I’ve subsequently admired her work (in particular the very large painting which is on the wall of the barn at Cotehele), but it was only two years ago that I was able to find out about her exhibition in advance, so was able to go, this time on the first day. Lots of the paintings were sold then, too, but we have had one on our living room wall for the last two years.

This year, Virginia Spiers was kind enough to send an invitation to the private view on Saturday 28 May. Unfortunately I had already booked a holiday that week staying at Port Sunlight on the Wirral, but with some persuasion of family members I arranged to go down to Cornwall on the Friday night to attend the exhibition on the following morning. The paintings were sublime. I have a preference for the Cornish ones myself, but that’s because I think Mary captures the beauty of the Tamar Valley so well, and it’s an area I’m very fond of.

As a bonus, we now have to go back in a month or so to collect the picture we bought, and the fact we bought one helps justify our travelling from Surrey to Cheshire via Cornwall. We fortified our souls for the motorway journey to the Wirral by wandering round Cotehele Quay, garden, and Gallery, as well as having lunch at the Edgcumbe Arms

Port Sunlight is a wonderful place too. Driving up the New Chester Road I told my daughter that we were very nearly there, and her face fell, but turning off that main road into Port Sunlight is a little like passing through the back of the wardrobe, or stepping out of the shack when the tornado has passed. From the sort of drab, faceless twentieth-century ribbon development found on any arterial road in any conurbation, to late nineteenth/early twentieth century garden village, Nearly all the buildings are Grade II listed, although I was very disappointed with the Lutyens houses (disappointing on two levels – not as good as most of the other buildings in the village, and not anywhere near as good as anything else of his I’ve seen). Lever employed a number of the best architects of the day to design blocks of housing, and the effect is very pleasing, with no two stretches of buildings being exactly the same. The houses had bathrooms and gardens, and there were large areas of allotments for vegetable growing. It’s true to its ‘Garden Village’ label, as well, with vast areas of greenery and flowers.

There are things of historical interest in the surrounding area, too. Bromborough Pool has a model village, built for the workers of Price’s Patent Candle Company half a century before Port Sunlight, small but with its own school and church, and now looking a little forlorn among the retail and light industrial parks. Between Port Sunlight and Bromborough Pool, the bridge over the River Dibbins has World War II pillboxes. Driving through I had seen the two at either side of the southern end of the bridge, but it would appear that there’s one at the northern end too.

The Lady Lever Art Gallery is a nationally important gallery; the current exhibition is The Finishing Touch: women’s accessories, 1830-1940. The gallery has some excellent Pre-Raphaelite works, including, for example, The Blessed Damozel by Dante Gabriel Rosetti.

What’s astonishing is that this was all from the pocket of one man – William Hesketh Lever, later Viscount Leverhulme, and, not only did he build this company village, he also was a benefactor elsewhere, including his home town of Bolton. When he retired he bought the Isle of Lewis in Scotland.

The house we stayed in was wonderful, more nondescript than most in the village, but faultlessly appointed, and next-door-but-one to the museum; we spent two days just looking round the village at the houses, sculptures, war memorial, and gardens, and going to the gallery and museum. We also bought some Sunlight soap, and sampled the tearooms which are located in the old post office, opposite the station.

A Guide to Port Sunlight by Edward Hubbard and Michael Shippobottom  is an architectural guide and history, but also has a couple of chapters designed to use while walking round the village making it a true guide.

To be continued…

The hotel room turned out to be very warm, too warm. We fiddled with the air conditioning but it was still too warm. We ended up sleeping on top of the bed clothes. I had strange dreams about people and talking cats.

A face looks down at passers-by
Luxuriant decoration with dramatic faces are features of Manchester’s
classic buildings

Many hotels these days give you a choice of room with or without breakfast. As the cost of breakfast is usually excessive and emphasises non-vegetarian items such as bacon and sausage, we take just the room and make our own arrangements for breakfast. Even going to a cafe is generally cheaper than the hotel breakfast. On this trip, we are experimenting with making our own breakfast of tea and instant porridge (bought from Marks & Spencer) before leaving for the day. That way, we save both time and money.

A dull Sunday in Manchester
A day to be prepared for all eventualities

The sky is cloudy today and because of the heat in the room, even with the window open, it is hard to determine how warm or cold it is outside. There is also a possibility of rain, to judge by the dark clouds, so we had better go prepared for all eventualities. Once in the street, we found it was chilly and with a damp feeling in the air. A bus came and deposited us at Piccadilly Gardens. From there we walked to the station.

Waiting for the train
A view from the platform, Manchester Piccadilly

Here, we enquired the prices of various rail tickets. It’s often advantageous to buy a rover ticket that gives us 3 or 4 days unlimited travel during the week but for today, as we are unsure how often we will take the train, we contented ourselves with day returns, our destination being another great city – Liverpool. We would have had to wait nearly an hour for a direct train but we discovered we could take the Stockport train, leaving in a few minutes, and change at Oxford Road. This we did, and soon found ourselves on the second train, trundling through green countryside under a cloud-covered sky.

Local heroes
At Liverpool Lime Street station stand Ken Dodd OBE and Bessie Braddock MP, sculpted by Tom Murphy

By the time we reached Liverpool, the weather was clearing. This was a relief, as it is no fun trying to explore a city in the rain.

A busker
Street musicians prefer fine weather too

It was probably also a relief to the buskers, like the one above, who, unlike Gene Kelly, do not enjoy singing in the rain.

The World Museum
Liverpool has many such splendid buildings

As we usually do, we set out to wander and explore and take photos. Liverpool is a very rewarding city in which to do that as there are many beautiful and interesting sights to enjoy at every turn.

Church Street
A pleasant pedestrian precinct in which to go shopping

We have been to Liverpool before but it is too big for anyone to get to know it in a few hours, so there are always new discoveries to be made.

Radio City
Because of its huge size, the mast of Liverpool’s Radio City seems to
follow you around

We decided on this visit, however, to venture outside Liverpool itself and to visit Port Sunlight in the Wirral. This is a beautiful and fascinating place to explore.

A leafy street in Port Sunlight

We caught a bus to go there, and the trip started with a ride through the tunnel under the Mersey, rather like going through the Blackwall Tunnel in London but a lot longer.

Housing styles are varied in Port Sunlight

Port Sunlight was founded from 1888 by William Hesketh Lever in association with his brother James as a site for the manufacture of his soap and for the model village constructed to house his workers.

The Lady Lever Art Gallery
Our first glimpse of the gallery which enchants with the beauty of the
building as much as with the beauty and interest of the contents

The story of how William, a successful travelling salesman for his father’s wholesale grocery business, became an even more successful soap manufacturer and philanthropist is too long to be told here but there are many good biographies and other sources of information.

Main gallery
The exhibition space is light and airy and contains an immense range of
art works and other objects

The living conditions of the workers were far in advance of what was normal in the country in general at that time – the village even acquired its own cottage hospital. William and his wife mixed with the inhabitants, organizing and taking part in many of the community’s celebrations and events. Elizabeth Lever would often deliver birthday presents to village children in person.

Early 19th century Italian chair
Part of a set of settee and chairs

William became a baronet in 1911 and his wife then became Lady Lever. In 1917, he became Baron Leverhulme, the name combining his own with that of his wife, Elizabeth Ellen Hulme, who had been his childhood sweetheart and whom he loved deeply.

Androcles and the lion
You will not be surprised that this marble of Androcles removing the thorn
from the lion’s paw is one of my favourite exhibits

Sadly, Elizabeth died in 1913, a devastating blow for William. He created the gallery in her honour in 1922, naming it the Lady Lever Gallery, as that had been her title when she died.

Midsummer Morn, Bushy Park
Painted by George Dunlop Leslie in 1905, this picture shows the
Diana Fountain

The Gallery abounds with exquisite paintings by famous and important artists. Unfortunately, the light which make the place so agreeable also cause reflections on the glass covering the pictures, making it impossible to get a good photo. I have chosen this one as an example because we recently visited the very spot from which is was painted (see Chestnut Sunday in Bushy Park).

Caracalla
Bust of the Italian school, 18th century

This bust of Roman emperor Caracalla (ruled 209-17), fratricide and general bad egg, exudes personality and an aura of evil power. A striking piece of work  but not one for the living room.

Glass dome
One of the domes that cast their magical light on the exhibits

The gallery building is an object of beauty and worth visiting for its own sake. The visitor should appreciate it along with the works that are exhibited within it. This dome is one of the elegant features that attract admiration.

Specimen cabinet, c 1830
An English cabinet made of many different woods, possibly for
a collector of botanical specimens

As you can see, photography is allowed in the gallery, the only exception being the special visiting exhibitions which are not owned by the gallery itself.

Joined in enmity
Neighbouring busts of Cromwell and Charles I

Outside the gallery are more works to admire but these are of a more monumental nature, as we shall see.

The Leverhulme Memorial
A lively group of figures stands at its base

William, Lord Leverhulme, died of pneumonia in 1925. The Leverhulme Memorial, designed by Sir William Reid Dick, was unveiled in his honour in 1930. The figure at the top represents Inspiration and those at the base, Industry, Education, Charity and Art. It is an elegant and fitting tribute to a man who was in many ways ahead of his time and, I might add, ahead of ours.

Port Sunlight War Memorial
Port Sunlight suffered from the First World War as did the rest
of the country

The First World War brought suffering and loss to Port Sunlight with over 500 dead, without counting injuries and broken health and damage to property. Destroyed houses were rebuilt according to their original plan and the War Memorial, designed by Sir William Goscombe John, a friend of William Lever, was unveiled in 1921. It impresses with its size (it is 38 ft tall and 80 ft wide) but also with the remarkable bronze sculptures depicting wartime scenes.

Scenes from the memorial
Here are just two scenes but all are admirable for their liveliness and
accuracy of depiction

The war memorial offers a panorama of the violence and suffering of war, both on the battlefield and on the home front. The long list of names on the roll of honour is eloquent testimony to the losses sustained by this community.

The Girls’ Club (1913)
Many buildings have changed their usage in the course of time and this
one is the museum and visitor centre today

There were many more buildings that would have been worth seeing and describing if we had had time. All were beautifully designed and show, I think, the mood of optimism in which they were built. Even though the houses today can be bought on the market, something of the original community spirit still survives. We could have spent much more time here but now had to return to Liverpool.

Liverpool Cathedral
This is the Anglican cathedral started in 1904

Back in Liverpool, Tigger wanted to see the Cathedral, so we found a bus that would take us there. The original design was by Giles Glbert Scott, though it was changed somewhat during the building. The foundation stone was laid in 1904 but the job was completed only some decades later. A modern building, to my eyes it looks more like a factory or a power station, though I know it has its admirers.

Cathedral graveyard
The graveyard lies at the bottom of a hollow, almost a well

Beside the cathedral is a strange sunken graveyard. I don’t think burials take place there nowadays but it must has been a trial carrying the coffin down to the bottom of the hollow.

A Case History
That is what this accretion of pretend luggage is called

We now set out on foot, seeing what there was to be seen, and along the way we passed this heap of pretend luggage, consisting of trunks and suitcases modelled in cement or something similar. The title of the work is “A Case History”, obviously a rather feeble pun. The author is John King who has provided a map showing that certain cases and trunks “belong” to certain famous people. Whether there is some deep meaning in this or whether it is simply an attempt to attract celebrity backing, I do not know.

Philharmonic Dining Rooms
A splendid looking pub and dining place once frequented by the famous

A little further on, we came upon the Philharmonic Dining Rooms with an ornate gilded gate. Unfortunately, it was closed so we couldn’t look to see whether it was as interesting inside.

Title
Officially, it is known as the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, but it also has a more popular nickname

Thus we found ourselves in the vicinity of this rather individualistic building. It is known as the Catholic Cathedral or the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ and the King. In Liverpool, well known buildings and monuments tend to acquire vernacular names as well. In line with that, this ecclesiastical construct is known to many as “Paddy’s Wigwam”. The reader can no doubt work out why.

Gate to China Town
This spectacular Chinese gate indicates the entry to China Town

We tried to get a bus back to the centre but, for some reason, all the bus stops along the road we were on were closed, so we ended up walking a very long way. Our reward was to encounter this splendid Chinese gate, indicating that we had arrived at China Town.

Chinese lions guard the gate
There was also a pair of Chinese lions on either side of the main road

The street names were printed in both English and Chinese characters. I wondered whether the names were the same in both languages or whether the Chinese have different names. Without an interpreter, I have no way of knowing.

Lamp dragon
The street lamps are decorated with
dragons

We unfortunately didn’t have time to explore China Town but we did now manage to hail a bus and it took us to the station where we caught a train back to Manchester.

The Palace Tower
The tower of the Palace Hotel is a famous
landmark

Now, just because we were back in Manchester, it was evening, we were tired and were on our way back to the hotel, there was no reason not to go on looking around and capturing any sights worthy of attention! Among those we caught were the Palace Hotel.

Palace Hotel
The elegantly colourful entrance to the Palace Hotel

As well as a tall tower, visible from a distance and lit this evening by the setting sun, the Palace Hotel possesses this elegant and colourful entrance, reminiscent of a Moorish palace. There are many such gems waiting to be discovered in this city.

The Lass o’ Gowrie
A well known pub in “Little Ireland”

My last shot of the day was this romantic (code for “underlit”!) view of a well known Manchester pub called the Lass o’ Gowrie. Built sometime in the 19th century (I haven’t managed to discover exactly when) in a quarter of the city known as “Little Ireland” because of the number of Irish immigrants who settled there, it was named after Lady Carolina Nairne. Why was a pub in an Irish district named after a Scottish titled lady? A sketch of an answer may be found here.

Our next and final stop was our overly warm hotel room where we made tea, sorted our photos, mulled over the day, and rested ready for more adventures on the morrow!

Copyright © 2012 SilverTiger, http://tigergrowl.wordpress.com, All rights reserved.

And collectivism?? Ever since the blessed Lady Thatcher, I’ve seen nothing to persuade me that it’s not just “all about me”.

Harrumph….

We had our 25,000th visitor to this blog last week, nearly 2500 people connect with me on linked in - add to that 1200 odd who are connected on twitter , the Pension Play Pen, not to mention the on-line community at mallowstreet and you get a picture of a group of people the size of my home town , Shaftesbury in Dorset. Or the size of the number of patients my Dad had on his books as a country doctor for Ashmore, Iwerne Minster and Fontmell Magna.

My Dad , at the peak of his practice was making upwards of 30 house visits a day, many of his patients were chronically afflicted with diseases of old age brought on as much by loneliness as the wearing out of their bodies. His visits were regular and anticipated by his geriatrics (as he called them) as a highlight of the month.

Robert Gardner told me the other day that the fastest growing age group joining Facebook were the over 65s. Their spur to going cyber? - the opportunity to see pictures of their grandchildren.  Skype has observed the same trend.

The collectivism that Thatcher destroyed has been romantacised through films like “Brassed off” and “The Full Monty” which evoke a nostalgia for a world of working men’s clubs and dignified labour in heavy industry.

Kevin’s collectivism is that of Defined Benefit Schemes sponsored by benevolent employers of the Leverhulme or Cadbury variety. Port Sunlight and Bournville for all.

Both visions grow rosier the further we travel from the realities of what working in Britain in the sixties and seventies must have been like.

I discovered this morning via a tweet from someone called Lynnit in Herefordshire something called Zopa. A very simple little cyberbury which allows you to deposit money which is lent to people who want to borrow money. Seems sensible to me.

Collectivsm doesn’t die, it just changes. Maybe it seemed to go underground for a bit and certainly if you looked for it to emerge from its bunker once Thatcher and her horsemen had ridden over the horizon, you’d be waiting a long time.

The new collectivism of Cyberbury may not suit the old collectivists  (note how slow the unions have been to embrace social media). It may not suit Big Hair who is  looking for collectivism in the wrong place if he thinks it’s going to re-emerge in the old pensions model.

Collectivism will drive change - I am sure of that – look no further than the outing of Giggs as a warning. The warning for Big Hair and for those who have control of the reins of power is that they ignore these new collectives at their peril.

Whether you run a business or a pension scheme or a football club or a country, it’s little communities like our Cyberbury that you should be watching
 

Related articles

• CDC pensions could happen – if we put our minds to it. (henrytapper.com)
• Janet Brown (RIP) impersonating Lady Thatcher (politics.ie)
• Collectivism (ascendofasheville.com)
• How did Stalin and his minions characterize collectivization and the purges vs the reality of those events (wiki.answers.com)
• Greased palm psychology: Collectivism and bribery (physorg.com)
• Diminished Individualism Watch (krugman.blogs.nytimes.com)
• London Riots Illustrate the Decline and Fall of Britain (moonbattery.com)
• Putting up a Steel Curtain on Social Media (jeffesposito.com)

Shrabani Basu has recently updated her bookVictoria and Abdul using recently discovered archival material. The book explores Victoria’s relationship with her Indian servant Abdul Karim. Queen Victoria has captured the imagination, and frequently adulation, of the British people and beyond since she assumed the throne in  1837.

