Henj

Here's something I drew a few years ago for one of the QI Annuals (The series H annual). 

M'colleague, chum and fellow QI elf Justin Pollard had the great idea of doing a 'What if?' style feature about the building of Stonehenge as a flat-pack item (there is a smidgin of truth to this idea - see here). He passed the idea on to me and I got together with QI supremo and all-round comedy genius John Lloyd and we created a little story involving wizards and giants and an explanation for the current state of the monument. 

So here it is: 

If you reproduce this anywhere, please give us the appropriate credit. 

Originally published in the QI ‘H’ Annual, the ‘Henj’ infographic was written and designed by Justin Pollard, Stevyn Colgan and John Lloyd. Reproduced with the kind permission of QI Limited.

Headbanger

This little cutie flew smack into the window of an old mill while I was enjoying a kunchtime pint in the pub next door. I gave him a check over - nothing broken, just stunned. A young fledgling by the look of it. Possibly a robin?

Anyway, I found him/her a safe spot to recover and went back to my pint. Five minutes later the bird flew away so all was well. 

Wycombe, wheat and wanderings

A walk along High Street, High Wycombe on a Friday afternoon (and during graduation day at the local uni). The busker is 15 year old Soraya Ray, a popular local chanteuse. 

Then a trip to Hughenden Park on the outskirts of the town. The park is in the grounds of Hughenden Manor, former home of Benjamin D'Israeli and now run by the National Trust. 

Then it’s back to my usual walking grounds at home in Hazlemere to look at wimpy wheat, berries and blue butterflies.

Here's the full intro to Gerry Anderson's oddest TV series, The Secret Service, featuring St Michael's and All Angels Church in Hughenden.

And some more photos of Hughenden Park (and the Hughenden herd).

Visiting my favourite foraging spots

Cornwall in Rebellion

Not many things really annoy me these days. But not being able to self-identify is something that does bug me. 

I don't mean self-identify in terms of my sexuality, gender or politics. 

I'm talking about my ethnic identity. 

I'm Cornish. 

You may not know this but, in 2014, the UK government recognised the Cornish people as a national minority, which now affords us the same status as the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish. That's nearly a decade ago. And yet, when I have to complete a document where it asks you to self-identify, the option for Cornish is never there. Scottish is there. So are Irish and Welsh. But Cornish? The best I can do is to tick 'white other'. And, in doing so, I sometimes get snidey remarks or sniggers. 

You may now be thinking, 'You can't have a box for every county!' and you'd be right. But Cornwall isn't an English county and never has been. Cornwall is not in England. It's a separate state - just like the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. It's a Duchy - a territory ruled by a Duke who, if they choose, can offer their allegiance to the English crown. In 1973, a Royal Commission on the Constitution resulted in the Kilbrandon Report which recognised Cornwall as part of the United Kingdom but not as an English county. It stated that the designation ‘Duchy of Cornwall’ should continue to be used for all official documentation in order to preserve its ‘special relationship and territorial integrity’. 

It's a position that the Cornish have had to fight long and hard to keep. Don't we deserve a tick box to acknowledge that fact?

Like Scotland, Ireland and Wales, Cornwall's history is a catalogue of attempts by the English crown to bring Cornwall into England. There were even attempts to deliberately extinguish the Cornish language. 

Cornwall has always been happy enough being part of the British Isles and Great Britain as a whole as long as it could retain its independence. It was self-governing and the people did not speak English, other than as a second language. They spoke Kernewek, a Brythonic Celtic language closely related to Welsh and Breton. However, in 1337, Edward III declared the ancient kingdom a  Duchy in an attempt to exert a degree of control over the region and to provide financial independence for his heir, Prince Edward (the Black Prince). Ever since then, a charter has dictated that the eldest son of the Monarch and heir to the throne – currently Prince William - will assume the role of Duke of Cornwall and that the Duchy provides their primary income.  

For hundreds of years Cornwall had been ruled by a body called the Stannary Parliament that could pass laws that affected everyone west of the River Tamar (a boundary set by King Athelstan in 936CE). Stannary Law took precedence over Common Law, and the Stannators (the equivalent of MPs) had the power of veto over any English laws that affected the Cornish people. For example, Cornish miners were exempted from paying taxes directly to the crown. Instead they paid their dues at a rate set by the Stannary Parliament, which was lower than the crown would have liked. 

However, as time went on, the power of the Stannary began to cause dissatisfaction among the English aristocracy. In 1496, Arthur Tudor, Duke of Cornwall, tried to levy new taxes but the Stannators rebuked his plans. In response to this his father, King Henry VII, decreed that the Stannary Parliament was suspended and set punitive taxes to support his war with Scotland. This so angered the Cornish people that 15,000 men marched on London led by blacksmith Michael Joseph An Gof of St Keverne – a village on The Lizard - and Bodmin lawyer Thomas Flamank. The rebellion culminated in the bloody battle of Deptford Bridge and the execution of the rebel leaders. 

This was followed by a second unsuccessful rebellion in 1497 led by Perkin Warbeck, a pretender to the crown, who used still simmering Cornish resentment to support his cause. There is no doubt that these events rattled the King’s nerve and, of course, reduced the production of valuable tin and copper. So, in order to prevent more unrest, he restored the Stannary Parliament in return for a one-off payment of £1,000 to support his war efforts. He also pardoned any remaining rebels and agreed that no new laws affecting the Cornish could be enacted without the consent of the Stannators. 

In 1513 the same King Henry VII engaged an Italian cleric called Polydore Vergil to write a history of Britain. This resulted in the epic work Anglica Historia in which Vergil wrote: 

'Britain is divided into four parts, whereof the one is inhabited by Englishmen, the other of Scots, the third of Welshmen and the fourth of Cornish people, which all differ among themselves, either in tongue, either in manners, or else in laws and ordinances.’ 

Most Cornish people will tell you that nothing has changed in the half millennium since. 

A third uprising, known as the Prayer Book Rebellion, took place during the reign of the boy king Edward VI in 1549. Edward was the first English monarch to be raised as a Protestant after his father Henry VIII severed ties with Rome. Consequently, the now dominant Church of England introduced the English language Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. However, proposals to translate the books into Cornish were deliberately suppressed. It was the final straw for many Cornish churchgoers who didn’t actually speak English and who saw this as yet another attack on their language and culture. They marched towards London in protest (they had other grievances too) but were eventually defeated by the King’s troops after a prolonged siege at Exeter. This is seen by historians as a major turning point in the history of Cornish language use as neither a complete translation of the Book of Common Prayer nor The Bible was ever produced and many god-fearing Cornish men and women were consequently forced to learn to speak the ‘foreign’ language of English. 

A fourth rebellion took place on the 26th July 1643 - 380 years ago to this day -  during the turbulent era of the English Civil War when Royalists who supported King Charles I fought against Cromwell's Parliamentarians. The conflict involved Cornish, English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh people (and is sometimes called 'The Five Nations War').

Most Cornish people supported King Charles because the Duchy and the Stannary Parliament had strong connections with the royal family. The Parliamentarian army knew this and set fire to the Duchy Palace and burnt the records of the Duchy and the Stannary Parliament. They also vandalised holy wells and Cornish crosses and tore down maypoles as they did not agree with such things. 

Image: Prince Rupert at the storming of Bristol

The Cornish saw the Parliamentarians' strong English identity as a threat to their own culture and identity. But Sir Richard Grenville saw the conflict as an opportunity to fight for full independence. The Royalist army, including many Cornishmen, marched on the Parliamentarian stronghold of Bristol and laid seige. Eventually the Governor of Bristol, Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes, ‘beat a parley’ seeking terms to surrender the city to the Royalists. 

For the next three years Cornwall was fully independent. In his book West Britons Professor Mark Stoyle of Southampton University tells of the Cornish fighting for themselves as a Nation. In 1644, Grenville created four new regiments called the 'New Cornish Tertia' and garrisoned them along the Tamar with orders to keep out ALL 'foreign troups' (sic) - including Royalist English armies. But the Parliamentarians marshalled their forces and marched into Cornwall in 1646 and forced the Cornish surrender. 

One interesting aspect of events in 1646 was that following the siege of Pendennis Castle in August, John Arundell was allowed by Sir Thomas Fairfax to march out of the castle with weapons and colours intact. Such a privilege was only given to troops of defeated national armies. If, as some have suggested, Cornwall had merely had a ‘county militia’, or ‘trained bands’, then the customs and rules of war prevalent at the time might have been expected, i.e. transportation to the colonies. 

