 106

EXPAND YOUR MIND, REFINE YOUR WARDROBE

Martin Freeman

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

“You could say I’m a mod, but with a small ‘m’.

I don’t wear a parka, but I do question what I wear and what I listen to, which is what it’s all about”

FREE COPY

TOM SIMPSON

The dramatic end on Mont Ventoux to the legendary British cyclist’s career

OF BEST OF THE CHAP

TIGER BAY BLUES

Chris Sullivan on how Calypso entered Britain via the Cardiff coast

SCOTT SIMPSON

The Talented Mr. Simpson’s collection of Riviera clothing

“I thought I’d have a go at Everest to sort my vertigo out.

But then I got a heart attack at 28,500 feet, which is a bad time to have a heart attack”

ASTON MARTIN

James Bond stunt driver Ben Collins on crashing Astons for a living

DIANA RIGG

A tribute to the late lamented Mrs Emma Peel

CHAMPAGNE CHARLIE The fizz-swilling bon vivant on his career in showbusiness

05>

9 771749 966087

ISSUE 105

06>

9 771749 966087

£6.99

ISSUE 106

£6.99

EXPAND YOUR MIND, REFINE YOUR WARDROBE

SPRING 2021

SUMMER 2021

ISSUE 107

ISSUE 108

EXPAND YOUR MIND, REFINE YOUR WARDROBE

Josephine Baker

Daniel Day-Lewis

“I wasn’t really naked.

I simply didn’t have any clothes on. A violinist had a violin, a painter his palette.

All I had was myself.

I was the instrument that I must care for”

“I was this wayward guy from South London who didn’t know what to do with his life, then I saw that acting wasn’t only prancing around on stage in tights”

ROARING TWENTIES

OVERLOOK REVISITED

Are we set for another golden age of music, dancing and hedonism?

A trip to St Albans to re-enact scenes from Brideshead Revisited and The Shining

PHARAOHS AND FLAPPERS

STEVE STRANGE

Ancient Egypt’s influence on the fashion and design of the 1920s

THE MARX BROTHERS The winning formula of the zany siblings

Chris Sullivan recalls his crazy days with the doomed dandy in the eighties

HELEN MCCRORY

A tribute to the grand career in film and theatre of the late great star of Peaky Blinders 08>

07> 9 771749 966087

9 771749 966087

ISSUE 107

£6.99

ISSUE 108

£6.99

SIMPLY VISIT WWW.THECHAP.CO.UK/SUBSCRIBE AND USE CODE BOTC21

DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION PLUS FREE DIGITAL EDITION

L IGITA

D ITION FREE ED

For those who simply cannot wait for their next edition of our gentlemen’s publication, one may now download digital editions at a fraction of the print edition price, or take out a digital subscription, at www.pocketmags.com/the-chap-magazine One may sample the goods beforehand, by downloading a completely FREE copy of our digital centenary edition.

Simply visit www.thechap.co.uk for details

CROSSWORD 1

2

3

4

5

6

By Xeno

7

8

9 11

10

12

13 14

15

16 17

18

19

22

20

21

23

24 25

26

27

28

Solutions to crossword 108, CHAP Summer 21 S T R D O U N C R E S T R I R F R U O P

A R G A Z I U S N W N H E D I O E O N S T O P I E D D E N N R D P A N G L E G R N S Q U E C U N E E E A D D E D A E N A B Y

N G F A R A G E S A A T T H E A E N E R V I E N L O G J E O T T A G O S O N H A E E S S I N I

C E A T E E R M E R A M M E R I R C A N

ACROSS DOWN 3 Scamper after diamonds trapped in frozen Across 1. Tax big city lands (7,5) 2. Greek goddess, a stormy smiter (7) water (8) 1 Tax big city lands (7,5) 10. Where one gets paid £200 for being active (2,3,2) 3. Scamper after diamonds trapped in frozen water (8) 4 Gone 10 A Where one gets paidof £200 for being 11. gun is displayed and front house suffer distress active (7) 4. Gone private?

(4) private? (4) 12. Three after Oscar for romantic lead (5) 5.

Unjustified in throwing outin guitars (10) (2,3,2) 5 Unjustified throwing out guitars (10) 13. Shopper’s credit covers American book (8) 6. Expensive bar providing otherwordly masks (5) 11 A gun is displayed and front of house suffer7. Heat gently 6 Expensive bar providing otherwordly mas 15. Intricacies of dancing the hokey cokey (3,3,4) to retain hard lustre (7) distress (7) (5) 16. Old ship oddly lacking bar region (4) 8. Place for staying and getting on with the audience (8,5) 18. welcome if offering 9. Dance 7 heroHeat chap gently Roger... Tulley?

(13) hard lustre (7) 12 G&T Three after Oscar (4)for romantic lead (5) to retain 20. Minstrel graduate, stern after rocky tour (10) 14. Issue with acknowledging the house that’s invisible (6,4) 13 Shopper's credit covers American book (8) 8 Place for staying and getting on with the 22. Not at home, not left completely (8) 17. Authorise antics by mistake, no going back (8) audience (8,5) 15 Twitter’s Intricacies of dancing 24. budget reporting (5) the hokey cokey (3,3,4) 19. Street performance sees a fine return for moguls (3,4) 9 26.

REM going mainstream could show staying power (7) 21.

Use curtains from theatre musical production (7) (13) Dance hero after chap Roger...

Tulley?

16 Old ship oddly lacking bar region (4) 27. Mock one taking M1 to art gallery (7) 23. I’m ringing fashion designer right away: 14 Issue with acknowledging the house that's 18 G&T welcome if offering (4) 28. Foolish and funny looking MP’s lie gets objected to (6-6)

“maybe wait in the wings?” (5) invisible (6,4) 20 Minstrel graduate, stern after rocky tour (10) 25. Strong company (4) 17 Authorise antics by mistake, no going bac 22 Not at home, not left completely (8) 19 Street performance sees a fine return for 24 Twitter's budget reporting (5) moguls (3,4) 26 REM going mainstream could show staying 162 21 Use curtains from theatre after musical power (7) production (7) 27 Mock one taking M1 to art gallery (7) 23 I'm ringing fashion designer right away: