The strange case of Napoleon Bonaparte, his grave, and the Bexleyheath laundry link…

 Bonjour, cher readers!

This week, the Blogbrarian goes to Napoleonic France, the icy Russian steppe, a windblown St Helena in the mid Atlantic, and …er… Pincott Road in Bexleyheath.



Let’s start at the beginning: a gentleman asked our excellent Local Studies and Archives Centre if – since it was 200 years since Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Moscow (think 1812 overture and all that) – Bexley had any local links to mark the occasion…



Well, those bright young things at Local Studies discovered that, whilst we don’t have any Napoleonic remains as such (Martello Towers, prison ships or military barracks and such like), what we did have was a …laundry!



Intrigued? … Well, it’s complicated, but the Bexleyheath and District Laundry in Pincott Road was linked to the Torbett family, who, in Napoleonic times owned land on St Helena – the tiny island where the defeated Emperor was exiled, and died in 1821…

As Napoleon’s tomb became THE place to visit on St Helena (which, unsurprisingly, held few other attractions for the passing tourist) the Torbetts were awarded government contracts for public access to the site; they also sold tourist trinkets, food, and “cool mountain spring water” and reaped the financial rewards.



Back in London, the story is that the Torbetts wisely invested their wealth in a Bexleyheath laundry business (and christened one of their family members ‘Reginald Napoleon Torbett’). How splendid!



So there you have it…Bexley’s first and grandest laundry business owes everything to Napoleon’s windswept tomb. And not a lot of people know that!



Meanwhile, if you want to learn more about Napoleon’s sad, lonely life of exile, then try Julia Blackburn’s splendid book.

And if you want to learn more about Bexleyheath’s first laundry (or anything else historical) then you know where to come. BLSAC



And here my story ends…A sad but true story, a grave story, but – at least – a clean story.

Au revoir, for now.

BRING UP THE BOOTY!




Never mind the Booker…

What about our Booty?...

(That’s our Book of the Year, in case you were wondering…)





Well, dear readers…

Hot off the press, as we ‘biblio-newshounds’ are always keen to be, let us draw your attention to the winner of the coveted Booker Prize for Fiction…



Hilary Mantel’s ‘Bring up the Bodies’…A splendid book, and a worthy winner…



However, dear Blog-followers, in my quest to bring you not only Booker books, but also Best Books (as chosen by readers much like yourselves) I feel compelled to remind you of very our own prize award...THE BOOK OF THE YEAR!



(Sadly, unlike the Booker prize, we are unable to offer the winner a cheque for £50,000…Nor will it be judged by Mr Dan Stevens, star of Downton Abbey… However, we remain comforted in the knowledge that ours will be a great book, too … and one chosen by library users and book lovers – people, in fact, like you!)



So, while you’re Bringing Up the Bodies, remember … Don’t forget our BOOTY!



Want to join in? Then the comments box is all yours…



TTFN

“Inspired” by saints and Shovells?...


Crayford, Cloudesley, and chalk dust…



Well, dear readers, what fun we had last weekend!...


Whizzing through Crayford on the trusty old 492 bus, purely by chance, I noted a sign saying that St Paulinus church was holding an ‘Open Day…with tower visits’ …

Now, I do enjoy pottering about an old medieval church, but I’m sorry to say that, despite knowing that St Paulinus was a fine old building set in a picturesque setting, I’d never ventured in there before…Well, being of a questing and adventurous bent, I’m not one to turn down the chance of a tower visit – so in I went, and – wowzers! – it was superb, if something of a tight squeeze and a dustily adventurous clamber to the top. And the view from the summit of the tower! Wonderful…

All Crayford lay below us, and you could physically sense the history of the town, and the church itself.

(Books can do this for you, too, remember, and don’t usually involve getting one’s trousers dusty…Similarly, a visit to Bexley’s splendid Local Studies and Archives Centre will furnish you with a wealth of local knowledge and historical background, without the dangers of bruised limbs and a chalky backside…)

The whole experience was - (WARNING - PUN ALERT AHEAD) - “inspiring” (See William Golding’s wonderful historical novel about a cathedral tower for a similar, if grander, experience…)

And the inside of the church, too, was quite splendid…well worth a visit. Particularly fine was the tomb of Elizabeth Shovell, the wife of the venerable naval hero and splendidly named, Sir Cloudesley Shovell, one of Crayford’s finest, but a chap who met a sticky end in the Scillies. (And, as I pondered the magnificent memorial, how many of Crayford’s newborns today, I wondered sadly, are given the nomenclature ‘Cloudesley’?..)

So, dear readers – to sum up: what have we learned from this week’s Blogbrary-broadcast?

• That the 492 bus timetable is available ‘online’

• That Saint Paulinus Church in Crayford is an architectural gem, well worth a visit.

• That chalk dust from medieval church towers clings very tenaciously to elderly librarian’s trousers.

• And that, despite a plethora of books on babies names, the name ‘Cloudesley’ obdurately refuses to find cult status – except in Crayford.



TTFN

The name’s Bond…Bilbo Bond”…

The spy with the golden, hairy feet…

 

Confused?...
I am!

Forgive me, dear readers, but I’m becoming even more confused than usual…


This month, we mark two significant birthdays (50th and 75th) of two cultural giants (007’s film debut, and The Hobbit’s first publication) but - for the life of me - I can’t remember which one’s which!

The more I try to pin them down, the more confused I become…

Hence, my mixed up, juxtaposed and tangled state of mind…

Who wrote what?...Was it JRR Fleming, or Ian Tolkien?

(Luckily we’ve got some splendid books about both chaps, so that’s a relief)

And what were the books?

 I know that I’ve read (and enjoyed) many of them, but which was which?...

The Man with the Golden Gandalf?...
From The Shire with love?...
Tom Bombadil never dies?...
Gold-ringfinger?...
Thunderbalrog?...

Can any reader help me?... It’s important, as I fear that next time I may have to review Fifty Shades of the Darling Buds of Gray, and I doubt that Pop Larkin’s reputation could survive such close scrutiny…

If you can help, just use the comments box below.

And thank-you…very much.