A rather out-of-place object in the Living Cultures collection demonstrates this adulation perfectly. It is a bar of soap which was donated to the Museum in 1897 by William Worthington. This particular bar of soap was believed to have been used by the Queen when she visited Manchester on 1st July 1888 to open the Victoria University. Worthington was Head Porter at the time and in the perfect position to collect the soap.

Bar of soap, Port Sunlight Soap Works, Liverpool, 1888. The Manchester Museum Living Cultures collection.

The object was clearly acquired because of it’s imperial association and to commemorate a significant event in Manchester’s history. The soap’s quality is not in doubt but whether is was used by Victoria remains dubious.

Stephen Terence Welsh

Curator of Living Cultures

I was very greatly impressed by Garrett. Had I known before that it is he who writes under the pseudonym of Marr Lowe in the Adelphi and one or two other places, I would have taken steps to meet him earlier. He is a biggish hefty chap of about 36, Liverpool-Irish, brought up a Catholic but now a Communist. He says he has had about 9 months’ work in (I think) about the last 6 years. He went to sea as a lad and was at sea about 10 years, then worked as a docker. During the War he was torpedoed on a ship that sank in 7 minutes, but they had expected to be torpedoed and had got their boats ready, and were all saved except the wireless operator, who refused to leave his post until he had got an answer. He also worked in an illicit brewery in Chicago during Prohibition, saw various hold-ups, saw Battling Siki immediately after he had been shot in a street brawl, etc. etc. All this however interests him much less than Communist politics. I urged him to write his autobiography, but as usual, living in about 2 rooms on the dole with a wife (who I gather objects to his writing) and a number of kids, he finds it impossible to settle to any long work and can only do short stories. Apart from the enormous unemployment in Liverpool it is almost impossible for him to get work because he is blacklisted everywhere as a Communist.

He took me down to the docks to see dockers being taken on for an unloading job. When we got there we found about 200 men waiting in a ring and police holding them back. It appeared that there was a fruit ship which needed unloading and on the news that there were jobs going there had been a fight between the dockers which the police had to intervene to stop. After a while the agent of the company (known as the stevedore, I think) emerged from a shed and began calling out the names or rather numbers of gangs whom he had engaged earlier in the day. Then he needed about 10 men more, and walked round the ring picking out a man here and there. He would pause, select a man, take him by the shoulder and haul him foreward,° exactly as at a sale of cattle. Presently he announced that that was all. A sort of groan went up from the remaining dockers, and they trailed off, about 50 men having been engaged out of 200. It appears that unemployed dockers have to sign on twice a day, otherwise they are presumed to have been working (as their work is mainly casual labour, by the day) and their dole docked for that day.

I was impressed by the fact that Liverpool is doing much more in the way of slum-clearance than most towns. The slums are still very bad but there are great quantities of Corporation houses and flats at low rents. Just outside Liverpool there are quite considerable towns consisting entirely of Corporation houses, which are really quite livable and decent to look at, but having as usual the objection that they take people a long way from their work. In the centre of the town there are huge blocks of workers’ flats imitated from those in Vienna. They are built in the form of an immense ring, five stories high, round a central courtyard about 60 yards across, which forms a playground for children. Round the inner side run balconies, and there are wide windows on each side so that everyone gets some sunlight. I was not able to get inside any of these flats, but I gather each has either 2 or 3 rooms,* kitchenette and bathroom with hot water. The rents vary from about 7/- at the top to 10/- at the bottom. (No lifts, of course.) It is noteworthy that the people in Liverpool have got used to the idea of flats (or tenements, as they call them) whereas in a place like Wigan the people, though realising that flats solve the problem of letting people live near their work, all say they would rather have a house of their own, however bad it was.

