Traces Remain
Anyone approaching this collection of twenty-five articles, spanning over twenty years, would do well to consider Nicholls’ own observation : “ … I have always found the details of History more interesting, or anyway more evocative, than the larger perspectives of History.” Nicholls writes of real historical evidence: primary evidence, bits and pieces of detail; the reports of eyewitnesses.
His reputation as an historical detective, established by his work on Christopher Marlowe, Leonardo da Vinci and Shakespeare, is further enhanced by this essay collection. The worlds he writes of are not just brought to life. They are entirely reconstructed through his imagination, using the very evidence he refers to: the traces that remain.
As with most collections, there are some pieces which absorb less than others. There are articles which might well be classified as extended travel writing, for example. However, at least half of the pieces show his forensic skills at their finest. Shakespeare and Ben Jonson re-emerge; Nicholl takes a fresh look at Jack the Ripper; a “four in a bed” scandal, involving visiting Frenchmen, from 1613 is re-examined; and he asks what really happened to the famous English alchemist who disappeared in Bohemia in the late sixteenth century.
Sometimes idiosyncratic, but always highly readable, the bulk of this collection both entertains and satisfies.
Traces Remain by Charles Nicholl Published by Allen Lane ISBN : 978 0 713 99494 0
Reviewed by Les Tucker Les enjoyed a teaching career in Further and Higher Education, moving from English to leading a Drama and Performing Arts Department. He studied Spanish History at University and still lists History as one of his main interests. He has never stopped being a trainspotter and wears his anorak with pride. His other sources of pleasure, if not profit, are the Turf, the British brewing industry and experimental theatre. Les is a scriptwriter and drama examiner. He describes himself as an omnivore where books are concerned.
My Christmas Chocolate Treats
We love chocolate. Not the sweet, cloying stuff you can buy in big bars, made using all kinds of ingredients and added chemicals.
Oh no. We love dark, dark chocolate often referred to by is percentage cocoa solids. One such is the Divine 70% Dark Chocolate with Ginger and Orange. Suitable for vegetarians and carrying the Kosher mark, it is available in Sainsburys nationwide and online £1.69.
Divine chocolate is only made with the best Fairtrade cocoa beans from Kuapa Kokoo, a coopertive of smallholder farmers in Ghana. Many of you will know all about Divine chocolate, but have you noticed the brand new Christmas gift boxes – dark chocolate disks with mint, and dark chocolate with raspberry.
The raspberry taste is really fantastic, the aroma is enticing and the taste confirms your wise decision to eat it!
All the chocolate is free from artificial flavourings, preservatives and colourings.
Available from Waitrose, Booths, Liberty of London and Oxfam. RRP £4.50
The other Divine chocolate allowed in the house – not much is because we just eat it until it has gone and then we feel rather guilty – is the 70% Dark Chocolate Covered Salted Fudge. This is a serious grown-up fudge, you experience a mouthful of delightful textures and tastes. Like no other fudge we have ever come across, we will have a secret stock … Only offered to those who really appreciate unusual, top quality confectionary!
Read all about the Divine range on their website where you will find recipes for cooking with chocolate … They have a shop on line as well.
The Best of Christmas Spirits
A little of what you fancy does you good, with the emphasis on little, we were intrigued with the Cocktail Bitters Traveller’s Pack. This little box contains tangy aromatic bitters with hints to cinnamon, cardamom, anise and cloves, gingerbread aromas perfectly suited to drinks based on spirits like Whisky, Rum, Brancy and Tequila. We made up several cocktails Manhattan Cocktail, Dry Martini Coctail, Brandy Cocktail, Bloody Mary and Old Fashioned Cocktail. All went down a treat with no particular favourite emerging … After trying all five! It was fun making up these wellknown cocktails and kept us entertained for an evening. These bitters come in a neat metal container, ideal if you want to make and enjoy your own cocktails when away without paying what are sometimes extortionate prices. Unusual liqueurs are also available to liven up things: Apricot Liqueur, Pimento Dram, Violet Liqueur for instance and of course Sloe Gin with tonic. Have you ever tried Sloe Gin with champagne? Do try it, lovely on a hot summer’s afternoon. More information and cocktail recipes on the website.
We also came across Abelha Organic Cachaça, a very unusual spirit made from fresh sugar cane with no pesticides nor artificial fertilisers, fermented with natural yeasts, and aged in native ash barrels. Find out more about this most unusual spirit from Brazil on www.abelha.co.uk.
While on the subject of the unusual, we have been trying Harveys Bristol Cream served over ice with a slice of orange. Rather good, and then, for the purpose of making sure Aunt Aggie is fully catered for, we have tried drizzling Harveys VORS Pedro Ximénez 30 y.o. over creamy vanilla ice cream. This is just fantastic. With any luck you might have some over for Boxing Day … Although we have the suspicion that it won’t last. It was absolutely fab. 
Do try some. There are more suggestions and cocktail tips on the Harveys website www.harveyshalfhour.co.uk.
And finally we tried a Funkin Mixer – Strawberry Woo Woo with a shot of vodka. This was so well received we had to fight off the staff. One swig and they were hooked! We had to promise to get some for our office get together on Friday. When we found the order line we were hard pressed to choose which ones, in the end we chose a Party Pack so everyone will be happy – especially on Friday.
Wishing you good fun with your Festive Spirits!
Val Reynolds Brown
Tear Aid – a lifeline for harassed parents
This product is a bit like turkish delight, full of promise and seemingly a godsend for parents with children when urgent reliable repairs to equipment, toys and ‘stuff’ are needed. Probably most useful during the summer months when kids are outdoors using playthings, now is a good time to stock up.
Tear-Aid is a transparent, water- and airtight patch which can instantly and permanently repair tears or holes in paddling pools, lilos, sun shades and even bicycle inner tubes. Between them they can fix tears in almost anything – from tents to beach toys to space hoppers! The patches are quick and easy to use – simply cut to size, peel and stick with no glue or mess. Each repair can last for years, saving you money on costly replacements and keeping the kids entertained all through the summer.
There are two types available – an all-purpose fabric patch and another designed specifically for vinyl products. Tear Aid patches are made from exceptionally tough, matt, abrasion resistant material that resists punctures and tearing. It is designed to provide a strength to a variety of surfaces such as canvas, leather, rubber, nylon, most plastics, paints, aluminium, stainless steel, fibreglass, polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene, vinyl and vinyl coated.
Tear Aid type A (fabrics) and Tear Aid type B (vinyls) provide a simple and easy method of patching holes and tears as well as an excellent protective film solution.
An ideal stocking/tree present.
For more information or to buy, visit http://www.tear-aid.co.uk/or call sales on 01889 270 663.
Katie Goodshaw, harassed parent and occasional contributor to In Balance Magazine
Great Railway Maps of the World
A colourful and beautifully realised book that details different railway maps, past and present, from around the world. The scale of the reproductions limits the use of the book as a reference work – some of the maps can only be interpreted with high magnification – but its true worth lies in its artistic presentation of the varying styles adopted in mapping railway systems.
The accompanying text is clear and comfortingly non-specialist, and the book is enriched by the inclusion of advertising poster images commissioned by railway companies.
The book also tries to show in several cases how railway systems have shrunk – USA and the United Kingdom being familiar examples – and also how developing countries have grown their networks. The book uses these as examples only, for its aim is not to provide a comprehensive history of the railways of the world. What it does do, in its 138 pages, is to show how the functional railway could make striking use of art and design in proclaiming its identity and in marketing its services.
Author: Mark Ovenden Publisher: Particular Books ISBN: 978 1 84614 392 5
A history of the World in 100 Objects
Oh yes, this is dip in reading for at least a year! With 100 historical objects to read about, from the earliest surviving object made by human hands to the 100th object – a solar powered lamp and charger it would fascinate anyone interested in man’s history.
The BBC wanted a series of talks about historical objects that previous civilisations have left behind them, often accidentally, as prisms through which we can explore past worlds and the lives of the men and women who lived in them. They collaborated with the British Museum and the chosen range of objects is enormous. Those talks were broadcast on Radio 4 and are still available via the web where you will also find a list of the objects, access to the programmes and other related and relevant information. Each day shows a different object.
