Ladies of the Garter

Ladies of the Garter or Thistle are styled "Lady" followed by their christian name and surname, unless they are peeresses.

The prefix "Lady" followed by the christian name normally only applies to the daughters of dukes, marquesses or earls.

Lady Mary Peters LG CH DBE is an example of this format.

Cambridges in Belfast

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are visiting Belfast, Ballymena, County Antrim, and County Fermanagh on a two day trip [27-28 February] that will celebrate the young people of Northern Ireland.

Day One will have a strong focus on the positive impact that sport, nature and the outdoors can have on childhood development, and improved physical and mental health for all.

Their Royal Highnesses will start the first day with a visit to Windsor Park football stadium, home of the Irish Football Association (IFA).

The IFA run outreach programmes that benefit the mental and physical health of local communities. ‘Shooting Stars’ encourages young girls to play football and ‘Ahead of the Game’ works to support clubs and volunteers when dealing with mental health issues, with a focus on challenging the stigma and preventative measures.

In County Fermanagh, TRH will see the incredible work that the charity Extern is doing at their Roscor Youth Village, which is a residential activity centre for children referred to the charity by social workers or the Department of Justice.

The site provides a safe space to help and support these young people, with particular emphasis on outdoor activities and developing independent living skills.

Ending the day back in Belfast at the iconic Empire Music Hall, Their Royal Highnesses will attend a party celebrating young people who are making a real difference in Northern Ireland.

The band LARKS will take to the stage, and guests will encompass representatives from Northern Ireland’s business, arts and sport sectors, including Lady Mary Peters who was today appointed Lady Companion of the Most Noble of the Garter by Her Majesty The Queen.

Lady Mary Peters

Dame Mary receiving insignia of CH in 2015

I am absolutely delighted for Lady Mary Peters, who is appointed a Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter.

Lady Mary joins the Duke of Abercorn and the Viscount Brookeborough as the third recipient of the Garter in Northern Ireland today.

The Queen has been pleased to appoint LADY MARY ELIZABETH PETERS to be a Lady Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, and the Marquess of Salisbury to be a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.

The appointment of the Knights and Ladies of the Garter is in The Queen's gift, without Prime Ministerial advice.

Appointments to the Order of the Garter are therefore in the same category as the Order of the Thistle, the Order of Merit and the Royal Victorian Order. Today's announcement brings the number of Companions to twenty-three (out of a maximum of twenty-four).

Dame Mary Peters, CH, DBE (born 6 July 1939) served as Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of the County Borough of Belfast between 2009 and 2014.

In the 1972 summer Olympics in Munich, Dame Mary won the Gold Medal in the pentathlon.

In 1975, she established the Mary Peters Trust to support talented young sportsmen and women across Northern Ireland. 

The Most Hon Robert Michael James, Marquess of Salisbury, KCVO, PC, DL (born 30 September 1946) is a former Leader of the House of Lords.

Lord Salisbury is a Deputy Lieutenant of Hertfordshire, and was Chairman of the Thames Diamond Jubilee Foundation, which organised the Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the River Thames in 2012.

Lord Salisbury is also Chancellor of the University of Hertfordshire.

James Joseph Magennis VC

LEADING SEAMAN JAMES JOSEPH MAGENNIS VC

James Joseph McGinnes (later spelled Magennis) was born on 27 October, 1919, at 4 Majorca Street, Belfast.

He was the only Northern Irishman to be awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest award ‘for valour in the face of the enemy’, during the second World War.

He attended St Finian’s primary School on the Falls Road in West Belfast until 3rd June, 1935, when he enlisted in the Royal Navy as a boy seaman.

Majorca Street, Belfast. Click to Enlarge

He served on several different warships including HMS Kandahar which struck a mine off the coast of Tripoli, Libya, in December 1941 and was irreparably damaged and scuttled.

In 1942 Magennis was drafted into the Submarine service, and in March, 1943, he volunteered for “special and hazardous duties” which meant serving in midget submarines known as X-craft, about 50-feet long and weighing about 130 tons, with a crew of 4 men.

He trained as a diver and in September, 1943, took part in the first major use of X-craft during Operation Source, penetrating Kafjord, Norway, and disabling the German battleship Tirpitz.