There are one or two interesting points here. The re-housing is almost entirely the work of the Corporation, which is said to be entirely ruthless towards private ownership and to be even too ready to condemn slum houses without compensation. Here therefore you have what is in effect Socialist legislation, though it is done by a local authority. But the Corporation of Liverpool is almost entirely Conservative. Moreover, though the re-housing from the public funds is, as I say, in effect a Socialist measure, the actual work is done by private contractors, and one may assume that here as elsewhere the contractors tend to be the friends, brothers, nephews etc. of those on the Corporation. Beyond a certain point therefore Socialism and Capitalism are not easy to distinguish, the State and the capitalist tending to merge into one. On the other side of the river, the Birkenhead side (we went through the Mersey tunnel) you have Port Sunlight, a city within a city, all built and owned by the Leverhulme soap works. Here again are excellent houses at fairly low rents, but, as with publicly-owned property, burdened by restrictions. Looking at the Corporation buildings on the one side, and Lord Leverhulme’s building on the other, you would find it hard to say which was which.

Another point is this. Liverpool is practically governed by Roman Catholics. The Roman Catholic ideal, at any rate as put forward by the Chesterton-Beachcomber[4] type of writer, is always in favour of private ownership and against Socialist legislation and “progress” generally. The Chesterton type of writer wants to see a free peasant or other small-owner living in his own privately owned and probably insanitary cottage; not a wage-slave living in an excellently appointed Corporation flat and tied down by restrictions as to sanitation etc. The R.Cs in Liverpool, therefore, are going against the supposed implications of their own religion. But I suppose that if the Chestertons et hoc genus grasped that it is possible for the R.Cs to capture the machinery of local and other government, even when it is called Socialist, they would change their tune.

No clogs or shawl over head in Liverpool. Returning by car, noticed how abruptly this custom stops a little west of Wigan.**

Am trying to arrange to return to London by sea if G. can get me a passage on a cargo boat.

Bought two brass candlesticks and a ship in a bottle. Paid 9/- for the candlesticks. G. considered I was swindled but they are quite nice brass.

*presumably 3 – living room & 2 bedrooms [handwritten footnote].

** It is said by everyone in Wigan that clogs are going out. Yet in the poorer quarters 1 person in 2 seems to me to wear clogs, & there are (I think) 10 shops which sell nothing else.

[1] May and John Deiner ran the Liverpool branch of The Adelphi circle. Orwell was introduced to them either by Middleton Murry or Richard Rees of The Adelphi. John was a telephone engineer. Orwell arrived very ill and because of this he saw less of Liverpool than he had hoped. He spoke to them of wishing to return to London by ship in order to experience conditions at sea. There is a charming memoir of Orwell by May Deiner in Orwell Remembered, pp. 134 – 6. She concludes: ‘he was such a real man…We didn’t feel any embarrassment at all with him. Just that he hadn’t much to say unless he was talking about his books or the things that interested him, about the depression…and yet you felt the warmth there; you felt the concern if you like’.

[2] George Garrett (1896 – 1966) was an unemployed seaman with whom Orwell got on very well. He wrote for The Adelphi and short stories under the pseudonym ‘Matt Lowe’ (i.e. matelot). He had spent much of the 1920’s in the USA and was a member of ‘the Wobblies’, the Industrial Workers of the World, a revolutionary industrial union. His ability to imitate an American accent won him small parts at the Merseyside Unity Theatre.

[3] Of the four or five days Orwell stayed with the Deiners, Orwell was, at their insistence, kept in bed for three days (Crick, p. 285).

[4] Chesterton-Beachcomber: G. K. Chesterton (1897 – 1925), Roman Catholic apologist, editor, and prolific writer, creator of the priest-detective, Father Brown. He had published Orwell’s first professional article in English (‘A Farthing Newspaper’, 1928, CW, X, pp. 119-21). The ‘Beachcomber’ column in the Daily Express was started in 1924 by J. B. Morton (1893 – 1979), also a Roman Catholic. The column was mildly satiric and the object of frequent pejorative reference by Orwell. For a more considered comparison of Chesterton and Morton by Orwell, see ‘As I Please’, no 30 (23 June 1944, CW, XVI, pp. 262-5).

Image via Wikipedia

If you work in pensions you get used to talking about pensioners as an undesireable commodity, loaded with risk and consequently a toxic element on a company’s balance-sheet.