In the book Neil MacGregor shows us the significance of each object, how a stone pillar tells us about a great Indian emperor preaching tolerance to his people, how Spanish pieces of eight tell us about the beginning of a global currency, or how an early Victorian tea set tells us about the impact of empire.
Polished stone axe made from jadeite quarried in the Italian Alps found in Canterbury © Trustees of the British Museum
Each immerses you the reader in a past civilisation accompanied by an exceptionally well informed guide.
This is truly a feast of information, well written, easy to assimilate and most memorable.
It is a family book too, not just for dad. I’m sure many a pupil will find the book a very good source of reference. It is a triumph of planning and dissemination.
Reviewed by Bob Beaney, social observer and guest contributor
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Great Gifts – Garden Tools
Christmas is a good time to make reference to those gifts you would really like to receive! Here are some Fiskar gardening tools we have tried this year and recommend highly.
Fiskars X17 Splitting/Felling Axe £59.99
600 mm long this is a beautifully made axe, well balanced, a nice weight and with a hand stop at the end – important for a good, accurate swing. The shaft itself has an anti-shock soft grip. The shaft is fibreglass with a good feel and easily cleaned. The blade is mortised into a tenon joint in the fibre glass shaft. The blade itself is double hardened and has an excellent safety cover with a carrying handle, or can be hung from a loop passed through to the eyelet at the end of the shaft. The fibreglass design eliminates the weakness of the older style hickory-shafted axes, where the blades becoming loose have the obvious danger of flying heads.
Fiskars X5 Trekking/Camping Axe £39.99
A light fibreglass shafted hand-axe, ideal for chopping firewood – wish I had the use of one of these when I was in the Scouts! It will do well for chopping brushwood in the garden too. Light, it is easily kept in the back pack. Comes with a neat safety cover and is easily hung up using the loophole at the end.
Fiskars Patio Broom £19.99
This broom head is absolutely excellent. The bristles are tough enough to get out weeds from between our paving slabs and does an excellent job when collecting leaves. With its QuikFit handle which you can use for other tools, it means less space is taken up in the shed and few handles to trip over! Be sure to choose the right length of handle/shaft £18.99 for you, there are several to choose from. It might be best to buy at a garden centre than on the web.
Fiskars Trowel £8.99
I was intrigued by the novel appearance of this trowel, and then sceptical. Familiar only with the metal variety, I felt sure that the lack of a metal cutting edge doomed it to failure, but I was pleasantly surprised. It performed very well in the extremely dry soil of my garden this summer, and has continued to be perfectly satisfactory so far this autumn, but due to the continuing lack of serious rainfall I haven’t been able to test it in genuinely wet, heavy soil.
Perversely, one of its good points is also a weakness. It weighs almost nothing, which has led me to forget its presence several times and throw it into the compost heap. I think it would benefit from being produced in a brighter colour as at the moment it’s only too easy to lose if it’s lying on the ground, or in a heap of weeds. (A red ribbon fed through the hanging hole would work (Ed)).
So, it’s Fiskars for us this year and for some of our friends in 2012!
Reviewed by John Reynolds, Katie Longland & Janet Hamer, contributing authors
Our Top Ten SIMPLY SUPER Christmas Gifts
In the space of a year we see a fair number of items we rather like. Here are our top ten we think would make fabulous, interesting and thoughtful gifts for Christmas 2011. They are of course equally appropriate at other times of the year.
