15th December, Yule Log
The Yule Log is a large wooden log, burned in the hearth as a part of Yule or Christmas celebrations. Originally an entire tree, it was carefully chosen and brought into the house with great ceremony to provide lasting warmth throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas (from Christmas Eve until Epiphany). In some European traditions, the largest end of the log would be placed in hearth while the rest of the tree stuck out into the room.
Ideally, the log would be lit with a brand made out of remnant of last year’s log, and it was hoped and considered a sign of great luck, that the log would burn throughout the twelve days. The Yule Log has frequently been associated with germanic paganism, practiced across northern Europe prior to the arrival of Christianity. One of the first to make this connection was the English historian Henry Bourne, writing in the 1720s, who described the practice occurring in the Tyne valley and theorised that it derived from sixth or seventh century Anglo-Saxon pagan customs – in old English folklore, Father Christmas was sometimes portrayed carrying a Yule Log.
The Yule Log brought prosperity and protection from evil, and by keeping the remnant of the log, the protection was believed to last all year. As well as being a protective amulet, the log became a source of rivalry – causing members of a rural communities to compete to possess the largest. According to historian and folklorist Professor Ronald Hutton, the traditions of the Yule Log died out in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century because of “the reduction in farm labour and the disappearance of the old-fashioned open hearths.”
In France and Wallonia, and francophone regions of the world – such as Quebec and in Lebanon – the Bûche de Noël (“Christmas Log”) is a traditional dessert, a cake in the shape of a Yule Log. Usually taking the form of a large cylindrical “roulade,” covered with chocolate icing, incised with a fork to resemble the tree’s bark – one end is lopped off and stood up to indicate the rings of the “log.”
I have shown here a Quebecois lumberjack, Alain Hauteville, sitting on the Yule Log he has just chopped down. The tree he chose was one that a childhood sweet-heart of his had written his initials into the bark many moons ago, before spurning him for a wealthy silk merchant in Montreal. After completing his thirsty work, young Al is enjoying a brew from his Thermos and a smoke,before dragging the lumber back to his cabin at the forest’s edge.
Illustration copyright © Paul Bommer
14th December, Christmas Pudding
Christmas Pudding is a steamed pudding traditionally served on Christmas Day. Originating in England and Ireland, and sometimes known as “Plum” or “Figgy Pudding,” it can be traced back at least to the fifteenth century when it contained meat as well as fruit and spices.
By the Victorian period, Christmas Pudding had become heavy with dried fruits and nuts, usually made with suet (all that remains of the medieval meat ingredient) and dark in appearance – effectively black – as a result of the dark sugars and black treacle included, and its long cooking time. The mixture was moistened with the juice of citrus fruits, brandy and some recipes called for dark beers such as stout or porter.
In the nineteenth century, Christmas Puddings were boiled in a cloth and they were round. However, in twentieth century they were prepared in basins, acquiring the shape we recognise today. Traditionally, the pudding is made four or five weeks before Christmas on what is called “Stir-up Sunday” with all the household stirring the mixture for good luck, although they can be made a year or even two in advance. It was common practice to include small silver coins in the mixture as prizes which could be kept by those who found them in their portion.
Once cooked, turned out, decorated with holly, doused in brandy, and flamed (or “fired”), the pudding is always brought to the table ceremoniously and greeted with a round of applause. Charles Dickens descibes the scene in “A Christmas Carol.”
- “Mrs Cratchit left the room alone – too nervous to bear witnesses – to take the pudding up and bring it in… Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day. That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that. That was the pudding. In half a minute, Mrs Cratchit entered – flushed, but smiling proudly – with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.”
Today, the term “Figgy Pudding” is known mainly because of the sixteenth century secular carol “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” which repeats, “Oh bring us a figgy pudding” in the chorus, confirming it as a traditional Christmas dish served during the season and given to Christmas carolers.
- Good tidings we bring to you and your kin
- We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
- Now! bring us some Figgy Pudding
- and bring some out here!
