New Wallpaper?: Start Again or Paper Over The Cracks and Preserve History?

In my previous post I talked about laying a driveway and laying a carpet. Now I shall discuss wallpaper and lino for bathrooms and kitchens.

Wallpaper
I had a quotation for putting up wallpaper. After starting, the workers decided they had to strip off the underlying wallpaper, and the underlayer, and re-lay lining paper. More time and expense.

They claimed that if they put the new wallpaper on top, the old wallpaper would come away from the wall. They showed me the seams.

I said: "I don't have the time nor money for a longer job. Stick down any loose corners with wall paper glue."

Since the worker was expected at another job shortly, he agreed. It worked out just fine.

History of Wallpaper
At the same time I read a newspaper account of an old home where the owners discovered as many as seventeen layers of wallpaper from different eras. They were able to restore a home to the Victorian era, using the old wall paper or by copying the design.

Preserving Walls
Another building, a church or chapel, was renovated. Under the later wallpaper and cladding, they were able to reveal a priceless medieval painting.

To my mind, a building has its history, which it is important to preserve.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please save links to your favourite posts.

Top Ten Things I Love About London - contrasted with Madeira

Madeira. Thatched house in traingualr design - nothing like England's thatch. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright

Problem
When you live in a city you stop appreciating it. Go away for two months, two years, even a week, and when you come back you see the differences.

Madeira
I spend a week in Madeira where the steep hills are dotted with many houses which had orange tiled roofs. Walls were white or cream, a few yellow, orange, pink or blue.

Lots of palm trees shaking in the breeze. Green gorse bushes contrast with yellow flowers. Magenta flower trees. Tangles of banana plants and sugar cane. In the north, hanging vines on pergolas.

Huge flyovers lead to and from the Cristiano Ronaldo airport. Tunnels weave in and out of the hillsides and cliffs around the capital, Funchal.

Cars park diagonally, noses in the air, or noses down like dogs pulling ahead on leads, on steep roads at diagonal angles. Unnerving. You watch the static cars, worried, wondering when one of them will start rolling backwards, or forwards, starting one of those falling domino chains.

Welcome To London
Driving from Heathrow airport towards outer London, what a contrast. At first driving from Heathrow through Hayes was a disappointment, dilapidated one storey shops had peeling paint.

But soon, reaching the suburbs of Ickenham, with its pub, then historic Harrow, then pretty Pinner, the buildings and greenery started perking up. Neat hedges surround freshly painted semi-detached houses in neighbourly pairs.

Triangular roofs are over the bay windows. The contrasting black or brown imitation Tudor wooden beams or imitating Victorian imitation Tudor, against white walls.

London's red brick from the red clay appears in walls along gardens. More red brick is in the walls of houses.

The semis give way to grander detached houses. Palladian columns. Large drives with two cars. Huge  oak trees, which once built the ships of the fleets for Elizabeth I. Magestic chestnut trees.

Green lawns of fine-leaved grass with picture frame borders of pink roses. Fences and gates - which you don't get in many cities of the USA where fences are banned and houses are exposed. No wonder they all have guns for protection when anybody can march up to the front or back door. To the British eye, every estate of houses set in unfenced lawns in some USA cities looks unfinished, like a show house which nobody has yet moved into.

CENTRAL LONDON
Central London has Victorian buildings and pageantry. The plane trees are big trees which don't mind pollution.

London, plane trees and pageantry.

SINGAPORE
In Singapore where we rent our flat, overlooking a swimming pool, the block is under threat of being pulled down.

 If that happens, it will be replaced with something more compact, crammed, smaller rooms, less space between the tower blocks, news. A neighbour says, "This is an old block. It's thirty years old!"

Singapore, palm trees and Chinese writing.

I am stunned into silence. When I fill out an insurance form asking the age of a building in London, I can't remember the age. I have to consult documents. Many of London's suburban houses were built in the nineteen thirties, when the railways expanded. Others have the dates of the 19.. or even 18.. on the facade.

USA
Even in the 'recent no history' USA, terraced houses which were homes of famous people, such as Edgar Allen Poe in Philadelphia, date back a century or more.

London's red brick walls are neat and have patterns from Victorian times. (The Nineteen Fifties introduced the blight of cigarette-box shape blocks of greying flats. The fact that low building standards mean they are short-lived and crumbling - or burning down like tragic Grenfell - is a blessing in disguise.)

London List
1 SEMIS.
Semi-detached houses in suburbs. Mock Tudor. London red brick.
2 BUNGALOWS.
Bungalows (one storey houses) with fenced front lawns and gates.
3 MANSIONS.
Majestic mansions, churches and town halls with steps up to Palladian columns (like the USA).
4 ART DECO.
Art deco railway stations and white houses with green tiled rooftops.
5 RED BUSES.
Red buses. Old style and new style. Jolly red.
6 RED POST BOXES.
Red pillar boxes. The pillar shape freestanding ones. We also have a few inset in walls. Jolly red.
7 BRUNEL STATIONS.
Brunel's railway stations - notably Paddington where you see his statue.
8 PUBS.
British Pubs. Old Victorian pubs with Toby jugs and horse brasses. Historic pubs. Many turned into gastropubs with green gardens. (Budget eating and drinking at Wetherspoons which make a point of preserving photos of local history.)
9 SHOPS & SHOPPING CENTRES.
London as a shopping base, with old arcades such as: Burlington Arcade; Selfridges; the original Harrods (not just the branches you get worldwide). Intu in Watford has a kiddie train (for a fee) and Xmas decorations at Xmas. Out of the city, take a drive to the vast new shopping centres, such as waterside Bluewater in Kent, or Lakeside.
10 HISTORIC STATUES.
Statues where you can take selfies with world-famous figures, such as writers Shakespeare, bust outside Guildhall, and Oscar Wilde reclining near Trafalgar Square, and dandy, beautifully dressed Beau Brummel standing near department store Liberty near Oxford Circus.

See my other posts for text and photos on: art deco, statues, Intu at Xmas.

Author
Angela Lansbury

What to see and do in Shrewsbury: Darwin, Romans, ruins, wine and biscuits

UK flag

I looked up Shrewsbury because it was in the news as a result of the Cartoon Festival in April 2016. The festival has been going for 13 years but although I am a caricaturist I have only just had the joy of discovering it. But if you've missed the festival, or want to book for next year but wonder what else is nearby, here are my findings. I must have driven through Shrewsbury on my way to or from Wales or the north west but time to take a second look.

Shropshire Architecture and Scenery
The area is Shropshire and the tourist websites show attractive black and white Victorian timber frame buildings (which are a feature of Chester). The sites proudly speak of its awards for flowers. So Shrewsbury must look pretty in spring and summer.

Beautiful Buildings and landmarks
The city has several hundred listed buildings. Plus the expected religious buildings, a castle and a main museum. Other attractions include a statue of Charles Darwin, for those looking for a quick snap.

Roman Wroxeter Ruins
If you like your monuments large and with many more photo opportunities, an impressive large Roman gateway is part of a complex at Wroxeter, said to be the current largest Roman site in Britain. (I am not counting the Hadrian's wall which stretches for miles along the border between England and Scotland, ending with the visitor site at Vindolanda).

An even more extensive site has just been found on farmland in Wiltshire (see my other post). But  that exciting site has not yet been developed like this Roman ruins site which has a reproduction of what the Roman buildings would have looked like when it was intact.

Wroxeter Roman Vineyard
Wroxeter Roman Vineyard, a separate attraction, is reviewed on TripAdvisor. If you pick the right time of day and year you can visit the shop and restaurant and book a vineyard tour and wine tasting.

Shrewsbury Biscuits
If you stop to have tea, look for the Shrewsbury cake or biscuit.The biscuits are apparently very popular in New Zealand and India. A Youtube video shows a bakery in Pune (also known as Poona , connected with Gandhi and the Sassoons - south of Bombay - connected by a new road. The owner extols the original scented biscuits made with best buttering Shrewsbury, and shows how his family owned bakery uses a stamp to make the biscuits.

More Information From:
http://www.shropshire-guide.co.uk/places/united-kingdom/shropshire/shrewsbury/english-heritage/wroxeter-roman-city/
http://www.shropshire-guide.co.uk/places/attractions-activities/english-heritage/

https://shrewsburycartoonfestival.wordpress.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrewsbury_cake
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp0gK2cetyQ (Shrewsbury biscuits made in Pune)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

English tea time: cucumber, white and brown bread, high tea

Sitting down to tea, after reading books about how people live in other times and other countries, you may feel that you are leading a relatively uneventful life. Yet the tea table before you has links to other eras and other countries, or contrasts with what you have experienced previously.

Outside the window of the room where I had tea recently, at a friens new home, I enjoyed seeing every room of the house, especially the kitchen. I looked out at the back garden with the lawn, contrasting with the front driveway of many houses in the street, covered in to allow car parking. I had previously taken a tour of the house, en route to the downstairs cloakroom. Now I looked out of the kitchen window, admiring the long lawn at the back of the house.

In Medieval times you had a meadow with grass and colourful perfumed flowers. Along came lawn tennis. Then lawn mowers. So in Victorian times, in a large house with a grassed lawn, you might watch croquet or clock golf or cricket played on the field or lawn.

Afterwards, in mid-afternoon, as either owner of the property, or a guest you ate cucumber sandwiches on white bread for tea. Tea was a meal between luncheon and dinner.

In the North of England in winter you came home when it got dark and cold. Electric lights in and around the house were installed in various years, as you can check, along with street lighting. Your local library will tell you about street lighting in your nearest city, town or village.

How can you find out? When writing about an ancestor of mine who lived in the East End of London in my novel I struggled to find out. The electric lights in the USA were better documented on the web than the lighting in London.

If you go to the North of England and Scotland you can still get High Tea. This is a half way meal combining tea and a snack supper. You start with savoury and end with sweet, maybe start with hot and end with cold, such as a grill or sandwiches or toast with something on top followed by cold cakes or if you prefer, hot pancakes.

Tea Time
Some schools and old people's homes would and still do serve a High Tea or early supper, at 5.30 or six o'clock. Meals get later as you go further south. In Europe, the latest would be the 9 pm or 10 pm meal in a restaurant in Spain.

It was easier to send the hero of my novel on a trip to another city, where his relatives were excited about the new lighting, than to leave him in London, where he might have been in the dark, at least the novel's author was in the dark.

Lights
Maybe the records of the electric light companies, the sales of light bulbs and records or household expenses will also give you a clue as to whether your ancestors or the people who used to live in your house had candles, gas light, or electric lights in the city or home.

Lighting up times, dawn and dusk, will affect the working day, the building of a house, school finishing time (allowing time for children to walk home, before the universal bus routes). You are cold and tired and hungry, or hot and tired and hungry, when you arrive home after a long walk (even costume drama ladies walking for a chat or riding a horse might be tired.

In Singapore at a Eurasian club we were served hot in both senses, curried food. In India it would be rice in the north. In China you would have rice in the north, noodles in the south. Back to Singapore, majority Chinese, but the Eurasian club was for Indians or rather mostly ex-past British or other white men with their exotically dressed Indian wives, who presumably liked curry (as did nay grandfather in London who died in 1950 - never went to India as far as I know and alas it's now too late to ask my late parents or y grandparents how he acquired this taste. Maybe Queen Victoria had made curry popular in his youth. Does anybody know?

The Eurasian club served me sandwiches using white bread. They serve whatever the organisers ask for, which might be savoury food followed by cold cake or biscuit or the modern substitutes, crisps and nuts and nibbles.

Back in London, I enjoy tea with my book group friends. They are mostly ladies (some of them belong to several book groups, at least two, sometimes three groups). Occasionally this group is joined by a husband, author, or retired gentleman has the time and inclination to read the latest price-winning book and offer a verdict. We have a mix of shop-bought and home catering.

My previous post describes the 'bridge rolls'. The afternoon's hostess told us they were not bridge rolls, but better than bridge rolls, less heavy, less bready, more light and more moist. I took a picture of the wrapper. I thought it was easier to give another family member the wrapper when they went shopping, and easier for them or me to show to a shop assistant. Weeks later the wrapper picture is still on my computer, whereas a name written on a scrap of paper would disappear.

The rolls are called Mini White Submarine Rolls. The white ones look more like the traditional bridge roll. They come in packs of eight which will make 16 half pieces, enough to fill one long oblong plate. We had a mixture of brown and white rolls, which adds visual appeal.

Angela Lansbury, author, researcher, speaker.

Eurasian Exhibition and WWII Exhibition in Singapore

The Eurasian centre is near Geylang. On the ground floor, up a few steps, is an exhibition on Eurasians.

I had always thought that Eurasians were mixed Europeans and Asians - Chinese - the majority face and language of Singapore. When I first came to Singapore, it was just before the air crash which killed writer Bonny Hicks and I read her books, 'Excuse Me, Are You A Model?', and 'Discuss Disgust', about the problems and prejudice she faced as a child, and as an adult.

But at this exhibition I discovered that the Eurasians at this centre and in the Toastmasters club were not Chinese but mainly mixed Indian and British.

What is the difference between Eurasian and Anglo-Indian? Eurasians and a mixture of Europeans and Asians, have a European parent, usually the father, and an Asian or to be more precise, Indian mother. Anglo-Indians have two Indian parents but are brought up in Either India or often in England, and look Indian but speak Fluent English from childhood and are completely Anglicised in their cultural customs as well as language.

The majority of them will have two Christian parents, not as I expected, Anglicans, but often Catholics. With language and religion in common, they find it easy to get along, have shared interests, and gain acceptance from both families.

Exhibition and Eurasian History
What is there to see in the exhibition? After the explanation of who are or were the earliest Eurasians, you see the history of the organisation. Not a phenomenon of fighting prejudice at the Thirties or WWII. Nor in the Liberal days post-war. But way back in the 1880s. Yes, long before Lee Kuan Yew decided that best way to prevent riots and massacres was to divide the races up so that no sub group could gather together to plan trouble. Lee Kuan Yew ensured everybody would have friendly neighbours in a mixed race community,

Raffles, by contrast, had established enclaves such as we now see in Chinatown and Little India. Similarly, the earliest settlers, gathered at clubs for groups of people speaking the same language. So the Eurasians, like many others, founded a club where they could meet, speak the same language, and eat familiar food.

Wedding Dress
The largest and most striking exhibition piece is the wedding dress in white. I also liked the letter from the groom to the parents of his bride to be. He ended by telling them that he had already approached his own parents and received their blessing.

White Bread Sandwiches
Today the club has a restaurant on the ground floor. To my surprise, when they provided sandwiches, the sandwiches where white bread with vegetables and or cheese or egg, but into large triangles. The fashion nowadays is to serve a mixture of brown bread, considered healthier, or a usually appealing mixture of brown and white, often cut into smaller sizes.

Victorian Sandwiches
Only after reflecting on the style of food, and the Victorian era origins of the club, did it occur to me that triangles of white bread with cucumber would have been the fare of the Victorian era.

WWII Exhibition
Upstairs was another exhibition about Eurasians, this time concentrating on how they fared in WWII. Like the exhibition I had seen a day previously at The Old For Factory Museum, about WWII (on the site of the surrender to the Japanese) this history of the Eurasians included maps of the region in WWII and some stories including a few harrowing ones about those who disappeared and living in fear.

On a brighter note, and of interest to those who are nervous about bringing in groups who might include a Japanese friend, a large display is about a Japanese man who saved Eurasians by sending them to a centre in Malaysia, out of the way of greater danger in Singapore.

MRT Aljunied
K a l l i n g

A map of their location is on their Facebook site.

Eurasian Association, Singapore
139 Ceylon Road, Singapore 429744.
Tel: (+65) 6447 1578
Email:membership@eurasians.org


Angela Lansbury B A Hons, CL, ACG.

Colourful Coggeshall - must see near Colchester on way to Clacton

Coggeshall has been known for its old buildings but not it has a new variation on the old, adding colours such as red to turn the old black and white medieval or Victorian building into red and black, and tasteful pastels of green and cream and pink and white and pale powder blue making a soothing, pleasing variety of shop and house fronts, reminding me of colourful coastal villages in Norway.

Even on a short ten minute stop we really enjoyed driving through, parking for a photostop, looking at the old frontages.

Even a modest house with no garden can be identifiable and jolly with a contrasting front door. Here adjacent houses are united with a white and green theme. One has a green door and white windowframes on yellow background, The other has white door and windowframes on a green background.

Several buildings have interesting plaques.



A Bright Blue Building
Even the brightest blue looks great.

The blue of the tower is echoed by the blue square notice, and the small blue circular plaque over the door. 

Bright blue wooden horizontal planks, a yellow door, a green plaque, adjacent green wall with the blue noticeboard - it works. As you see the address is Stoneham Street.

One brightly coloured building amongst a sea of black and white, early browns, or granite, grey would look garish. But once you have a few colourful buildings, the others blend in beautifully, preserving the quaintness of the quirky old, yet creating a lively, clean, modern welcome.

I loved the houses decorated with the dog and birds, creamy yellow and brown.

Another has a white fleece ram, on an all white house, white door, white window frames, white front, very clean and fresh.

Photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Angela Lansbury is a photo-journalist, travel writer, author, speaker.

See next post about the vineyard restaurant and shop on the way out of Coggeshall driving back to London.