The Story of Jinny

My Grandmothers' Younger Brother, Roy, on Jinny at a Picnic in the Bush, c1900

As a very little kid, my (truly beloved) grandmother used to read me a story she'd written about Jinny, a little Shetland pony owned by her family.

What's so remarkable about this perhaps seemingly unremarkable event is that she was almost totally uneducated - reaching grade four in elementary school. Her family lived on their farm way way (way) out in the country in north eastern Victoria near the New South Wales border. The nearest town was fifty miles away. No roads - just a few dirt tracks. The neighbours miles away.

My Great Grandmother

Somehow, as a young woman, my grandmother had entered the nursing profession, becoming the matron of a hospital in a largish town near Bendigo in central Victoria.

My Grandmother c1915

After her husband died, she turned her mind to new things - one being writing. Poetry came first, with a collection eventually being published, to her almost uncontainable joy. Poems mainly about migrating to Australia in the 1850s and the country life thereafter.

There were also a few short stories, one written for children about a dearly beloved family pet - a Shetland pony named 'Jinny'.

There are many things I love about this particular piece of writing.

Most immediate for me is the obvious love of story telling - a real joy in bringing the late C19 vividly alive for young listeners - 'Jinny' was to be read aloud rather than for reading. And this is realised in part in the language itself, which reads as speech more than prose much of the time.

There is some craft skill in structuring the discourse. We first hear of the arrival of the pony one dark night, and then go back in time to how the little creature had been bought, and to its journey to the farm and its arrival that night - finishing with 'You know what happened after that'.

I'm always surprised how much social history is unobtrusively packed in. In a way that moves the story forward rather than seeming like 'teaching'.

We meet the hawkers who travel from homestead to homestead, their horse-drawn vans traveling shops selling 'darning wool, strong black cotton, bootlaces ... stockings'. At each farm they'd spend a few days, tidying up their shop, doing their washing and giving their horses a rest. Hawkers would have a third horse for when the roads were wet and 'heavy'.

We become aware of the knowledge people had of the different kinds of horses of the day - draught horses, cart horses, saddle hacks and pairs for the buggy.

And aware of domestic social history. That fireplaces had their backs painted white to radiate heat out into the room. And that lamps were moved around the room depending on what people were doing, from the mantle piece to the table and so on. That the primary school curriculum involved 'spelling, tables and poetry'. That 'tea' (dinner) could consist of fried eggs and bacon, and fried bread, and 'fresh bread with melon jam and thick scalded cream, and hot scones and butter'. Yum but mighty cholesterol-ific - so how did my grandmother manage to live to 88 years of age!

And there's also a sense of the world beyond - we hear about Pirate - in the background of the photo, behind Jinny's head - a horse taken by a soldier relation to the Boer War.

Enough yak yak yak, hope you find the story half as charming and engaging as I do.

'Jinny'

This is a true story about a much loved family pet. Our father bought her for us when we were little children.

The little boy sitting on Jinny's back in the photo was our baby brother Roy. It was taken by a travelling photographer at our Pompapiel School picnic.

The horse just beyond Jinny's head was called 'Pirate'. His owner was a friend of ours, who went to the Boer War in South Africa. He was one of the 'Australian Light Horse', and he took Pirate with him to the war. Pirate was a very smart and flash horse before the war, but he looks rather tired in this photo. I suppose he got tired at the war. He was one of lots of horses 'hitched to the posts of the fence for the day', at the picnic.

It was about 6 o'clock on a Friday evening. It was winter, and so it was quite dark, and very cold. There was a lovely log fire blazing in the big whitewashed fireplace at one end of the room, and it was just about teatime.

We had had a bowl of soup when we came home from school, but we were hundgry again by this time and quite ready for our tea.

It was the kind of tea we all loved - fried eggs and bacon and fried bread, then fresh bread and melon jam with thick scaulded cream, and hot scones and butter.

Our mother use to make buttermilk scones, which are really bettter than any other kind of scones - you do not cut them with a knife - you just break them open and put little rolls of butter on while they are hot: the butter melts and 'oh'! I feel hungry when I remember them, and there was hot cocoa made with milk.

We had got our written homework done before the table had to be set for tea, and we were learning our spelling and tables and tables and poetry as we sat on the sofa, and on the floor in front of the fire.

The table was at one end of the room and the sofa at the other sides, and so our mother used to put the lamp on the mantlepiece so that we could all see better. The light from the fire helped us to see better too, when we sat on the floor.

When mother said 'tea's ready' there was a rush to put our books away and 'sit up to the table'. Mother would put the lamp back on the table and someone would say grace, and off we'd go'. No-one liked to be 'Last finished!'

On this Friday night we were all ready to have our tea without any arguing or disputing about anything. We were all extra good, and anxious to get our tea over quickly, because we were waiting for something terribly special. We had never been so excited in our lives.

Well, we had finished our bacon and eggs, and had some bread and jam and cream, and mother had just put a big plate of hot buttermilk scones on the table, when Barney barked.

Barney was our dog.

We all stopped and looked at each other, and mother told us to get on with our tea, and we said we'd all had enough - that we'd had such a big bowl of soup afer school that we couldn't eat another scrap, and please could we leave the table.

Before there was time for her to say 'Yes' or 'No' the door opened and Bob stood in the doorway.

Bob was a very big man, nearly as high as the door, and he had a huge raincoat on with a big cape on it, and so he filled the doorway. He said 'Well, bad luck, I couldn't bring her!'

We all just groaned and sat down.

Mother said, 'What about a hot scone after all?' but we were all too disappointed to bother about eating any more.

And then Bob walked through the doorway and into the middle of the room, and close behind him walked- what we'd been waiting for - the darlingesy little Shetland Pony you ever saw - Bob leading her by her little bridle!

The scramble was dreadful - chairs pushed aside - all of us pushing each other and sort of gasping with delight and surprised, and, well we could hardly believe it.

Bob quietly took a piece of cake from the table and gave it to the pony, and then a lump of sugar, and she just ate both quietly and stood there in the middle of the room.

We were just amazed and thrilled beyond words. We all crowded around her and patted her and cuddled her around the neck, and it was all too wonderful!

The Bob said, Now, she's tired and we must let her go to bed. Tomorrow is Saturday - no school - and you'll be able to see her all day.' Someone got the lantern and we all swarmed out after Bob, who was still leading Jinny. He put her in the loose box in the stable where there was some clean straw on the floor for a bed. He took off her bridle and put some nice sweet hay in the manger and some chaff and oats in the feed box. We wanted to leave the lantern on for her but Bob said there was no need for that, so we said 'Good night' to her and came inside to talk about it all.

Our farm was in the real country - not near a town or even a township.

There were different kinds of animals on the farms and lots of horses for riding and driving and working in the paddocks, but there was not a pony anywhere in that part of the country.

Well, one day our father was at a town (Bendigo) some distance away, and in one of the quiet streets he saw a little black Shetland pony. It had a bridle on and the bridle rein was tied to a post by the footpath. Father went over to it and patted it and spoke to it. He thought of us, his children at home, so he waited over to it and patted it and spoke to it. He thought of us, his children at home, so he waited nearby until a man came up to the pony.

Father spoke to him, and he said the pony belonged to him. Father asked if it would let children ride it and he said 'Yes, Jinny is very quiet.' Father asked him if he would sell her and offered him a good price, and the man said 'Alright', so father bought the pony, and also paid the man a price to take her to 'The Old House At Home. The man said he knew where the place was and that he would take her and leave her there the next week.

'The old House at Home' was a bush inn on the road about thirty miles from the town and people coming to town from the country could get a meal, and stay overnight if they wished. Our farm was about thrity miles farther on.

Father called at 'The old House at Home' and arranged for the man there to take charge of Jinny when she arrived, and look after her till he could get someone to fetch her home.

As well as paying for her 'board and lodging' he paid a special fee (he called it a tip) so that she would be cared for extra well.

When he came home and told us we were delighted, but we didn't quite know what the pony would be like - we had never seen a Shetland pony. though we knew all about draught horses, cart horses, buggy horses, saddle horses, 'pairs' for the buggy, etc.

Father said it might be weeks before he would be able to get someone to bring her home, so we had to be satisfied to wait, but we became sort of heros at the school when the news got around, spead largely by ourselves, that we were getting a pony.

Now, in the country there were no shops, and of course motor cars had not been invented in those days, and so people on farms had to do their shopping mostly from hawkers.

A hawker was a man who had a shop in a big van which he drove around the country. It was drawn by two horses, or sometimes three if the roads were very wet and muddy - (they called them 'heavy' roads), and he used to call at the farms to sell his goods.

Sometimes the mothers on the farms would be 'right out' of darning wool or strong black cotton or bootlaces, or someone would need new stockings, and so they were always glad to see the hawker coming.

He would always be invited to have a meal; or to stay the night at whichever farm he arrived at at evening time. He slpet in his van.

Well, Bob was a hawker, and he often used to stay for the week-end at our place, to do his washing, give his horses a spell, and tidy up his 'shop'.

And so father arranged for Bob to collect Jinny next time he was passing 'The old House at Home' after being to the town to buy things for his 'shop'. He often used to do messages for our parents and his other customers when he went to the town. He said it would be no trouble to bring Jinny. He owuld have to tie a rope to her bridle rein, and tie the rope to the back of the van, and just lead her that way.

They would not travel very fast and she would be able to trot along quite comfortably. They would stop for a drink of water and a feed of chaff once or twice, by the roadside, and she would be able to eat some grass while they were resting.

Well, Bod expected to be coming on that Friday, for the weekend. He was not there when we got home from school, and he was still not there when it was dark - and six o'clock - and tea time, and we were all asking mother and father lots of questions about it, and they could only say 'Well, I don't know dear'. Everything was most uncertain - and then Barney barked.

You know what happened after that.

Strange How Things Travel About

I was thinking this morning how strange it is the way things unexpectedly move about the globe.

A few years back, we were rough travelling through the rice terraces of Northern Luzon.


It's an area so rugged it was quite isolated during the Spanish occupation and only visited by non-Filipinos in the 1950s - by American missionaries.

We'd hiked into Sagada, one of the larger towns of the region, and were walking down the main street when we wandered into a shop ...


... and happened to notice a highly patinated old hat worked from very finely woven reeds and topped by a carved wooden anito or animist figure.

I'm not sure what the shop-keepers imagined we might buy as we wandered around but they were highly amused when we said were interested in the hat - it was the everyday head gear of the owner's grandfather.

We struck a deal to everyone's satisfaction ... and this beautiful hand-crafted object duly took its place in our ever-expanding collection of travel bring-backs.

Strange how things move about the globe.

So are you guys rabid collectors and hoarders like us?

Ways to Learning What's Worthwhile and Bertrand Russell

Rather against conventional wisdom, I've found most of what I've learned that I thought was in any way worthwhile (precious little though it may be) has been in odd unheralded moments and passing chat.

And I was reminded of this again yesterday, re-reading the Sandra Jobson Darroch biography of Lady Ottoline Morrell - the great hostess of the Bloomsbury Group, described by Virginia Woolf as like a great Spanish galleon hung with gold coins and silken sails.

Taking her daughter Julian out of school, Lady Ottoline declared:

You'll learn much more sitting by the fire listening to Bertie Russell talk

And though I've read a bit of Russell (the autobiography, Human Society in Ethics and Politics and other stuff) it's really watching film of him interviewed that's had the most impact. And lead to the most fruitful conversation.

Like this wide-ranging 1959 interview where Russell talks over much of what happened during his life. The beginning of first part gets a bit bogged down in introductory stuff - but things begin to get interesting around the four minute mark ...

I've just watched it again ... this time with a friend, and again it's almost magically lead to excited discussion.

Hope you get something out of it - as we did.

Just Too Tempted

As you well know, this type of cutesy post is not what I usually do ('de trop' as Bette Midler put it in 'The Divine Miss M') ... but today the temptation was just too great ...




I think it was the way he seemed to eye me off as he hurriedly gobbled down bits of my scone ... like some child who kinda knows s/he is doing something naughty but thinks a bold face might just disguise this or distract me!

Anthropomorphising gone wild!

There was also something comic in this little creature getting the evidence of his 'crime' all over his beak!

The Fabulous 'Belle Otéro’

- Carolina Otéro (1868-1965)

I've been on the edge of this post for quite a bit - but it had seemed to fit me into a category in which I didn't think I necessarily belonged!

Whatever, here goes.

As a kid, I had a late C19 postcard of ‘La Belle Otéro’, a larger-than-life figure of the stage who seemed at the same time both fabulously beautiful, and curiously and sensually modern - a kind of Mata Hari without espionage. This unusual mix in part reflected, I later realised, her 'unconventional' theatrical beginnings.



Years passed as they do. And I hadn't given a thought to 'La Belle Otéro'.