If you happen to be a pensioner or likely to be a pensioner of your company, you may feel this a tad harsh - after all, the profits of your company are to some extent down to your efforts and as your CEO constantly reminds you “my company’s greatest assets are its people!”.

Another dictum of current pension speak is that we are in an “end-game” , the result of which will be the buy-out of these toxic pensioners by an insurance company.

There is considerable evidence that people like to be paid their pension by their company. The phrase “better the devil you know” was not coined for nothing. People who have built up pots of money in personal pensions chose to have their pensions paid by their personal pensions even when they can get a better deal on the open market and though this may be down to inertia (laziness) there are also elements of loyalty mingled in.

If you have worked your life for a Unilever or a BP or your local opticians or car-dealers and you find that your pension has been bought out by Met Life or Pensions Insurance Corporation, you may feel a little miffed.

The link between you and your employer has been lost. 

There was a dy when employers were so associated with their local community that they were their local community – Port Sunlight without Unilever, Belfast without Harland and Wolfe, Bournville without Cadbury. It happens but at a cost.

By contrast, companies which run pensioner payrolls and maintain the risk of their pensioners, have an intangible asset which is rarely quoted and I suspect undervalued. BT, with over 100,000 pensioners, has a long-established pensioners association whihc does great credit to the company. Many pension managers of mature defined benefit schemes will talk with affection of pensioner lunches and the goodwill that is retained for the employer that arises. 

I very much doubt that UK bosses are much fussed by these arguments. Their job is to please their shareholders and mtters as intangible as pensioner goodwill is unlikely to be writ large on the question sheets of the analysts they report to.

As so often, the value of these associations will likely be recognised when it has been lost and we will find ourselves looking back at pensioner associations with nostalgia tinged with regret that we didn’t do more to keep them going.

Related Articles

• Personal Pensions – why competition didn’t work (henrytapper.com)
• Two and a half cheers for UK pensions (henrytapper.com)
• UK Pensions – How Lucky We Are (henrytapper.com)
• Warning over pension reforms (lv.com)
• Hotel Demented ; The Pensioner Playpen (henrytapper.com)

The Lady Lever Art Gallery, was built by Viscount Leverhulme in honour of his wife. He was a man before his time? His tag line was ‘Art Inspires’, and he built the Gallery for the enjoyment of his employees.

So that’s the latest item on my wish list. If your husband loves you enough forget the garage flowers and new frying pan, only an Art Gallery will do.

A mausoleum of stuff.

Lever’s Aladdin’s cave. An A to Zoffany of objets.  I was stunned.

The Gainsboroughs and the Millais’, The Stubbs’ and the Reynolds. It was fabulous.

“You spin me right round, baby, right round like a record, baby, right round round round..” – You Spin Me Around (Like A Record)

Off we trotted to the Garden Centre and then I became the proud owner of these:

Mum got Cauliflower, even though I have quite a few already growing in the greenhouse.

Not bad for nothing eh?

A Inglaterra é glamour e parece outro mundo, assim que esta mais que recomendado para fugir do estresse ou para lua de mel ou para o que for vale a pena, uma dica é o hotel Allen House que esta em uma exelente localidade.

transcription-journal-front

This journal is several years old.  It turned into two journals stuck together!  I did get carried away….  The idea was to take a picture from a gallery  and bit by bit, transcribe it into an original work of art.  The idea came from the ‘Encounters’   exhibition I went to see in the National Gallery London 2000.  Each artist chose a painting or sculpture form the National Gallery  to transcribe – with some very surprising results!  Antoni Tapies (see Favorite Art: Art I love) transcribed Rembrandts ‘A woman bathing in a stream’ (1654)  as his piece, and underwent quite a journey to reach his conclusion..

transcription-journal-back

For the cover and back of this journal I used all sorts of media;paper I had made myself,  with ink drawn into, wax dotted over it. There are pieces of velvet, filler and inks (including silver), silver and gold card that I turned metallic using a combination of inks and acrylics.  I have a ‘recipe’ book with how I made these different surfaces, some employ unusual materials, like latex.   I will get round to including these in a different section.

I got off to a false start with my first piece.  The first piece I chose proved a bit limited.  This piece came from the Lady Lever Gallery. Port Sunlight and here is what I wrote on the first page: – (I scanned the journal but it came out blurred)

 

“William Hesketh Lever 1st Viscount Levershulme (1851 -1925) Founder of ‘Lever Brothers’ created the building, the collection and the model village of Port Sunlight.  He was born in Bolton and was an avid collector of art, especially the PreRaphaelites.  He also liked ‘Classical’ artists like Alma Tadema and Frederick Leighton.

The Museum is packed with Lever’s furniture collections, tapestries, needlework, classical statues, wedgewood china, Chinese porcelain and Greek and Roman antiquities.

page-3-transcription photograph montage

I was drawn to Gabriel Rossetti’s ‘Lute Player’.  I found the painting interesting because the lady  playing the lute is left handed.  This led me to question if the Pre Raphaelite   was using a Camera Lucida.  The date of the painting is 1867,  the picture is not an especially small – nor is it huge.  If Rossetti was using the camera lucida as a tool purely to paint detail, it would seem a pointless exercise, as the gown is hardly sumptuous by Pre Raphaelite standards.

the-lute-player-rossetti

The subject – the lute player has an almost Japanese quality about her.  The way her hair is dressed and the Kimono type robe would suggest this.  Perhaps the painting was commissioned?  The lady pictured is not oriental looking, she may be the wife of some dignitary: though there is no information about this.  This particular picture is not in the Lady Lever guide book, neither is it in the Pre Raphaelite books I have looked at.  So from this, I get the impression that this is not an important work of Rossetti’s – perhaps some sort of experimentation?”

transcription-page-7

I then began to experiment with the painting by changing from colour to black and white.  The first figure is a photo copy, the others are painted: -

transcription-pages-8-and-9

Although this is not my main transcription piece, I did experiment quite a lot with this painting.  I will continue adding the pages as I scan them, until it is complete.  I may at some stage add my main transcription (which occupies the two journals nearly!)  I would do this bit by bit of course.

To be continued……..

The smell of lemon fresh Sunlight, the warm and cuddly smell of Snuggle…oh how I love laundry! (BTW, I used to live very close to the village of Port Sunlight. It was built by the Lever Brothers (Unilever) for their factory workers and became the inspiration for the soap’s name. I remember visiting the village with my grandparents–coincidence? I think not)

The thing is, like many people, scent is powerful for me. Many memories, both positive and negative, are connected to particular scents.

Joico Ice Mist hairspray brings back a “not-so-fond” high-school memory and an image of skyscraper bangs that were as hard as concrete (…and oh so unattractive but it was the 1980′s after all!)

On the flip side, Fairy Liquid–a brand of dish soap from England–reminds me of my Nanny (maternal grandmother). My Nanny and I had a ritual. We would wash the pots and pans with Fairy Liquid, both of us wearing decorative pinnies (English slang for pinafore (apron)) from Marks and Spencer, and watch the BBC news in the kitchen. I clearly remember the cute white bottles with the baby design and of course…the smell.  

Fairy Liquid

Sometimes the scent that can’t be described is the most vivid, the most luring…the scent of attraction…a biological response, of familiarity, sexuality…the scent of your mate. It draws you in, makes you feel safe and sexual at the same time. It’s not the smell of soap, deodorant or cologne…it’s the pure genetic scent of human chemistry.

Now, dress said mate in a freshly washed t-shirt….Ohhhh, I love laundry!

Looking at the leaflet in front of me, I can see that today marks the first of this year’s “Summer Sensations Children’s Talent Show” at Vale Park, New Brighton. People of a certain age (including myself) will be more likely to remember this as Joytime. It’s the usual thing, bribe the kids to get on stage and do a party piece, each day’s winner goes to the semi final on Friday, the winner of that goes to the Floral Pavillion on Saturday, 30th September. Just don’t let them sing the Neighbours theme tune like my brother and I did one year. (Daily from 3pm to 5pm)
The 26th and 27th see a two day children’s event at Ness Gardens, with numerous activities planned. (26th & 27th July, 10.30am to 4pm)

This Sunday (July 30th), we have the Wirral Historic Vehicle Rally, which starts at Bromborough’s Village Hotel and takes in a lunch break at Thornton Hough, before ending in Port Sunlight. (Phone 0151 647 6780 for details)

All this and more before August 5th and 6th’s Wirral Show, with all the usual happenings. More details when they come in.

If you know of anything else, don’t hesitate to leave a comment and we’ll feature the event.