Jean Christophe Novelli - Connoisseur Knives
1. Novelli Cooking Knives
These knives will last a lifetime, in fact they are designed to last for more than one generation. Beautifully balanced, made from the best of materials they are a joy to work with. We love using them. More …
Wolsztyn Steam Train Centre © Trevor Jones
2. A Footplate Holiday in Poland – The Steam Engine Enthusiast’s Dream More …
3. However this beautiful book Great Railway Maps of the World may be a less generous gift than a trip to Poland but just as acceptable we’re sure. More …
4. Forever Rumpole
The loveable legal rough diamond Horace Rumpole who refers to his wife as She who must be obeyed, conjures up an appropriate bon mot whatever the occasion. Forever Rumpole is a fine choice for bedtime reading. More …
5. A History of the World in 100 Objects
Oh yes, this is bedtime reading for at least a year! This is a great dip into book, with 100 historical objects to read about, from the earliest surviving object made by human hands to the 100th object – a solar powered lamp and charger. It would fascinate anyone interested in man’s history. Wonderful book. More …
6. Garden tools Investing in garden tools can be a hit and miss affair but here are three we have tried and liked for their utility. We loved the Fiskar trowel, patio broom and axes – our choice for 2012. More …
Fiskar Trowel
7. Growing plants from seeds is one of our passions. We usually go for Thompson & Morgan seeds but sometimes when we can’t find what we are looking for, we look at the Sow Seeds website. A small independent seed business based in Cheshire offering the home gardener, allotment holder and commercial growers the finest quality seeds at great prices it is worthy of support. They provide Gift Vouchers and Seed Boxes,
ideal gifts for beginner gardeners and old timers alike.
A
nd for those you know who suffered in the drought this year we highly recommend having some Supa Drippas to hand just in case it happens again next year. More …
8. Our kitchen waste is now being collected in the kitchen itself, saves us going down the garden in all weathers. This is achieved because we are now using a Bokashi composter – the micro organic process with no smell. Believe us when we say it is so good we keep telling everyone about it! And it is our favourite gift to our gardening friends. More …
9. For every harassed Mum or Dad – the answer to replacing damaged playthings! Saves a fortune – a lifeline especially to anyone not handy with broken stuff. A great stocking filler/tree gift. More …
Getting ready to taste eight different wines to match with Festive food
10. Our final suggestion is a course at the Wine Academy in Queen Anne St, Marylebone, for anyone you know interested in knowing much more about wine. We recently attended a wine and food matching course, absolutely excellent, led by Suzy Atkins, wine writer for The Times. We can’t rate this highly enough. Fantastic gift. We will be writing about our experience in the near future.
Val Reynolds Brown, Editor
Forever Rumpole – a wonderful read
Forever Rumpole contains what John Mortimer described as the best of the Rumpole stories. Fourteen stories, the first published in 1978, the last in 2004 together with the text of the last, unfinished, story – Rumpole and the Brave New World.
Mortimer had a truly unique style of writing and great powers of description …
I didn’t sleep well that night. Whether it was the Majestic mattress, which appeared to be stuffed with firewood, or the sounds, as of a giant suffering from indigestion, which reverberated from the central heating, or mere anxiety about the case, I don’t know. At any rate Albert and I were down in the cells as soon as they opened.
Mortimer was an excellent raconteur with a fund of stories to tell. His after dinner speeches were legendary and Anne Mallalieu, who worked with him for many years, describes a dinner where he had an audience of over a thousand people in the palm of his hand, a gift given to a very few.
I had a wonderful time with Rumpole, going to and from the Bailey, Wormwood Scrubs, meeting his most valued clients the Timsons, going home to Hilda, She Who Must be Obeyed, at 25B Froxbury Mansions in Gloucester Road, having a drink in Pommeroy’s Wine Bar, and getting to meet his colleagues Miss Phillida Trant, Claude Erskine-Brown and Uncle Tom among many others.
This book is an excellent bedtime read, it will send you asleep in a good humour!
To find out much more about Rumpole here is an excellent website
Forever Rumpole is published by Penguin Viking ISBN 978 0 670 91936-9
Reviewed by Philippa Green, contributing author
SIMPLY SUPER Gifts: 2 A Steam Train Experience in Poland
Steam loco Tr5 65, Wolsztyn, Poland
Most unexpectedly in 2009 I went on a three day trip to see trains! Steam trains in particular. We started with some wonderful, typically Polish, meals in Poznan – authentic beetroot soup, wonderful gnocchi with crisped bacon pieces, onion and cream cheese, I can remember it even now, two years later!
I was on my way to Wolsztyn (pronounced Voltzteen), a mecca for steam railway enthusiasts who flock to see the only regular steam hauled service in Europe, possibly the world. (The only other known regularly steam services are in China, mostly mining sites taking miners to mines with some routes up to 40 miles long!)
Steam trains between Wolsztyn and Poznan are scheduled twice a day, seven days a week, taking 4,000 passengers, including commuters, per day and about 2,000 tons of freight per week.
On the first weekend of May each year, train enthusiasts from across the world descend on Wolsztyn to watch the Steam Parade, with more than a dozen steam trains from Poland and Germany in operation around the depot in Wolsztyn, along with some rather special parades of steam locomotives. The spectacle of steam trains racing through the station is a highlight of the event. Apparently the event is so popular it is known for accommodation in the town to be booked a year ahead.
Loco Tr5 65
When we took the steam train 70 kilometre to Wolsztyn a huge locomotive had been commandeered into service to replace the usual engine which had been hired out for a private trip. News of the change in loco, the Tr5 65, had aroused a lot of interest and train enthusiasts with cameras were on many of the station platforms we passed through. In view of its age our loco’s maximum speed was only 60 km an hour.
As soon as we left Poznan station a flood of memories returned from my childhood – we used to go to the south coast for summer holidays … the smell of burning coal, the hissing steam, the sound of the hooter, the clouds of black smoke. The notices on the sash windows DO NOT LEAN OUT OF THE WINDOWS reminded me of my mother vividly describing how I would lose my sight if a hot coal smut burned my eye … sufficiently alarming to prevent me from disobeying!
I remembered the sepia photographs in wooden frames of the English country and seaside scenes above the seats and being bounced up and down by the seat’s strong springs. I remember too the slam of the doors, the brass handles and the leather sashes with holes you used to move the windows up and down, or was that recall of the Lavender Hill Mob or David Lean’s Brief Encounter? Whatever, I was swept back to the 1950’s!
A sad row of discarded locos
The train reached Wolztyn on time and we stared at the rows of engines, not so much mothballed as just shunted into line like a row of dusty old elephants. Further on at the Wolsztyn depot, home to a large number of abandoned and withdrawn engines moved there from now closed steam locomotive depots all over Poland, it’s possible to examine these at close quarters – a trainspotters/enthusiast’s dream! I found it all rather sad, but for enthusiasts absolutely fascinating.
The Poles are very proud of the steam train facility and once a year Children’s Day on 1 June a five hour, 250 km trip to Kolobrezeg is organised to raise awareness, eight carriages take up to 500 children for a delightful experience.
We watched our locomotive refuelling and rewatering. A long, labour intensive process with the odd moment of unexpected drama. The hot cinders being raked out from beneath the firebox on to the ground below glowed red that generated huge clouds of steam when water was poured on to cool them. The smell, and sound were high pitch. The coal had to be replenished using an old creaky crane and the water tank refilled with an exciting (for the children and photographers!) moment when it overflowed all over the rear of the engine like a waterfall.
Overflowing water tank
Then the engine was turned to face the other direction for the return trip. We had a ride on the turntable and walked round the worksheds with their inspection pits and rows of tools to perform all manner of different repairs and maintenance.
It’s possible to hire a steam engine with carriages of your choice for a personal trip. How about a wedding reception on a train moving through the countryside with the steam blowing and whistle sounding, what fun waving at people at stations especially for kids!
Book with Fundacja Era Parowozow www.eraparowozow.pl
For more information about Wolsztyn Steam Trains go to www.polandpoland.com/wielkopolskie.html and click on Wolsztyn in the place names list. That webpage also gives information on renting a holiday apartment, Polish translation, Polish Ancestry Research, Guided Tours of Poland.
For details of Footplating Holidays in Poland organised by a UK company see this link
I flew from Stansted to Poznan via Ryan Air.
The trip was organised by Polish National Tourist Office http://www.poland.travel:80/en-us/pot_front_page#
Photography © Pintail Media
Web Links www.eraparowozow.pl www.polandpoland.com/wielkopolskie.html www.poland.travel
All photographs © Pintail Media