And so Cornwall remains a sovereign Duchy - it is where the Duke derives his crown immunity, because he is sovereign over Cornwall. He just agrees to let Cornwall be governed as if it were an English county.

Meanwhile, the fight for recognition goes on some 377 years later. The Cornish language - Kernewek - has made a spirited comeback. Many books are published in the language and road signs now carry directions and information in English and Cornish. Cornish is taught as a voluntary subject in some secondary schools and pre-schoolers can attend dual language nurseries.

There's no good reason why Cornwall cannot be self-governing in the modern age. After all,  the Isle of Man is a British Crown Dependency with its own government (the Tynwald), a unique language and bespoke currency. And yet, at 572 km2 (221 sq miles) it’s one sixth the size of Cornwall (3,562 km2 (1,375 sq miles) and its population is significantly smaller too – 84,000 to Cornwall’s 568,000. Meanwhile the Channel Islands consist of two Crown Dependencies, the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Bailiwick of Guernsey (Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, and Herm). Although they are not part of the United Kingdom or the European Union, they are entirely self-governing entities, despite populations of just 33,500 and 18,207, respectively. So Cornish self-government is entirely feasible and, as some commentators have pointed out, the charters that empowered the Stannary Parliament have never been revoked or repealed despite its last session being held in Truro in 1753. Therefore, they argue, the powers and rights of the Parliament are still valid and could be used to let Cornwall govern itself today. 

For many, the fight to regain Cornish independence is a true passion. As one of the country's poorest areas with high unemployment, record levels of homelessness and the highest levels of child poverty in the UK, it's believed that a local government with real power could do a better job than distant Westminster. I'm inclined to agree.

I sometimes wonder what people actually mean when they complain that British history isn't being taught in schools. Because this is British history. So is our involvement in the slave trade and how we took the lead in abolishing it. To teach history you have to teach the bad stuff as well as the good stuff. Otherwise you're presenting an unbalanced and untrue history that's all about empire building and winning two world wars (and one world cup). Perhaps if people knew their country's history they might not be so snide when I tick the box that says 'White British' and write the word CORNISH next to it.

I'm proud of being both. And I'm proud of my heritage, ss we all should be. 

Being allowd to identify as Cornish is such a small thing ... it's not much to ask is it? 

It would be a big step forward for our small nation.

_________________________________________________________________________

Some comntent adapted from Professor Mark Stoyle's essays, Kernow bys vyken and British Battles and from the Facebook group The Cornish are a Nation.

Some foraging advice

 

The 355 Year War ... with no casualties

I've been to the Scilly Isles a number of times over the years - particularly during the 1980s. It's a splendid place to visit - just 30 odd miles from the tip of Lands End. And, as you can see, I had a fascination with standing stones long before I developed a beer belly.

One interesting fact about the Isles of Scilly is that they were at war with the Netherlands for 355 years ... and no one noticed. 

The origins of the war can be found in the English Civil War of 1642 - 1651. Oliver Cromwell had fought the Royalists to the edges of the Kingdom of England. In the West of Britain this meant that Cornwall was the last Royalist stronghold. In 1648, Cromwell pushed on until mainland Cornwall was in the hands of the Parliamentarians. The Royalist Navy was forced to retreat to the Isles of Scilly, which lay off the Cornish coast and were under the ownership of Royalist John Granville.

The navy of the United Provinces of the Netherlands was at the time allied with the Parliamentarians. The Netherlands had been assisted by the English under a number of rulers in the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648), starting with Queen Elizabeth I. The Treaty of Münster (30 January 1648) had confirmed Dutch independence from Spain. The Netherlands sought to maintain their alliance with England and had chosen to ally with the Parliamentarians as the side likely to win the Civil War. The Dutch merchant navy was suffering heavy losses from the Royalist fleet based in Scilly. 

On 30 March 1651, Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp arrived in Scilly to demand reparation from the Royalist fleet for the Dutch ships and goods taken by them. According to Whitelocke's Memorials, a letter of 17 April 1651 explains: 'Tromp came to Pendennis and related that he had been to Scilly to demand reparation for the Dutch ships and goods taken by them; and receiving no satisfactory answer, he had, according to his Commission, declared war on them.' As most of England was now in Parliamentarian hands, war was declared specifically upon the Isles of Scilly.