He and the other crewmen of the two midget submarines which took part in the attack were Mentioned in Despatches “for bravery and devotion to duty.”

In July 1945, as Allied forces moved to recover Singapore from the Japanese, Acting Leading Seaman Magennis was serving as the diver on the midget submarine HMS XE3 which was tasked, under the codename Operation Struggle, with sinking the 10,000-ton Japanese cruiser Takao.

She had been damaged in the Battle of the Phillipines in 1944, had limped to Singapore and was berthed in the Straits of Johor, between Malaysia and Singapore , as an anti-aircraft battery.

On 30th July, 1945, XE3 was towed to the operational area by the submarine Stygian.

She slipped her tow at 23:00 and made a 40-mile journey through minefields, hazardous wrecks and hydrophone listening posts to reach the Takao, arriving at 1300 on 31 July.

XE3’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Ian Frazer, placed his craft directly under the keel of Takao with only one-foot of head-room.

Magennis exited from the ‘wet and dry’ chamber with great difficulty because of the restricted space and detached 6 limpet mines (so-called because their magnets were intended to make them stick to the hull of their targets like limpets to a rock) from the limpet carriers on one side of the submarine.

He then found that barnacles on Takao’s hull prevented the mines from getting a proper magnetic grip on the hull and he had to scrape off barnacles with his knife to make room for each of the mines.

He also tied the mines in pairs and placed one of the pair on each side of the keel spread along 45-feet of the cruiser’s hull.

All this time, his ‘frogman’ breathing apparatus was leaking air and sending a tell-tale stream of bubbles to the surface.

In the meantime, the Takao had slowly settled with the tide and XE3 was trapped under her bilge keel.

After much thrashing of the motor and pumping water, XE3 freed herself.

On Magennis’s return to XE3, the crew used hand wheels to drop the two side-cargoes off the midget submarine, one full of two tons of high explosive and the other the now flooded empty limpet carriers.

The explosive cargo dropped away but one of the limpet carriers was stuck to the hull.

Magennis, although exhausted, immediately volunteered to free this limpet carrier, saying “I’ll be alright as soon as I’ve got my wind, Sir.”

He put on his breathing apparatus again, exited the submarine and released the limpet-carrier by hand after seven minutes work with a heavy spanner.

On his return, XE3 started the 40-mile return journey back to HMS Stygian.

At 21:30, some, but not all, of the limpet mines exploded and blew a 23 feet by 10 feet hole in the starboard side of Takao’s hull.

Her keel buckled, the blast disabled her gun turrets and damaged her rangefinder but she did not sink.

Magennis Memorial, Belfast City Hall

On 13th November, 1945, a citation was published in the London Gazette that “the King has been graciously pleased to approve the award of the Victoria Cross for valour to Acting Leading Seaman James Joseph Magennis”.

The detailed citation recited the difficulties he had faced and observed that “a lesser man would have been content to place a few limpets and then to return”. It concluded that “Magennis displayed very great courage and devotion to duty and complete disregard for his own safety”.

The Commanding Officer of XE3, Lieutenant Frazer, who was also awarded a VC for his part in the attack, was reported as saying that “Jim gave me bother from time to time. He liked his tot of rum but he was a lovely man and a fine diver. I have never met a braver man.”

James Magennis left the Royal Navy in 1949 and returned to live in Belfast.

LS Magennis presented with a Cheque by the Rt Hon Sir Crawford McCullagh Bt,
Lord Mayor of Belfast, on 19th January, 1946

A public collection was held for him called a Shilling Fund (a shilling was one-twentieth of a £, 12 old pence, 5 new pence) which raised £3,600 [about £121,000 in today's money].

He left Belfast in 1955 when he moved to Yorkshire, where he worked as an electrician.

He died on 11th February, 1986, hours before his heroism was honoured by the Royal Navy Philatelic Office with a first-day cover.

Click to Enlarge

There are memorial plaques to him in Belfast and in Bradford.

A six-foot high memorial statue, made of Portland Stone and bronze, was placed outside Belfast City Hall in October 1999.

His Victoria Cross has been on display in the Ashcroft Gallery of the Imperial War Museum, London, since 2010.

City Hall Visit

I was in two minds as to my choice of attire yesterday.

Was it to be the herringbone tweed jacket and suede shoes, or the worsted grey chalk-stripe suit?