- Illustration copyright © Paul Bommer
At The “What Pub Next ?” Club
“I only come here to make your lives happier, I don’t enjoy it”
It was August when I last visited Simpsons Chop House – the oldest tavern in the City of London, established 1757 – so I was delighted to be invited back last week by Jean Churcher to join the members of the “What Pub Next?” Club for their December shindig. Believed to have been founded in the nineteen fifties, this venerable society of wags once had a membership of over three hundred and they used to visit all the pubs in the City.
Yet, even though the “What Pub Next?” Club was officially disbanded two years ago – even though there are only a handful of members left alive – even though there are no new members, no junior members, only senior members in their eighties and nineties – even though they no longer stray to any other pubs, adopting Simpsons Chop House (thirty seven and a half, Cornhill) as their headquarters – even though the question “What Pub Next?” is no longer asked – such is the intoxicating nature of this fellowship that these rebel diehards continue to put on their club ties and gather regularly for old time’s sake. So I think we must indulge them, because after all these years they simply cannot keep themselves from getting together for beanos.
Escaping the icy gusts blowing down Cornhill, I walked through Ball Court into the yard and discovered the eighteenth century edifice of Simpsons looming overhead, then I climbed down a windy stair to join the members of the “What Pub Next?” Club, who were merrily clinking tankards and celebrating as if Christmas had come already. So pervasive was the sense of mischief and fun, that whilst I could enjoy the experience offered by the “What Pub Next?” Club at once, appreciating the exact the nature of the organisation proved to be more elusive. Several original members squinted and strained when I asked them if they could remember when they first came along or if they could recall how it started. The genesis of the “What Pub Next?” Club is lost, it seems, in an endless haze of conviviality.
“I’m not sure anyone knows when it began,” queried ninety-one-year-old Douglas, whose daughters had dropped him off while they did their Christmas shopping. “It had to be a Bass pub, they had to serve draft beer,” interposed his friend “Ginger” helpfully, gesticulating with a sausage. “And we had to drink a spoonful of Worcestershire sauce as an initiation,” contributed Brian with a chuckle, adding to the picture for my benefit.
“By Jingo, let us have what we are here for!” exclaimed Pat authoritatively, the most senior member at ninety-two, reaching out for a mustard smothered sausage on a stick.“I know everyone here but don’t for a minute think that I can recall their names,” he informed me, “because somewhere along the way, I lost my memory – I can remember their name as long as as it’s Brian.” A comment which was the catalyst for general hilarity. “I only come here to make your lives happier, I don’t enjoy it,” he continued, adopting a stern tone, waving his hands around and holding court now, before asking rhetorically, “Can you enjoy life without laughing? Life’s far too serious not to be taken lightly.” It was a maxim that could easily be the motto of the “What Pub Next?” Club.
Originating among employees of the Australia & New Zealand Bank who wanted to learn about British culture whilst posted to London before they returned to the antipodes, the “What Pub Next?” Club quickly became a social focus for hundreds of City workers in the nineteen sixties. All that was required for membership was a tie – a tie that was ceremonially cut off with giant shears belonging to Mr True, the tailor at the Bell in Cannon St, if members left to return to their country of origin. These stumps of ties were nailed to wall in the cellar of Simpsons along with pairs of girls’ knickers acquired by undisclosed means, I was assured. A story that was the cue to remember Sid Cumberland, who had his little finger cut off by mistake during the tie ceremony – though fortunately the surgeons at Barts were able to sew his pinkie on again and Sid returned to New Zealand with only a crooked digit as evidence of his misadventures in London.
The late Ken Wickes is venerated as the president and founder of the “What Pub Next?” Club, remembered today by a brass plate over the bar. “Every year he resigned and every year he was re-elected,” they told me affectionately. The name of the late “Reverend Strudwick” was evoked in a whisper, yet although he inspired a devotion that bordered on religion, he was not a priest just one whose initials were R.E.V. In fact – I learnt – “Struddy” was poet who wrote cryptic verses which had to be deciphered in order to answer the question“What Pub Next?” Not all of these examples are quotable in print but among those that I can give are – The Watling (the which fish), The Globe (Shakespeare’s auditorium), The Sugar Loaf (the sweetbread) and The Wood-in-Shades (Woo’d in Hell).
By now, the Port was being passed around in a pewter tankard and – with so few members of the Club left – it was circulating at the speed of a horse on a merry-go-round. As a consequence, the momentum and eloquence of the conversation accelerated too, so that the story of the WPNC trip to the Bass brewery and the account of the WPNC Morris dancing on the banks of the Stour passed me by. Yet I grasped an impression of the glorious history of the noble club, enough to understand why they should all wish to keep meeting and celebrating for ever.
“I worked fifty years in the City and I’ve still got my bowler hat and brolly at home. I remember the first thing I did when I started work at the insurance exchange in 1962 was go and buy a bowler. “ Brian confided to me with a sentimental smile as he passed the Port back and forth – turning contemplative and pausing for a moment to ask, “Do they still wear bowler hats?”
Jean – “I have a garter made of a club tie, it only goes to my knee now but it used to go all the way up!”
The WPN club tie with its discreet logo is de rigeur on these occasions.
Jean Churcher, the celebrated raconteuse of Simpsons Chop House.
Quaffing the Port from a pewter tankard.
Happy Christmas from the members of the “What Pub Next?” Club!
Cheese on toast with Worcestershire Sauce is the traditional conclusion of proceedings at the WPN Club.
You may also like to read my earlier report
Justin Knopp, Typoretum
After interviewing more than eight hundred people, I agreed to give my first interview – conducted by Tim Rich for the debut issue of Random Spectacular, published this week by St Jude’s in aid of Maggie’s Centres. Described as a collaborative exploration of the visual arts, the magazine includes work by Spitalfields Life regulars Paul Bommer, Joanna Moore and Rob Ryan among many others. Justin Knopp of Typoretum was commissioned to create a print to accompany my interview and so I took the opportunity to travel by train from Liverpool St to Coggeshall to visit him in his workshop.
Justin Knopp
I had not met Justin Knopp of Typoretum before he designed the print you see him holding in this photograph – I had not even spoken with him – yet when a copy arrived out of the blue, I was so impressed that I got on the train up to Coggeshall at once, eager to go and find the man behind this clever piece of typography.
Situated where the suburbs of Essex have unravelled into green fields and villages with old flint churches, Coggeshall is an ancient market town lined with medieval houses upon Stane St, the Roman road which is the continuation of Old St. Outlying the village, behind a modest nineteenth century terrace, you will find a long weatherboarded shed with a plume of blue smoke drifting through the orchard from the chimney of the wood-burning stove within. Here, in a single long room lined with trays of magnificent wooden type and filled with gleaming iron printing presses crouching like tamed mythical beasts, Justin Knopp – printer, typographer and retained fireman – works his subtle magic.
Justin was born in Coggeshall though he studied in London at St Martin’s College of Art in Covent Garden before returning after graduation in 1994. “My family are all from London for generations,” he told me as he started blending ink with a palette knife upon a glass plate, “before that they were from round here, Maldon. They were bootmakers.” And then he went silent, assuming the grimace of concentration upon the task in hand.
Meanwhile, the printer’s pie sat upon the Albion Press of 1851 awaiting the ink and I could not fail to be impressed that although Justin had used a different typeface for each line, all the lines were of equal length. “I like the challenge of fitting the type into the block,” he explained, observing my interest, “It certainly makes life difficult, but it’s a bit of a house style of mine!” After years of commuting and working as a graphic designer in London while pursuing letterpress as a hobbyist, Justin took the brave step of starting out on his own in 2009. He built the shed, installed the presses and never looked back.
“I started doing this because I loved it and I knew lots of the old boys that were doing it” he confided to me as he began to roll the ink onto the type, “and I thought, ‘It’s dying out and that’s a terrible shame,’ so it became my ambition to carry it on.” In fact, Justin’s school playground sat beside The Anchor Press, one of the largest printing factories in the country at the time and although it is long gone, Justin befriended many of the veterans of the printworks, recording the oral history and archiving the photographic record. The outcome of this passion was that Justin was gifted collections of type and presses that he has supplemented with his own acquisitions.
Bringing a contemporary sensibility to the use of these classic typefaces, Justin finds himself in demand, not just for business cards and wedding invitations, but providing fine letterpress printing for all kinds of projects such as the recent limited edition of Haruki Murakami’s “1Q84.” “Lots of weird and wonderful things we get involved with,” admitted Justin with a delighted smile, as he laid the paper down delicately upon the type, placing the packing on top and rolling the whole contraption forward beneath the press before pulling upon the lever and leaning back with his whole weight.
“I like a degree of imperfection,” he confessed, scrutinising the resulting print with a frown, “but any more than that and it looks badly printed.” Justin is scrupulous to achieve what he terms, the “kiss” impression that sits upon the surface of the paper, not the indented imprint that is commonly associated with letterpress yet merely an indicator of poor quality printing. The truth is that the print looked mighty fine to me, an enormous thrill to see my words emblazoned in such style.
By now, Justin’s wife Cecilia arrived with his two excited daughters from school to interrupt the calm of the print shop. “Which of you is going to be a printer?” he teased, as each gave him the kiss impression upon the cheek, and I could not but envy these children growing up with a printing press at home. Then, while the family went for tea, Justin carried on, re-inking the block and studying each impression as it came off the press. “Printing in this way, there’s a lot more variation,” he said, permitting himself grudging satisfaction as he hung the prints on the drying rack suspended from the ceiling, “each one can be unique, which is nice.”
Working assiduously in his Guernsey sweater and canvas apron, surrounded by nineteenth century presses and bringing new life to old techniques, Justin is a happy man. He is at home here, with a busy family life and an active involvement in village life that includes firefighting duties too. “I’ve gone from doing it purely for the love of it to making a living out of it, and we’re still alive!” he declared to me, casting his eyes around his beautiful print workshop in triumph.
Copies of Justin Knopp’s print are available from the Spitalfields Life online shop and copies of Random Spectacular magazine will be available from St Jude’s.
13th December, St Lucy’s Day
Saint Lucy (283–304), also known as Santa Lucia, was a wealthy young Christian martyr who was killed in Syracuse, Sicily, by Diocletian for refusing to submit to her heathen husband. She is now venerated as a saint by Christians around the world and her feast day is 13th December. With a name derived from lux, lucis – meaning “light” – she is the patron saint of those who are blind or have eye-trouble (as well as, bizarrely, salesmen, writers and those with throat infections).
In the legend, she had her eyes put out before being killed and, in some versions of the tale, God restores her sight. She is shown on the right with two of her symbols – the palm-frond of Martyrdom and her own eyes upon a salver or cake-stand!
Saint Lucy is one of the very few saints celebrated by members of the Lutheran Church among the Scandinavian peoples, who take part in Saint Lucy’s Day celebrations that retain elements of germanic paganism. December 13th was the date of the Winter Solstice in the Julian Calendar (replaced by today’s Gregorian Calendar in Britain in 1752, when Wednesday, 2nd September was immediately followed by Thursday, 14th September – a change that brought consternation and rioting). This timing and her name meaning light, are factors in the particular devotion to St. Lucy performed in Scandinavian countries where young girls dress as the saint in honour of her feast.
Traditionally, the oldest daughter of any household will wear a white robe with a red sash and a wreath of evergreens and twelve lighted candles upon her head. Assisted by any siblings, she serves coffee and a special St Lucia bun (a Lussekatt in Swedish) to her parents and family. The Lussekatter or Lussebollar are spiced buns flavoured with saffron and other spices, customarily presented in the form shown in my drawing, an inverted “S” with two raisins a-top – perhaps representing St Lucy’s plucked out eyes?
The metaphysical poet and Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, John Donne, wrote “A Nocturnal upon St. Lucie’s Day, being the shortest day” in 1627. The poem begins – “Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s,” describing the describing into sterility and darkness at this time when “The world’s whole sap is sunk.” A good day for coffee and buns, in other words!
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my Scandinavian friends (plus any Lucies) a “God Jul!”
Illustration copyright © Paul Bommer
12th December, Mr Fezziwig’s Ball
This jolly couple are Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig, two lovable characters from Charles Dicken’s seasonal novella “A Christmas Carol.”
Mr. Fezziwig is the owner of the business for whom Ebenezer Scrooge worked as an apprentice with Dick Wilkins, and in Stave 2 of “A Christmas Carol” he gives a Christmas ball for his family, friends and employees. Old Fezziwig is a happy man with a large Welch (or welsh) wig, and he and his beloved wife are shown here dancing the “Sir Roger de Coverley,” a lively tune, popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Scrooge revisits Fezziwig with the Ghost of Christmas Past and, realising that Fezziwig is one of the few people to whom he is thankful, says, “He has the power to render us happy or unhappy, to make our service light or burdensome, a pleasure or a toil…The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.” Scrooge is reminded how much he once appreciated Fezziwig, and since Fezziwig might be the elder Scrooge’s model — in kindness, generosity, affection for his employees, relationship with family and apparent happiness — Scrooge is confronted with the fact that his own choices have diverged from those of one he admired. Consequently, he has a stab of remorse for how he has treated his own employee, Bob Cratchett.
The other Fezziwigs mentioned by Dickens are the couple’s three unnamed daughters, described as “beaming and lovable,” and courted collectively by six young gentlemen!
Yo ho, my boys! Hilli-ho! Chirrup!
Illustration copyright © Paul Bommer
The Dogs of Spitalfields in Winter
Spitalfields Life Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie and writer Andrew McCaldon have been out in the parks again, braving the frost to continue their survey of East End canines.
Max (Dalmatian) & Hugo Coster
“I saw his picture online – one inch by five inches – and that was it. I grew up in the States and had two Dalmatians as a kid, though Max is the first as my own responsibility. I’ve had rats and cats but dogs take it to a whole new level.
It’s nice having him – I meet about twenty new people every day. Recently I was walking him in Hyde Park and met an improv actor who was doing a show called ‘Hounded.’ He said they’d love to have Max chase people dressed as foxes through Soho on a Friday night. And we did! They had bugles going off. The drunk revellers got in on the action too. Max loved it!
With Max, people want to stop and talk. It’s made London a more friendly place for me.”
Percy (Basset Hound), Ronnie (Terrier) & Evon Gregory
“I’d had Percy for about six months but he wasn’t good on his own, he used to wail all the time. Then I was having coffee with Leila outside her shop when a guy came up with a rucksack of puppies, saying he couldn’t cope with them. He opened the bag and Ronnie was just there. I looked at him and Leila said ‘Are you sure about this?’ but I’ve no regrets.
Percy and Ronnie get on very well. Percy is a proper alpha male, very protective, very stubborn, and Ronnie loves everybody, he’s social, he’s always happy. They’re like ‘The Odd Couple.’
I was very ill for over a year, and if it hadn’t been for the dogs I wouldn’t have left the house at all. So I realised afterwards how important they both were.”
Molly (Miniature Yorkshire Terrier) & Alan Styman
“My wife went out one day and ,when she came home, she put her hand in her pocket and she pulled Molly out and held her in her hand. She was so tiny, it was unbelievable.
I was born in Bethnal Green and I worked as an estates manager for Tower Hamlets for a long while, then I became a chauffeur. I drove all sorts of people, executives from the big banks, Judi Dench and her husband, Placido Domingo – I drove him about, to and fro the opera house. And Tommy Steele.
I loved it.
My wife and I live in sheltered housing now and it can be very boring, stuck indoors. Molly keeps me active, and if you make a fuss of her you make a friend for life. The amount of people around here who see me and say ‘Hello Molly!’ – they all know her but I haven’t the faintest idea who they are.”
Blesk (Borzoi) & Svetlana Cunnington
“I’ve had dogs from the Whippet family all my life, and I had another Borzoi in Switzerland, where I am from. My husband and I went to Russia to fetch Blesk. He was six months in quarantine and we went down to see him every Saturday and Sunday to try and cheer him up.
For me, these dogs represent speed, swiftness and beauty – and beauty will save the world.
He’s a continuation of me. We went on a holiday to Moscow, three days later we had a phone call to say ‘your dog is dying.’ Blesk wasn’t eating, only lying there. It was sadness, he had given up. He thought we had left him again, just as he was when he was in quarantine. Ever since then, we have never been on holiday without him.
He’s my angel.
I have a son, he’s twenty-one now, and in the Swiss army. You learn that you can’t have your children with you forever, they can’t always be your companion but your dog stays with you.”
Charlie (Border Collie-Labrador-Whippet-Greyhound-cross) & Leanne Winters
“I’ve had him since he was a pup. My Nan owned Charlie’s mother. He’s got his Mum’s grey colour and the black bits belong to his Dad.
He’s a unique dog, all on his own. People either call him a fox, a wolf or a hyena!
I’ve lived here for thirty years and people have seen me with different dogs, I’ve had a five or six so far. Charlie’s the best – more lovable, more playful. He brings me happiness. He doesn’t listen to a blind word I say, but there we are. He peed on my friend’s leg the other day, cos she’d been standing still for a long time and he thought she was a tree. He’s good like that!”
Nelson (English Bull Terrier) & Stuart Morris
“Eleven years old, he’s an old boy now. He’s called Nelson after “The Nelson’s Head” round the corner – yeah, and he also has a patch over one eye. I bought him as a guard dog for the pub when I owned it. I didn’t keep the pub in the end, but I kept Nelson.
Their reputation is the problem with these dogs, though it’s not the dogs, it’s the people who bring them up – whether it’s six inches of Chihuahua or an Alsatian, if you bring them up angry, they’ll be angry.
You can’t get a better dog for a kid. My granddaughter’s two and, if Nelson’s having his dinner and she puts her hand into his mouth, he’ll stop eating.
He’s as good as gold.”
Malinka (West Highland Terrier) & Sara Dixon
“‘Mally,’ ‘Monkey,’ ‘Moo,’ ‘Malinka the Stinker!’
I like Westies. At school, one of my boyfriends had a West Highland Terrier and we used to put gel in its hair. We were fourteen and it was fun.
Malinka’s a dope, but a nice dope. She’s scared of prams and she barks at leaves passing the door. I was burgled, I could hear them downstairs yet the entire time Malinka was under the bed, fast asleep.
She always sleeps under my bed. And she sits on the bottom stair, I’m often out all day – she’s worn that stair thin, waiting for me.”
Shadow (Rottweiler–Black Labrador cross) & Edmond Cuvelier
“Me, my Mum and sister moved to San Francisco while my Dad stayed in France and that’s when we got Shadow, ten years ago. Now I’m studying over here. All my family’s in Europe and we were all moving here anyways, so I found a college nearby.
Coming over, the only problem for Shadow was the flight. She was in the place where they keep all the suitcases, for twelve hours, and as soon as she got off the plane she started crying.
I do miss my friends over there, but I’m making new friends here. I got here two months before my course started and Shadow was good company during that time – and she still is.”
Sam (Alsatian) & Yvonne Davis
“My brother lives in Essex and he kept seeing this dog with a drug addict – the dog was getting thinner and on its last legs. So one day he gave the addict some money for the dog and took him away.
We called him Sam. I have him Monday to Thursdays and then my brother, he’s a taxi driver, picks Sam up in his cab and they go home to Essex together.
He’s a bit vocal at times, a bit nervous. Yesterday, my son suddenly banged open a cupboard and Sam flew for his life.
Two different parents might not be ideal but compared to what his previous life was like, it’s much better. Now he’s loved.”
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
You may also like to take a look at