In June 1651, soon after the declaration of war, the Parliamentarian forces under Admiral Robert Blake forced the Royalist fleet to surrender. The Dutch fleet, no longer under threat, left without firing a shot. Due to the obscurity of one nation's declaration of war against a small part of another, the Dutch did not officially declare peace. And so, in the Isles of Scilly, the local legend was that the state of war was still in effect. 

In 1986, Roy Duncan, historian and Chairman of the Isles of Scilly Council, decided to investigate and wrote to the Dutch Embassy in London. Embassy staff found that no peace treaty had ever been signed, and Duncan invited the Dutch ambassador Jonkheer Rein Huydecoper to visit the islands and officially end the 'conflict'. Peace was declared on 17 April 1986, 335 years after the supposed declaration of war. The Dutch ambassador joked that it must have been horrifying to the Scillonians 'to know we could have attacked at any moment.'

So there you go. One of the longest wars in history ... and not one shot fired.

Another dog walk

 

Vlog: An Insect Safari

The hazels are bursting with cobnuts (though I won't get to eat any as the squirrels always get them first), the rowan trees are berrying nicely and the sycamores are preparingtheir helicopters for flight. Plus there seems to be an unusually abundant insect population in the meadows and field near my house. That's great news as I hardly saw any last year.

   

Vlog: Monsters and Mushrooms

 

Featuring the story of Roger Crab, the 'Mad Hatter'. Much more on this extraordinary chap here.

Vlog: The Stinky Alp(s)

New vloggage:

 

The hermit, Crab

On Saturday, a couple of days ago, I ran a monster making workshop in Chesham High Street. It was tremendous fun, local kids made some great junk monsters and all went well ... until the heavens opened. We got thunder, lightning, torrential rain and hail. My gazebo leaked, strong 40mph winds drove the rain in underneath and all of the art materials and equipment (including me) got soaked and much of it became unusable, sadly. 

That said, although I had to quit, the sun did then come out and the rest of the festival was a great success. British summers eh? 

It was all part of Chesham's annual Hats Off! festival of arts and crafts. It's so named thanks to an extraordinary character from the town's past - Roger Crab. He may have been the inspiration for one of the most famous storybook characters of all time. And he may also have been Britain’s first vegan. 

(Note: I have posted about Crab before here but this is an extended post with more information.) 

Roger Crab was born in Buckinghamshire in 1621 and grew up to be a very religious man. However, he believed that the church and the clergy didn’t adhere strictly to the Bible and to the true word of God. He refused to observe the Sabbath on a Sunday and chose to live his life by the words contained in the holy book, rather than by the words of priests. In his twenties, he developed an obsession with the idea of purity in mind and body. He decided to remain celibate and became a teetotal vegan – very possibly Britain’s first. In Corinthians 8:13 he found: ‘Wherefore if meate make my brother to offend, I will never eate flesh while the world stands’. He took this literally and, from that point on, would drink only water and refused to eat meat or any other produce from animals because, as he put it in his own writings, ‘If Adam had kept to his single naturall fruits of God’s appointment, namely fruits and hearbs, we had not been corrupted ‘. He also set out to learn how to make plant-based medicines and natural remedies (he did later become a herbalist) and, like most people of that age, probably grew all of his own vegetables and herbs. And it obviously did him good because he lived to the ripe old age of 59 ... and this is in a time when the average age of death for men was 31.3 years. 

In 1642 he was conscripted to fight for Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarians (‘Roundheads’) in the English Civil War. He was to serve for seven years. However, at the Battle of Colchester (1648) he was struck on the head by a sword and ’cloven to the braine’. While convalescing, he moaned about being ‘ill requited’ for his service and appears to have made himself a bit of a nuisance. He had taken up with a movement who called themselves The Levellers, that had formed within the army’s ranks. They were a liberal movement that demanded elected leaders, suffrage, equality and religious tolerance. Crab had already annoyed Cromwell, a Puritan, due to his constant criticism of organised religion. However, he had now become a possible danger politically. Cromwell sentenced him to death. He was sent to prison to await execution but, after two years, his death sentence was unexpectedly lifted and he was released. History does not tell us why. He was also presumably released from service in the army because he moved to Chesham and became a hat maker and seller. 