And then to my utter amazement, I recently saw some film of her dancing ‘La Valse Brillante’ in St Petersburg in 1898 - shot by French film operator Felix Mesguich, a Lumiere Brothers employee.

There is such unexpected gusto and exuberance in the performance that I was curious to find out more about this intriguing character, who had made such an early appearance on my radar.

Barcelona born, Carolina Otéro worked her way through cafes, bordellos and music halls to become employed at the Folies Bèrgere in Paris in 1889, creating the gypsy character ‘La Belle Otéro’. Not unlike Louise Weber had done had done with the persona of ‘La Goulue’ (‘The Glutton’) at Le Moulin Rouge. But with the Spaniard being perhaps more on the 'refined' side.

It was at the Folies Bèrgere that Otéro indistinguishably meshed her private and public image– in part through a wardrobe of outlandish clothing, including her famous jewel and pearl encrusted brassieres.



(Please refrain from the obvious comment here! LOL)

From Paris, Otéro launched herself on the world – travelling and performing in all corners of the globe - Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Paris … .

Carolina Otero 'La Belle Otero' by Leo Rauth (1910)

And became, it was thought, the lover of King Edward VII, Tsar Nicholas II, the Grand Duke Peter, the Duke of Westminster … .



She amassed and lost a fortune ... in the approved manner.

At the height of her career, Otéro declared ...

Women have one mission in life: to be beautiful. When one gets old, one must learn how to break mirrors

However something of the allure of this actress/dancer/Folies Bèrgere star/courtesan lingers on today ...


... as legend has it that her breasts were the inspiration in 1912 for the cupolas of the Carlton Hotel in Cannes, France.

Cousin Of The One That Got Away

'Sydney Harbour by Night' Brett Whiteley - Linocut on Rice Paper 34x34 cm (1981)

Flicking through a book on the iconoclast Australian artist Brett Whiteley (1939-1992) I came across the linocut above ... and felt yet another sharp pang of regret for its cousin that got away.

Brett Whitely

You know those auctions where you set yourself a limit and rather foolishly stick to it ... only to have the work knocked down just a smidgeon above. An event which is usually followed by teeth gnashing and various forms of mental self-abuse.

What I particularly liked about both works is the economy with which the Sydney Harbour scene is conveyed - through just a few lines and shapes. And the powerful sense of night that is achieved by these forms being in white rather black - almost giving the feeling of a photographic negative.

Whitely worked in many styles but I very much like his uncompromisingly sensual and erotic figurative painting with its distortion and exaggeration, not unlike the C16 Mannerists. It's not 'polite' work but deliciously confronting.

'Woman in Bath' (1964)

'Washing the Salt Off' (1985)

'Portrait of Wendy' - Oil, material, pencil, charcoal, pen and ink on paper

This sexual charge also infuses his landscapes ...

'Summer at Carcoar' (1977) - Oil and mixed media on pine board, 244x199 cm

Whiteley challenged in his choice of material - such as including samples of his own hair stuck to the canvas of a self portrait - and in his selection of subject matter - such as dog pisses ...

'The 15 Great Dog Pisses of Paris' (1989)

... often exploring boundaries and crossing them deep into new territory.

I guess being the kind of gay guy I am, I can appreciate Whiteley's being drawn to rebellion and excess. He lived large and died at 53 of a drug over-dose.

His wife Wendy opened a large black-tie retrospective in Sydney a few years back and, looking round at the work hung on the walls, said she was glad so see so many of her old 'friends' again. Adding that many had originally been sold to pay for the 'exotic substance's they were using at the time.

There was an almost audible recoil from the 'black ties' - and I was very glad that, even in her little black dress and pearls, Wendy had not completely passed over into the art establishment!

Okay, writing about 'The one That Got Away' and shamefully using you in the process has calmed me. A bit. For the moment ... and till next time. And there certainly will be a next time. Bugger!

Monday, February 15, 2010

The Past in the Present

'Still Life of Arum Lilies and Tulips' 1940 (Gouache and Oil on Paper on Board, 72 x 47 cm)

So very strange how your past can collide back into your present.

When I was living in London as a kid, I knew Eve Disher (1894-1991).

Eve Disher as I Knew Her - We're Just About to Head Out for Dins

In her eighties then, she'd been a minor painter connected with the Bloomsbury Group, whose central and more periphery members included at various times Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Clive and Vanessa Bell, Lytton Strachey, the economist John Maynard Keynes, D H Lawrence, Bertrand Russell and E M Forster.

As I mentioned in a previous post (Lady Ottoline Morrell and Sociability), Eve very much influenced how I engage other people, or try to. When I first met her in her large Eccleston Square flat, wall-papered with the history of British avante garde painting of the first half of the C20, she sat me down and said 'Hello, I'm Eve. Lovely to meet you! Tell me all about yourself'. Which was not condescension or a segue just to talk about her own life. And I've attempted to hold on tight to this idea of intense selfless warmth and empathy ever since. E M Forster's 'only connect'.

Now, quite recently, I was browsing through eBay, as you do, when I stunned to see a somewhat familiarish painting of Eve's on offer from someone in France. And with a click of my ruby credit cards, the work was on my doorstep 3/4 days later.

When I turned it over, I noticed 'Provenance: The Artist's Collection' ...


... and was over-whelmed with emotion, realising the work was one I'd seen hanging on one of her walls way back when.

It seems to me time is not linear, but the past infused in the present.

And I'm now more intensely aware of Eve in my life, thanks to the near magic of online purchasing!

What's in a Name - Le Lapin Agile

Le Lapin Agile

Just when you think you knew it!

Montmartre of the late C19 has always had the strongest fascination for me, particularly the establishments that emerged there to meet certain of the shall we say more basic needs of intellectuals, artists, writers, the upper classes, politicians and so on.

While these venues presented genuine artists, such as the cabaret singer Yvette Guilbert ...

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec 'Yvette Guilbert' 1894

... many of the 'performers' had parallel careers as persons of easy virtue, like the famed Can Can dancer La Goulue (Louise Weber, 1866-1929) ...


... who was the undisputed and highly paid star of the Le Moulin Rouge ...


Other similar music halls in Montmartre were Le Moulin Radet ...


... and Le Moulin de la Galette ...

Le Moulin de la Galette 1885

Vincent van Gogh 'Le Moulin de la Galette' (1886)

Other watering holes of the demi monde were cafes, such as Le Chat Noir ...



... and Le Lapin Agile ...

Le Lapin Agile 1880-1890

Le Lapin Agile with the proprietor, Frédéric Gerard, aka le père Frédé, playing the guitar (c1905)

Now - slowly slowly - we're getting to the point of the post!

In 1875, a sign was painted for 'Le Cabaret des Assassins' at 22 rur des Saules in Montmartre.

It showed a rabbit jumping out of a saucepan. Hence, I thought, the name of the cafe - agility does of course keep rabbits out of cooking utensils and off dinner tables, yeah?

However ... the painter's name was Andre Gill and so locals gradually began to call the cafe 'Le Lapin à Gill' (Gill's rabbit) - which I imagine evolved, as things do, into 'Le Lapin Agile' (the nimble rabbit. Though perhaps both meanings were intended at the outset.

At the century turned over, the 'Le Cabaret Au Lapin Agile' was attracting artists and writers, such as Picasso, Utrillo and Apollinaire. Who often recorded the goings on. Classic Montmartre stuff.

Pablo Picasso 'Au Lapin Agile' (1905)

Now, I very much like the notion of time travelling back - even just for a moment - to any or all of these establishments.

And it seemed momentarily possible this morning when I came across a tiny piece of early C20 French film.

It shows a bunch of people in Montmartre walking past 'Le Rat Mort' (the dead rat) ...


... and then we see the briefest camera shot of Gill's sign through the branches of a tree, an image in which we can just make out the legs of the infamous rabbit as it leaps out of a pan sitting on a bottle strewn table ...


Or are we alternatively looking at an early form of Rorschach inkblot test!

The footage then leads into the outside front patio of Le Lapin Agile, with its benches and tables just as pictured in the photograph and painting above. But with with the addition of a maid, a small donkey, and the patron's dog. The requisite writers/painters/poets/whatever are there cogitating away round a table in the background ...


The capped man in the middle ground tries not too successfully to drive the donkey out of frame with a little cane ...


Finally we have the patron himself, Frédéric Gerard, known as le père Frédé ...


... with his back against open window shutters and puffing away on his pipe, for all the world a dead ringer for Santa Claus.

Ok, I'm just going to step into my tardis ... and while I'm away ...

... I hope you'll enjoy this just half as much as I did making it!