Eventually I settled on a compromise: the suit, with woollen tie and chukka boots.

I usually wear a suit or overcoat in town at any rate.

If you have been following the Belmont narrative, you will know that I attended the old school dinner several weeks ago in the Ulster Reform Club, where I sat beside Jeff Dudgeon, MBE, who happens to be a Belfast city councillor.

Jeff asked me if I'd been on one of his City Hall tours.

I had not.

So after breakfast yesterday morning I dressed in the glad rags, jumped into the jalopy, and made a bee-line for the City Hall.

This magnificent civic edifice is located at Donegall Square, so I motored into the inner courtyard and found a space.

Without elaborating too much, the City Hall is a grand, ornate, quadrilateral pile made of Portland stone, about 300 feet wide and 174 feet high, with a splendid copper dome.

It is one of the most impressive civic buildings in the British Isles, took ten years to construct, and was completed in 1906.

The interior has abundant Greek and Italian marble, a fine banqueting hall, and a large mural symbolizing Belfast's industrial heritage.

Most of the ground floor has become an exhibition space now.

A civic lamp-posts is displayed.

A pair of ornate lampposts used to be erected outside Lord Mayors' homes, whether they happened to be on the Shankill Road or Malone Park!

Even the Lord Mayor's ceremonial robe is on display in a glass cabinet.

Jeff and I ascended the grand staircase (he pointed out a section of the plasterwork requiring a bit of attention), past many historical items on the walls, and portraits of former Lord Mayors.

The cherub is not amused.

The Lord Mayor has a particularly distinctive robe, made of black silk satin and emblematic gold lace, with white lace cuffs and jabot, white gloves, tricorn hat, and of course the golden chain-of-office.

Most Lord Mayors are far too bolshy to wear it today, even for ceremonial occasions.

We spent some time in the opulent Council Chamber on the first floor, which has the Lord Mayor's chair at one end and the royal dais at the other.

The Royal Dais

Plentiful wood panelling, stained glass, plush carpet and exquisite plasterwork adorn this room.

The stain-glass windows include the armorial bearings of the Marquess of Londonderry, the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, and the City of Belfast.

Alderman Tommy Patton OBE, Lord Mayor, 1982-3

Jeff showed me the Robing Room, something similar in size to a large billiards-room, with a large table and wooden lockers for the councillors' robes.

Sir Edward Coey DL, Mayor, 1861-2

The city's silver mace and the Lord Mayor's robe (or one of them) are displayed here.

Before I departed, Jeff took me into his offices, where we had delicious chunks of fruit (pineapple, melon, grape) on wooden sticks.

I'll revisit the permanent exhibition, perhaps this summer.

The Lost Caravaggio: II

Photo Credit: National Gallery of Ireland

THE leading expert in Baroque paintings and specialist in Caravaggio was Sir Denis Mahon, an art historian and collector of Baroque paintings, who had twice been a Trustee of the National Gallery London.

At this time he was 82-years old and had spent his entire adult life studying Baroque paintings.

When the restoration was complete he was invited to visit Dublin, was led to the Restoration Studio, shown the painting on an easel, studied it closely, ‘nose to canvas’, and was asked who was the painter?

In a matter of minutes he said ‘Caravaggio’.

He later explained that he was persuaded by the ‘masterly’ painting of the hands in the picture, objects which many artists find particularly difficult to portray. 

WITH an attribution by Sir Denis Mahon of the ‘Honthorst’ painting as a genuine Caravaggio its estimated market value in 1993 was as much as £50 million.

The Jesuit community decided that, having received it as a gift from Dr. Lea-Wilson, now dead, they held it on a charitable trust and were not free to sell it.

They retain ownership but placed it on permanent loan to the National Gallery of Ireland.

BUT is it really the original of The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio or a variation on the original by Caravaggio himself or even a very good copy of the original by another artist such as Honthorst? 

The original painting had been commissioned in Rome in 1602 by its richest citizen, Ciriaco Mattei.

Caravaggio was then living in his palace and painted at least three paintings for him.

Ciriaco was a meticulous book-keeper and his account books, in his own hand, show four payments to Caravaggio, seemingly based on the size of the paintings, including a payment in 1603 of 125 scudi (enough to rent a house in Rome for three years) ‘for a painting with its frame of Christ taken in the Garden’.

This refers to St. Mark’s Gospel description of Judas betraying Christ to soldiers with a kiss.

THE Mattei family’s wealth diminished in the following two centuries.

Family inventories of possessions became less specific.

The painting of ‘The Taking of Christ’ was attributed to Caravaggio until 1753 when a new inventory described a painting as ‘The Betrayal by Judas’.

A 1786 guidebook called ‘An Instructive Inventory of Rome’ by one Guiseppe Vasi was replete with errors and attributed the ‘Taking’ picture to Gherardo della Notte.

Whoever prepared the 1793 Mattei inventory appears to have drawn on Vasi as his source, rather than previous family inventories.

The painting in the Mattei family’s possession was attributed for the first time in the 1793 inventory to Gherardo delle Notti.

Was this the Caravaggio? 

IN 1798, when Napoleon invaded Northern Italy, he imposed heavy taxes on landowners to pay for his army.

The Mattei family had to sell assets to pay these taxes.

In 1802 they sold six paintings to a very wealthy Scotsman called William Hamilton Nisbet, including one which had been labelled as ‘The Taking of Christ’ by Honthorst.

An export licence was obtained for the six paintings which again refers to the painting being by Honthorst.

The six paintings purchased from the Mattei Palace in Rome in 1802 remained in the Hamilton Nisbet family’s possession until 1921.

IN that year, the last direct descendant of William Hamilton Nisbet was his great-granddaughter Constance Ogilvy.

She offered 31 of her family’s paintings to the National Gallery of Scotland which took all but three of them.

The rejected three included the Honthorst.

Together with other family paintings from ‘the Mansion-House of Biel, East Lothian’ it went to auction at Dowell’s in Edinburgh on 16 April 1921.

An annotated catalogue for that sale shows £8-8-0 beside the entry for ‘The Betrayal of Christ’ by Gerard Honthorst.

THE paper trail for Caravaggio’s painting from the Mattei Palace in Rome in 1603 to Dowell’s auction house in Edinburgh in 1921 is not perfect but is convincing.

It is supplemented by the oral history of Dr Lea-Wilson acquiring the painting in Edinburgh in the 1920s, giving it to the Jesuits in the 1930s and the painting going to the NGI in 1990.

THERE are at least twelve known versions of Caravaggio’s painting.

Two of them are claimed to be the original of ‘The Taking of Christ’, one in Odessa in the Ukraine and another which was bought from the Sannini family in Florence, Italy, by a Roman art dealer in 2003.

The Odessa painting is probably a copy of the Caravaggio made for Ciriaco Mattei’s brother Asdurabale by an artist called Giovanni di Attile for which he was paid 12 scudi.

Sir Denis Mahon described the fingers in the Odessa painting as being like ‘sausages’, not typical of Caravaggio’s best work.

Although Sir Denis thought that the Sannini painting was one of a series of the same subject painted by Caravaggio, its claim became doubtful in 2008 when analysis of its pigments showed traces of ‘Naples Yellow’, a paint not known to have been used until 1615, five years after Caravaggio’s death.

ON balance, the paper trail from Rome to Edinburgh, the oral history in Dublin and Sir Denis Mahon’s attribution to Caravaggio, indicate that ‘The Taking of Christ’ painting in the NGI is the original painting commissioned by Ciriaco Mattei in Rome in 1602.

Aldergrove Railway Station

It is entirely feasible that Aldergrove railway station, or a halt, could be re-opened in some shape or form.

Photo Credit: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/a/aldergrove/index.shtml

This could serve Belfast International Airport.

Has this plan or proposal been supported by local government, former Northern Ireland Assembly Ministers, transport authorities, and Belfast International Airport?

Has the airport lobbied for or against such a proposal?

I wrote a piece about a rail link in 2008.

The Lost Caravaggio: I

Photo Credit: National Gallery of Ireland

THE "LOST CARAVAGGIO" FOUND IN DUBLIN

IN 1993 the National Gallery of Ireland announced that it had found in Dublin and authenticated a missing Caravaggio painting known as ‘The Taking of Christ’.

How did it come to be in Dublin?

And is it really the missing Caravaggio painting of that subject? 

THE story of how the painting came to be in Dublin is both simple and tragic.

Percival Lea-Wilson was born into a middle-class family in Brompton, London, in April, 1887.

His grandfather Samuel Wilson had been Lord Mayor of the City of London in 1838, his father was a stockbroker.

Percival was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford.

He joined the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1909.

In 1914 he married Marie Ryan, daughter of a Cork solicitor, enlisted in the Royal Irish Rifles on the outbreak of war with Germany, and served on the Western Front where he was severely wounded.

He had re-joined the RIC by March 1916 and was stationed in Dublin during the Easter Rising.

HE was placed in charge of a group of Irish Republican prisoners who had surrendered and who were being kept at the Rotunda Hospital.

It is easy to imagine that a British officer who had himself been wounded and who had seen countless men killed in the war would not have had much sympathy for his prisoners who had rebelled against the Crown at a time when Britain was engaged in all-out war on land and sea, particularly as the Proclamation of the rebels had recited the support of their ‘gallant allies abroad’ i.e. the Germans who had supplied them with arms.

Republicans claimed that he mistreated his prisoners, particularly Thomas Clarke, at 59 the oldest man to have taken part in the Rising and first of the seven signatories to the Proclamation of Independence.

They alleged that Clark was stripped naked on the steps of the Rotunda Hospital, in front of the other prisoners (who included Michael Collins) and female nursing staff, and that Lea-Wilson had said ‘That old bastard is Commander-in-Chief. He keeps a tobacco shop across the street. Nice general for your f*****g army’. 

FOUR years later, on the morning of 15 June 1920, Lea-Wilson was a District Inspector of the RIC based in a quiet town, Gorey, County Wexford.

Dressed in civilian clothes, he walked home from the railway station where he had bought a newspaper and was shot dead by an IRA gang of five gunmen, including Liam Tobin, one of his Rotunda prisoners.

That evening, in the Wicklow Hotel in Dublin, Michael Collins met another Rotunda prisoner, Joe Sweeney, who had been elected as a Sinn Fein MP in 1918, asked if he remembered Lea-Wilson and said that ‘We got him today in Gorey’. 

HIS childless widow, Marie, was, of course, distraught at his murder.

The following year, 1921, aged 34, she started a course in medicine at Trinity College Dublin.

She graduated in 1928 and pursued a career as a paediatrician in the Children’s Hospital, Dublin which continued until her death in 1971 aged 84.

In 1921 she went on holiday to Edinburgh and while there bought a 16th century painting labelled as ‘The Betrayal of Christ’ by Gerard Honthorst. 

GERRIT VAN HONTHORST was a Dutchman, a painter of the Utrecht school, who had studied in Rome where he had been influenced by Caravaggio and used the same technique of chiaroscuro, a ‘dramatic mingling of light and dark’.

He is a respected Baroque artist who is said to have influenced Rembrandt and whose paintings are now held in the National Gallery and Hampton Court Palace in London, in the Getty museum and in the Museum of Art, both in Los Angeles, and three of his paintings hang in the National Gallery of Ireland. 

AN auction catalogue shows that this painting sold for 8 guineas (£8.40p) in Edinburgh in 1921.

It was large, 4 feet 4 inches by 5 feet 7 inches, and dark.

It then hung in the drawing room of Dr Lea-Wilson’s house in Fitzwilliam Place for the next ten years. 

Because of her distress at the murder of her husband, Marie had taken advice from a Father Thomas Finlay, a member of the Society of Jesus living in their community at 35 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin, and a Professor of Political Economy at University College Dublin.

He became ‘her friend, philosopher and guide’.

Sometime in the 1930’s she presented him with the Honthorst painting as thanks for his spiritual guidance and it hung for some years above the fireplace in the Jesuits’ dining room and later in their parlour until 1990.

IN that year, a new Superior of the community, Noel Barber, who had been commissioned to renovate the Leeson Street property, asked Dr Brian Kennedy, Assistant Director of the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI), to inspect the community’s collection of paintings.

Dr Kennedy agreed that the NGI would restore the Honthorst in return for the Jesuits making it available for exhibitions when required.

DR KENNEDY had brought with him to the Jesuits’ house the Gallery’s Assistant Restorer, an Italian named Sergio Benedetti.

On seeing the painting for the first time Mr. Benedetti, an enthusiast for Caravaggio, thought that it was either a very good copy of a Caravaggio painting, ‘The Taking of Christ’, which had been missing for several hundred years or, almost impossible to believe, the missing original itself.

He shared that thought with Dr. Kennedy, the Director of the Gallery and the Chief Restorer in strict confidence.

THE painting was brought to the Restoration Studio at the NGI and over the next two years was cleaned and relined.

It had been obscured by a mixture of yellowed varnish, smoke-tar and dust which had to be removed with the most painstaking care, using the least abrasive solvent possible, starting with pure water and adding acetone and alcohol until an effective mix had been obtained.

As the ‘windows’ to the canvas were opened inch-by-inch, the full, rich colours of the painting were revealed with details such as rust on a soldier’s helmet within its dramatic mixture of light and shade.

THE hemp canvas appeared to have the same thread count as a known Caravaggio in Rome.

There were traces of an earlier cleaning when too much paint had been removed showing changes of detail.

These ‘pentimenti’, changes of design by the artist which had been overpainted, are unlikely to be present in a copy of an original.

There were score marks in the paint, made with the wooden end of the paintbrush, a known Caravaggio technique.

Sergio Benedetti worried about the portrayal of an arm, which he thought too short, but that was a problem of perspective.

It had the craquelure to be expected of a 400-year-old painting and some sagging within its frame but was otherwise in relatively good physical condition.

To be continued...

The Favourite Night

Strand Cinema, Holywood Road, ca 1936

When I was a lad in short trousers I was taken to the cinema quite often.

The Astoria and The Strand were both owned by the same company in the 1970s, ABC Cinemas, and there were matinees and a cinema club for schoolchildren.

They even gave us little metal enamel badges.

The Astoria was at Ballyhackamore, though it was demolished in 1974 to make way for a new telephone exchange.

The Strand Cinema, built in 1935, survives.

Strandtown House, the residence of Gustavus Heyn (1803-75), owner of the Belfast Steamship Company, used to stand here.

Strandtown House: Gate Lodge

Strandtown House and its grounds comprised two acres.

I had the customary coffee and bun with my aunt yesterday morning in Bell's and declared my intention to go and see The Favourite, a historical period drama about the rivalry between to female courtiers in the service of Queen Anne.

Timothy Belmont invariably adheres to his word. Ask any of his chums.

Accordingly, I left Belmont GHQ and made a beeline for Strandtown, viz. Belmont Road, close to the Strand cinema and Bennett's bistro, my venues.

It's quite a long time since I've darkened Bennett's threshold.

The staff showed me to a small table, where I made my self comfortable and perused the menu.

The Belfast Fish Pie caught the old eye, so I ordered that with a pot of tea.

They have a long list of desserts written in chalk on a blackboard, so I swivelled round, inwardly digested the list, and fancied the apple crumble.

Comfort food!

the grub was all tip-top, with a home-made appearance and taste.

The fish pie was rich, cheesy, creamy, with abundant and various chunks of fish, accompanied by a small sort of ramekin of mixed vegetables.

Plentiful big pieces of apple proliferated the buttery, golden crumble.

Full marks.

Crossing the road at Gelston's Corner, I entered the Strand cinema.

I don't think it has changed massively since I was last there, either, so I purchased a ticket and waited until the film began at eight-thirty.

The relatively recent business park beside the cinema used to be its car-park.

The Favourite is doubtless a good and authentic historical film, with all those period costumes, palatial country houses (Hatfield House was used, as was Hampton Court Palace).

Queen Anne, Abigail, Lady Masham, and Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough

Perhaps I am being somewhat pedantic, though Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough was constantly referred to as "Lady Marlborough".

Sarah was Countess of Marlborough, however, until 1702, when her husband was advanced to a dukedom.

Non-royal duchesses are, to my knowledge, styled "Your Grace" or simply "Duchess".

I suppose we cannot be too critical that merely one split infinitive was used, though whether educated noble families split their infinitives three centuries ago is debatable.

All in all a very good film, amusing at times.

It's unfair to compare it with The Green Book, a movie I saw recently, though I enjoyed the latter more.

Mrs D's Chutney

What a fine February day it is.

The lark's on the wing; the snail's on the thorn, as Jeeves once remarked.

I happened to be collecting an item in Boot's local pharmacy and, striding past Warwick the butcher, I glanced into the window display.

Mrs Darlington's jams and chutneys were on display and I can tell you that the beetroot chutney is very good indeed.

So good that I bagged the raspberry jam and another jar of chutney.

Mr Warwick greeted me with a "ahh, Lord Belmont".

Now I'm wondering how many of the local populace recognize me?

New Armagh DL

APPOINTMENT OF DEPUTY LIEUTENANT

The Earl of Caledon KCVO, Lord-Lieutenant of County Armagh, has been pleased to appoint

Mr Terence David WALKINGSHAW
Poyntzpass
County Armagh

To be a Deputy Lieutenant of the County, his Commission bearing date the 31st day of January 2019

Lord Lieutenant of the County

Valete: This Week

For those of you who happen to be of a certain vintage, Sir Robin Day was the BBC's Questiontime, the original and best chairman.

My enthusiasm for the show dissipated thereafter.

I hear that the BBC is "pulling the plug" on its current affairs programme, This Week, at the end of its present series.

The broadcaster and journalist, Andrew Neil, has been presenting This Week since its inception in 2003.

I never tire of enjoying his customary Dixon-Of-Dock-Green Evenin' All when it starts.

My conversion to This Week has been quite recent, though I have seldom missed a show in over a year.

Given its very late slot at eleven forty-five, I tend to watch on my iPad in bed.

Messrs Johnson & Portillo

This Week has been blessed with a Dream Team of Andrew Neil, two former cabinet ministers, viz. Michael "Choo-choo" Portillo and Alan Johnson, and guests.

Even Mr Neil's golden retriever, Miss Molly, has featured occasionally.

All good things must come to an end, eventually, I suppose.

Bob McCartney

I had a bit of shopping to do this morning.

The old Belmont taste-buds had a craving for that slow-cooked lamb sold in certain stores.

The method of cooking it in a sealed bag is, I gather, known as as sous-vide.

It's ages since I have eaten lamb and, quite frankly, my consumption of red meat has declined.

I enjoy it, however, when it's on the menu.

Whilst ambling past the countless aisles I had the great joy and privilege of encountering none other than Bob McCartney, the retired Ulster barrister and MP for North Down before Lady Hermon.

I don't know whether he recognized me or not, though we greeted each other cordially.

He looked well.

The Green Book

There was something happening yesterday morning at a local sports club of mine, CIYMS, or "CI" as we call it.

There were cars lining the road, some with Irish registration numbers.

The time was about ten twenty-five.

I was meeting my aunt for coffee and a Chelsea bun at S D Bell's Leaf & Berry tea-room.

I don't think Bell's has changed very much in its traditional character for - shall we say - fifty years.

Indeed it has tripled in size, with a few flat-screen televisions, a shop, and so on, though essentially it remains a thriving, popular place.

In the afternoon I swam the customary eighty lengths of my health club (Bannatyne's), wallowing in the hot tub adjacent to the pool thereafter.

Self at Campbell

The club has undergone major renovation recently, though the swimming-pool, sauna, jacuzzi, steam-room and changing-rooms haven't been refurbished at all.

Now I have to admit that I do enjoy a good Chinese meal, particularly the sweet-and-sour prawns or chicken.

I've been making my own for about a year, and this was one of my better decisions.

I buy battered chicken pieces and those handy pouches of egg-fried rice.

The sauce is easy and quick to make: wine vinegar, stevia brown sugar, pineapple juice, tomato ketchup, cornflour paste to thicken; onion chunks, garlic, pineapple chunks, finely-sliced red pepper or carrot.

Of course the quantity of these ingredients and the method matters.

I consider the quality, viscosity and taste of the sauce to be essential, so I have it precisely to my liking, and judge restaurant sweet-and-sour sauces by my own.

I've more or less stopped drinking now, unless you count the odd half-glass of wine.

My aunt had recommended a film when we were at S D Bell's, The Green Book.

The intention had been to go and see The Favourite, though my aunt's thumb's-up to The Green Book was so good that I climbed into the jalopy and made a bee-line for Queen's Quay in Belfast, viz. the Odyssey Pavilion, where there's a cinema.

This pavilion, as they call it, is a ghost-town these days, because all the restaurants have closed, apart from about two.

There is one bar at the front entrance, the W5 science museum, and the multi-screen cinema.

The splendid IMAX theatre was closed down many years ago and appears to be in moth-balls.

What a shame!

Still, I did enjoy The Green Book, a really lovely film about Dr Don Shirley, an eccentric black-American concert pianist and his journey to various American venues in the Deep South with his bodyguard/driver, Tony Lip, a gruff, no-nonsense Italian-American bloke.

Remarkably I counted a mere six couples in Screen Seven, a number that certainly doesn't reflect the excellence of the film.

If you get a chance, do and see it.

Princess Anne Visit

The Princess Royal this morning opened Foyle College's Springham Campus, 67 Limavady Road, Londonderry, and was received by Her Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of the County Borough of Londonderry (Dr Angela Garvey).

Her Royal Highness, Fourth Warden, the Fishmongers' Company, this afternoon visited Ballykelly Primary School, 8 Glenhead Road, Ballykelly, and was received by Mrs Stella Burnside OBE DL (Vice Lord-Lieutenant of County Londonderry).

The Princess Royal afterwards visited the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs' Ballykelly House, 111 Ballykelly Road, Ballykelly, and was received by Her Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of County Londonderry (Mrs Alison Millar).

Her Royal Highness later opened the renovated Coleraine Library, Queen's Street, Coleraine, County Londonderry.

Brackenber Dinner 2019

Belfast has been relatively unscathed by the very wintry weather sweeping large parts of the country at the moment.

I wasn't expecting it to be wet last night, though, as I left the house, it did begin to rain a little, so I went back and retrieved an umbrella.

I suppose it was about half past six or so when I arrived at Bridge Street, which was lined with taxis, so I motored further along to North Street.

This street was full of cars, too.

In the event I circled the area a few times before finding a space, eventually.

I cut through Rosemary Street and emerged at Royal Avenue, a short hop, skip and jump from my destination, the Ulster Reform Club.

If you have been following the blog, you shall know that I was at the Club last week for lunch and a talk by Artemis Cooper.

The purpose of my visit last night was the annual Old Brackenbrian dinner.

It has been held at that esteemed institution for many years and, prior to that, Brackenber House School itself, and the "Threepenny Bit" at the King's Hall complex.

Our numbers have naturally dwindled though remain buoyant at about 54.

Gordon Harvey

In the cloakroom I met Gordon Harvey, who always does a splendid job of organizing it all.

Having removed the winter apparel we ascended the wide stairs to the Old Billiards-room, our venue.

The organization of the meal has been far easier for Gordon this year, now that payment can be settled by direct payment transfer online.

As usual, it's always a joy to recognize so many familiar faces, especially those from my year at the school.

I hadn't seen David Sholdis for fifty years.

I was sitting between Jeff Dudgeon and Robin Eyre-Maunsell; Paul, now Lord Bew, was to Jeff's left.

I remarked to Jeff (with the tongue firmly in the Belmont cheek) that the Lord Mayoral transport ought to be replaced with a solid British marque such as a Jaguar XJ Long Wheelbase).

Lord Mayoral Rolls-Royce Phantom VI, 1968-78

After some convivial chin-wagging  (I recommended a book written by Alan Clark called Back Fire: A Passion for Motoring to Robin), the nose-bags were donned and we tucked in to parsnip soup, sirloin steak, and hazelnut cake.

I've never been disappointed by the grub at the club yet, and last night wasn't an exception.

The speaker was Paul Sochor, who attended Brackenber from 1940 until 1947.

Paul spoke very well indeed, recounting his experiences including a holiday abroad with Brian, Lord Hutton and Sir Michael Nicholson.

After dinner I "circulated", meeting quite a few old boys.

I chatted to John Knox, who used to teach French at Campbell.

I offered him a lift home, though Henry Muldrew was doing the honours.

Patrick Cross, High Sheriff of County Down a year or two ago, told me about other clubs he'd visited in the metropolis.

By eleven-thirty most of the old boys had drifted off home, so I slipped out and made my way back to Belmont GHQ.

Gordon suggested that we have an annual summer lunch for those who find it difficult to attend the dinner.

I look forward to that.