Crab's hat shop was ‘on the High Street near the George Hotel’ (now the George & Dragon Hotel). It is believed to have possibly stood where Francis Yard is now. Meanwhile, his behaviour started to become more erratic and extreme. He continued to publicly denounce the church and its ministers, which meant that he was constantly in trouble. He was sent to prison for short sentences several times and placed in the stocks. Crab had always been something of an eccentric but his brain injury may have made matters worse. In addition, he was working with dangerous chemicals like lead and mercury which poison the body and affect the central nervous system. Victims develop severe and uncontrollable muscular tremors and twitching limbs, called 'hatter's shakes'. Other symptoms include distorted vision and confused speech. In advanced cases, people can develop hallucinations and other psychotic symptoms. By the 19th century the condition was well documented and so many hatters spent the final years of their lives in psychiatric hospitals – then called ‘lunatic asylums’ – that the term ‘Mad as a Hatter’ entered the language. Some academics have suggested that reading about Crab may have inspired Lewis Carroll to invent the Hatter character for his Alice in Wonderland books. . 

In 1651, he made a huge, life-changing decision, quoting these ‘reasons from the Scripture’: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee: go, sell whatever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’ (Jeremiah 35.) ‘Then Jesus beholding him loved him and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give it to the poor, and thou shall have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow me.’ (Mark 10: 21.) Crab sold his shop and his considerable estate – even his clothes – and gave it all to the poor. He saved just enough to rent a small plot of land in Ickenham, near Uxbridge, and opted to live as a hermit. He built himself a hut in a tree, in which he lived for several years, and dressed in homemade sackcloth clothes. He claimed that he could live on three farthings (a farthing was a quarter of a penny) a week and offered herbal medicines to people in return for vegetables to eat. 

A sculpture I made of Crab that is currently on display in Chesham Library.

In 1655 he published an autobiography called The English Hermit or Wonder of This Age, in which he implored people to avoid meat and to only drink water. However, he also used it to continue criticising the clergy and the establishment in general. As he saw it: 

'The authorities have ruined the innocent, deprived the day-labourer and journeymen and orphans and alms-men of bread that the banqueting tables may be stocked with wine and dainties. The rich have planted ale-houses, not grain, across the nation. They have indebted farmers with exorbitant rents, and do not hold back in their feasting at christenings and weddings and holidays, all of these days being pretexts for gluttony and drunkenness.’ 

He was arrested at least four times as a ‘wizard’ and was put in the stocks and whipped. He was also given to uttering prophesies which resulted him being accused of witchcraft by a local clergyman. 

And so, in 1657, ROGER CRAB moved one last time to Bethnal Green in London’s East End where he spent the rest of his life giving out herbal medicines and writing booklets about how people should live their lives. However, one such booklet - called Dagon’s Downfall - was considered so rebellious and insulting that he was arrested and locked up in Clerkenwell Prison. While in the prison he was given only water and no bread as punishment. However, he later wrote of a ‘miracle’ whereby a spaniel dog brought him a piece of bread to eat. After his release he seems to have quietened down and there is very little written about him. He joined the Philadelphians, a group that followed the teachings of German mystic Jakob Böhme. They rejected the idea of being a church, preferring the term 'society', and believed that God is in all things, and that one can become enlightened and illuminated by living a virtuous life. Crab’s final two decades seem to have been spent selling his herbal remedies and writing occasional tracts condemning the authorities, but he was no longer viewed as dangerous. He died in 1680, aged 59, and is buried St Dunstan’s churchyard, Stepney. 

But was he really the inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter character in the Alice books? 

The theory that Roger Crab may have inspired the character was first put forward by historian Christopher Hill in 1958. He suggested that it is quite possible that Carroll (real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) had read about Crab. In addition, Carroll’s uncle Robert Lutwidge was a leading figure in the Lunacy Commission and we know from his diaries that Carroll visited asylums where events such as dances, plays and tea parties were regularly staged for the entertainment of visitors. These ‘freak shows’ would be considered cruel and unacceptable these days but, back then, they were very popular and they generated income for the hospitals. However, there is another contender for Carroll’s inspiration – a furniture upholsterer and inventor from Oxford called Theophilus Carter. He was a contemporary of Carroll and was known locally as ‘The Mad Hatter’ due to his resemblance to the Prime Minister, William Gladstone (who habitually wore top hats). Carter is said to have inspired Sir John Tenniel’s drawings of the Hatter in the books. He was a noted eccentric who invented many strange devices such as a clockwork toothbrush, a pair of roller skate slippers, and a hat which combed the wearer’s hair. Carroll had definitely heard of him because, when he visited the Great Exhibition of 1851, he mistakenly believed that an alarm clock that tipped the sleeper out of bed was the work of Carter (in fact, it was invented by a man called Robert Watson Savage). 

So, perhaps the Hatter was a combination of Crab and Carter? The phrase ‘Mad as a Hatter’ first appeared in print around 30 years before Carroll wrote Alice and originally meant ‘mad’ as in ‘angry’. That certainly fits Crab’s profile more than Carter’s. Apart from his crazy inventions, there is very little that was ‘mad’ about Carter. We may never know the true story but it it's nice that the people of Chesham may have a a historical link to one of literature’s most enduring and popular characters.

Lafrowda Day

Today is Lafrowda Day, the highlight of the 14 day Lafrowda community arts festival held every July in St Just in Penwith, Cornwall. The name is pronounced LaTHROWda and comes from the old Cornish language name for the area. 

The event includes a number of processions where musicians and bands lead members of the community who often carry large willow sculptures and images made especially for the day.These sculptures are covered in paper and glue before being painted. The images change each year to represent the theme of the festival, which is especially chosen by the organisers.

There are also two music stages in the town, where a wide variety of music is performed. Lafrowda Day is held on the third Saturday of July, with free activities for all the family during the preceding fortnight, ranging from knit and natter to dancing shows.

One of the most interesting places in St Just is the Plain-an-Gwarry. A plain-an-gwarry (or plen-an-gwarry), which translates to 'playing place' in English, is a community space once used to stage plays and other entertainment. The most famous of these plays were the religious stories called 'miracle plays'. On Lafrowda Day the Plain-an-Gwarry is used for entertainment for children. 

The event website is here.

A Day with Ray

Do you have ghosts in your phone? 

Every so often, like today, I'll be looking through my phone for a contact number and I'll stumble across the contact details of someone I once knew or worked with who has sadly passed on. 

Jeremy Hardy ... Sean Lock ... Terry Jones ... plus various artists, musicians, friends and family. 

Weirdly, even though I am not superstitious, I haven't got around to deleting them. It just feels too ...  final. It's like I'm erasing them in some way.

Today I happened upon the contact card for Ray Harryhausen.

A few years ago, I got the opportunity to meet the great man. A journalist friend of mine had interviewed Ray at his home and I’ll admit that I was envious. There are very few people whom I regard as 'heroes' but Ray is definitely one of them. You may not know the name but you'll know his work. He's the pioneering stop-motion animator who gave us those great adventure movies of the mid-late 20th century like Earth Vs the Flying Saucers, One million Years BC, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Clsh of the Titans and It Came from Beneath the Sea. It was thanks to Ray that we got to enjoy Jason and his Argonauts fencing with an army of skeletons, Sinbad battling the multi-armed iron statue of Kali and Raquel Welch in a pair of fur knickers (Incidentally, it's also Ray we have to thank for Tom Baker getting the lead role in Doctor Who. The BBC chose him after seeing his performance as the bad guy in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad). 

Ray's films are a fondly-remembered part of my childhood. And I said as much to my journalist chum who was quite happy to pass on Ray’s contact details. But I needed a good reason to meet him. I couldn’t just turn up and say I was there because Ms Welch’s hirsute undercrackers had filled me with adolescent joy, or because he’d been the first person to show me what a living dinosaur could have looked like (I was dinosaur mad as a kid – I still am). But then, a few weeks later, I found that excuse. I won't bore you with the details but it was a charity project I'd got involved with that had a monster theme. I reckoned it was a good enough reason and, I'm pleased to say, the great man was more than willing to accommodate me. We set a date for me to visit him at his London home.

Originally from California, Ray lived in the UK for nearly three decades and loved us Brits. Maybe that’s because he married one. Diana was certainly very welcoming as she opened the front door. I’d heard that’s she’s quite fiercely protective of Ray so I made an extra-special effort to be on my best behaviour. 

Ray was a delight. He had a permanent twinkle of excitement in his eyes and he was twinkling fit to explode as he showed me around his house like I was the first person he’d ever had visit. In some ways his house was more like a museum to his career. It fairly bulged with references to his films. To begin with, there were bronzes, all sculpted by Harryhausen himself, displayed on every available flat surface. He explained, as we climbed the two flights of stairs up to his study, that many of the original models from his films had deteriorated. 'I wanted to create a permanent record of them', he said, 'So I resculpted some of the figures and had them cast in bronze. They’ll be around long after I’m gone.' As he said this, we passed a superbly detailed bronze of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms attacking a lighthouse. 'I cast the lighthouse from the actual prop we used in the movie', he explained. 'I kept them all you see.' 

Ray is a rarity in the film industry in that he’d hung onto most of the models and props used in his movies. The shelves and glass cabinets in his study were groaning under the weight of them: Medusa (Clash of the Titans) enjoyed sharing a case with a rather moth-eaten and threadbare Pegasus. Across the room, a group of Selenites (First Men in the Moon) shared their home with a couple of skeletons (Jason and the Argonauts) and a dinosaur from Valley of Gwangi. There were octopus tentacles and Cyclopes, Big Bad Wolves and Dragons. A saucer from Earth versus the Flying Saucers sat incongruously atop a pile of rubber legs. The models looked old and worn and I could see what Ray meant about their deterioration. Many of them offered a glimpse of their metal skeletons; the wires poking through the rotten rubber flesh like steel bones. But they were in good enough nick to still show off the man’s sculpting ability. Oh, and there was a signed photo of Raquel Welch in her hirsute shreddies from One Million Years BC. That's a fond teenage memory.

He told me that Peter Jackson flew him out to New Zealand during the filming of King Kong because he's a huge fan of Ray's work. While there, Jackson told him that he'd like to establish a Museum of Film Animation. If he did get it off the ground, Ray reckoned he might donate his priceless collection. As it happens, a Foundation was set up after his death and many of the models were sympathetically restored. Some went on display in 2020 in Edinburgh to accompany a book on his life being written by daughter, Vanessa (see here). 

We headed back downstairs and the walls of the staircase were covered in his drawings. Ray was an exceptional draughtsman too and his original sketches, drawing and paintings were everywhere, framed and hanging on every spare inch of wall. I’ve been deliberately coy about where Ray lived as a burglar could net himself millions in swag from just one good rummage. 

The day ended with tea and a chat in one of the several downstairs reception rooms. I was distracted momentarily by the sight of a maid wandering around with some kind of parrot on her shoulder. But then I saw the plaque commemorating Ray’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And the golden knight standing on the sideboard. There, in front of me, was a real Academy Award - the Gordon E Sawyer Award for outstanding scientific and technical contribution to film - presented to Ray in 1991. A photograph next to it showed Ray accepting the award from (his words) that ‘nice guy Tom Hanks’. 

'That’s an Oscar', I said. 'A real Oscar.' 

'Yes', said Ray. 'Please be careful. It’s heavy.' 

He was right. It weighed a ton (well, eight and half pounds anyway). Dark visions of clubbing him over the head and running off with it flitted through my starstruck brain. But I could never do that. Not to such a genuinely nice man. And anyway, Diana was watching me like a hawk. I placed it back on the sideboard and finished my tea. 

He signed my copy of his biography and we posed for a photograph together with a Gwangi. It was the only photo I took that day as Ray was very strict about such things. He'd had a bad experience with a reporter a few years previously who'd taken lots of pics and then sold them indiscriminately (most of the images in this blogpost are from his magazine articles). 

So ... I’d met a childhood hero; a genuine Hollywood star and movie genius. And I’d been allowed to hold an Oscar. 

Not a bad day out, eh?

I was to visit Ray a couple of more times before his death in 2013. We got on splendidly. And we chatted on the phone a few times too. All of which is why it would feel weird to delete his number.

Call me irrational and sentimental, but it's a nice memento of precious time spent with one of the greats.

Meanwhile, copies of the fantastic bronze figures I saw can now be bought, courtesy of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation (see here) ... but you'll need deep pockets!

The mystery of Butterflying

I made this vlog this week:

And it raises the question of how butterflies get from A to B when they are at the whim of capricious gusts of wind. Apparently, it's all about wing size to body mass ratio.

Because the wings are so big, they make it easier for the whole insect to manoeuver. A butterfly’s huge wings are like having a massive rudder - the bigger the rudder, the faster the ship can turn. If you have a little rudder, you can’t turn as fast. 

It also seems that their aopparently erratic fluttering pattern is deliberate - this makes it very hard for predators to predict.

Every day is a school day.

Yet another meandering miscellany

 

And a few photos: