Category Archives: Quotations

November 11, 2022 · 10:25 am

The Unveiling at the Menin Gate by HV Morton

In 1927 HV Morton attended a pilgrimage of some seven-hundred bereaved relatives to the unveiling of the Shrine to the Missing, erected in honour of those soldiers killed or missng in action during the First World War yet whose bodies had never been found. We know this shrine today as the Menin Gate at Ypres – through whose previous incarnation so many thousands of troops had marched to the trenches, sometimes never to return. The trip, though borne with great stoicism, was an ordeal for most of the pilgrims. Understandably some, for reasons of age or disability, were unable to attend in person and a booklet entitled “Menin Gate Pilgrimage”, which included the article Morton had written, was produced for them. This is an edited excerpt from his description of the ceremony:

The unveiling at Menin Gate, 1927

The buglers stood facing the Menin road, and blew their call towards the old front line.
No sooner had their last note faded than the pipers of the Scots Guards, standing outlined against the sky, high on the great rampart, played the lament, “The Flowers of the Forest”, and the wind, catching the sound of the wild Highland pipes, carried it out over the Salient, over the little dips and hollows in the green fields which were once trenches. There were dim eyes in Ypres to-day.
The sound of the pipes in that place was indescribable. One forgot the Menin Gate, the crowd, the very scene itself, and one’s thoughts went out into the open country, where the corn now waves and flowers grow, and one waited there with aching heart at the end; waited, it seemed, for some signal which should have come from out there along the Menin road.
The King and the generals went, the officers of state and the guards of honour departed, leaving the Menin Gate to the mothers of Britain. They came to it bravely, so bravely and calmly, holding their little posies of garden flowers. All one could do was to put one’s arm in theirs, as if they had been one’s own mother, and, pointing high up on Menin Gate, spell out a name to them.
“That’s him,” they said, and cried a little.
Then they hung their appealing flowers on Menin Gate; little clusters of rambler roses, snapdragons, lilies, all from home. The wind of God will take the message of these flowers and bear it over those little lost corners of foreign fields.

[Originally issued as HVM Society Snippets – No.311]

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February 14, 2022 · 11:14 am

The scissor-cuts of Lisl Hummel

This article was originally circulated as HVM Society Snippets – No.239, 19th July 2019

Lisl Hummel’s cover illustration.

H.V. Morton’s first book, “The Heart of London” was published by Methuen & Co., of London, on 11 June 1925. It comprises forty-nine essays and sketches of London people and places compiled from a series of seventy-five articles published in the Daily Express newspaper early in 1925. By then HVM was already establishing himself as a creditable feature writer for the Daily Express and a favourite of the newspaper baron, Lord Beaverbrook.

The book ran to at least 25 editions or re-printings by 1949. In October 1926 the fourth edition was produced in a larger format with 24 scissor-cut (silhouette) illustrations by the Viennese artist Lisl Hummel.

St Paul’s Pigeons, Through the Columns of St Martin-in-the-Fields and At the Rag Fair, three of the scissor-cut illustrations from “The Heart of London”

Recently I was lucky enough to be able to acquire a copy of the special scissor-cut edition and was able to see for myself these delightful additions to Morton’s observations of his beloved London. The silhouettes have a child-like innocence which complements Morton’s words, adding to them in a way that photographs couldn’t possibly do. They lend the work a slightly fantastical feel, as if we were not learning about actual places or events but rather reading a set of fables.

For this special edition, Morton wrote a special introduction:

LONDON has been pictured by countless pens and brushes, inspired and humdrum, but this is the first time that an artist has hunted the City with a pair of magic scissors. Miss Hummel is a young Viennese artist who has specialised in, or, as I prefer to call it, tamed, a most intractible material—black paper.
I think it will be generally agreed that the scissor-cuts in this volume are remarkable for their vitality, their beauty of line and their charm. Before I saw Miss Hummel at work with her magic scissors I had no idea that there could be so much to admire in a silhouette.
H.V.M.
London,
September 1926

Well, curiosity got the better of me and I thought I would do a little digging on the subject of Miss Hummel and find out why her illustrations seemed to resonate so strongly. It took me a while and, as is often the case when researching books, I was all too easily distracted while pursuing connections which, though enjoyable, had little to do with my original project. But eventually I built up a picture of the artist, albeit an incomplete one.

According to this source at AskArt.com (which references “Artists in California, 1786-1940” by Edan Hughes), Lisl Hummel was born in Austria on May 19, 1892 (the same year as HVM). During the 1920s Hummel was a student at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, CA. By 1930 she was married to Dr. Henry Barsook. She worked as a freelance artist in Pasadena into the 1940s and later moved to Oregon with artist Don Foth. She died in Santa Barbara, CA on May 30, 1990. Her works include landscapes with eucalypti and oaks.

This brief biography makes no mention of book illustrations, silhouettes or scissor cuts and suggests she was living in the US when she was involved in illustrating Morton’s work. Eventually however (information is sparse until you know where to look), I started to unearth a few other titles which she had been involved with and straight away the reason her illustrations seemed so evocative became clear. They are all children’s books, and I have a feeling there were a few battered copies around in my various family homes as I grew up. Although one at least is still in print, many seem quite rare these days but occasional copies can be found on the websites of second hand book sellers. Looking at the pictures of covers and illustrated pages to be found online there is a simplicity about them. Like the works of Morton they are unpretentious and accessible, there is no ‘side’ or hidden agenda about them and I could see why Morton’s “The Heart of London” seems to have been the only ‘adult’ work that Miss Hummel has collaborated on.

Some of the other covers and illustrations by Lisl Hummel.

For the record, the other volumes which I was able to find are as follows:

“The Little Pagan Faun & Other Fancies” by Patrick R Chalmers (a collection of stories from Punch, the dustjacket of the 1914 edition is illustrated with five vignettes from the book). Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston and New York (circa 1914), also Jonathan Cape (1927).

“Toy Ships: Poems for children” by Florence B Steiner (with 25 illustrations). Publisher: The Graphic Publishers, Ottawa (1926).

“A Little Christmas Book” by Rose Fyleman (featuring ten scissor cut illustrations). Publisher: Methuen (1926) and George H. Doran Company, New York (1927).

“Poems for Peter” by Lysbeth Borie (an author from Philadelphia, this book is still in print today). Publisher: J.B. Lippincott & Co. (1928).

“The Four Young Kendalls” by Eliza Orne White. Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company (1932).

“The Good Natured Bear” by Richard Henry Horne. Publisher: Macmillan, New York (1945).

I don’t own any of these books, yet I feel, from looking at their descriptions, I know them and that they have made an impression on me. Anyone who ever watched The Singing Ringing Tree on a tiny old black and white television set as a young child will know exactly what I am talking about!

If anyone knows any more about Miss Hummel and her scissor-cut illustrations I would be delighted to hear from them. In the meantime it is well worth looking out for this unique edition of “The Heart of London” which comes up for sale occasionally, it makes a charming addition to any collection of Mortoniana.

With best wishes,

Niall Taylor, Glastonbury, Somerset, England

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January 25, 2020 · 1:59 pm

Freedom, friendship and whisky…

From John Newland 03 crop

Being half Scottish on his mother’s side may have been the reason HV Morton appeared to particularly enjoyed that country’s national drink. He wrote about it in several of his books, and there was always a common theme to his descriptions. Morton’s attitude to whisky can be summarised in three words: masculine, comradely but, above all else, elemental:

“The earth gushed water. Boulders shone like brown glass. Mists hung out of heaven to wrap the world in a grey wetness. Burns spouted. Rivers rose to the bridges. Pools overflowed. New and unexpected streams were born out of a responsive earth. The wind joined in, hurling the rain upwards in sudden mad gusts, so that in the magnificent sincerity of the storm, the very laws of gravity were defied and, in other words, it was made perfectly clear why Scotland invented whisky.” (“In Scotland Again”, 1933).

Whisky, for Morton, is more than a mere drink, it is a force of nature, powerful, chaotic, unpredictable, a way for a man to reconnect with his primeval self, and a way for men to connect with one another. A means perhaps to escape the controlling influences of civillisation.

Thus, in his 1929 “In Search of Scotland” he describes a city-worker who once a year dons the kilt, heads to the highlands and, in the shadow of the mountains, glorifies his ancestors with a shared draft of Talisker which “burns within” to light fires of patriotism and rekindle a love for the auld country, “the hills and the glens and the peat-hags and the great winds and the grey mists” of Scotland. In chapter three of his 1933, “In Scotland Again”, the reader is taken, after hours on a stormy night, to a backroom snug lit only by the glow of an open fire where old soldiers share tales of battle and of campaigns won or lost:

“There is one grand virtue in a stormy night. If you are late enough you are at once admitted to that snug little room which exists at the back of every Scottish hotel, where a vast fire is always burning and where a glass of special whisky waits for favoured guests.

“The landlord was a young Scotsman who had fought in Gallipoli. We talked of Chocolate Hill and Suvla Bay and then, of course, we became local, and I was told the legend that Burns wrote ‘Scots wae hae’ in this hotel”

Tonight is Burns’ Night, when Scots everywhere celebrate the life and works of one of the greatest poets ever in a feast that echoes down to us from more simple times: Haggis, neeps, tatties and whisky*. Some will do this in great gatherings with much ceremony and speechifying, others such as myself prefer the “snug little room” evoked by Morton. I am proud to say that tonight I will be tucking into a Simon Howie haggis and toasting the great men, Rabbie and Harry, with a glass of Talisker at home in the company of my son.

“Freedom, friendship and whisky gang thegither” (Robert Burns)

“The whisky had uplifted them… It had given them wings” (HV Morton)

Slàinte mhòr!

Niall Taylor

[* Translation for the uninitiated: Haggis, turnip, potatoes and whisky!]

(Originally circulated as HVM Society Snippets – No.251)

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December 25, 2019 · 9:08 am

Christmas Greetings!

In the Steps of the MasterThe dustjacket, by EA Cox, of HV Morton’s “In the Steps of the Master”

For this year’s Christmas bulletin I have taken the liberty of slightly condensing a passage from chapter four of “In the Steps of the Master” in which Morton, with his usual lyrical flare, contemplates some of the distinctions between the traditional European representation of Christmas and what might actually have taken place in ancient Palestine. I am grateful to Stephen Twist who suggested the idea.

In Bethlehem, Morton encounters a door – so low it requires everyone who enteres to stoop – set in a massive wall. On the other side of the door is the Church of the Nativity, “the earliest Christian church in use to-day, and more or less as it left the hands of its builders”.

img543 - A Bethlehem Mother, from In the Steps of the Master snip“A Bethlehem Mother”, photograph by Mary Morton

From there he descends to the cave beneath the high altar which, as he puts it, “tradition claims as the spot where Christ was born”. The exact location is marked with a star, surrounded by a Latin inscription.

§

“As I stood in this dark, pungent cavern I forgot, I am afraid, all the clever and learned things written about the Nativity by German professors, and I seemed to hear English voices singing under a frosty sky:—

“O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem.

“How different is this dark little cave under a church from the manger and the stable of one’s imagination! As a child, I thought of it as a thatched English barn with wooden troughs for oats and hay, and a great pile of fodder on which the Wise Men knelt to adore “the new-born Child.” Down the long avenues of memory I seemed to hear the waits singing in the white hush of Christmas night:—

“While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground,
The Angel of the Lord came down,
And glory shone around.

“There was a rhythmic chinking sound on the dark stairs. A Greek priest, with a black beard curled like that of an Assyrian king, came slowly into the cavern swinging a censer. The incense rolled out in clouds and hung about in the candle flames. He censed the altar and the Star. Then, in the most matter-of-fact way, he genuflected and went up into the light of the church.

“… The grotto was full of little children, silently standing two by two on the stairs. They came forward, knelt down and quickly kissed the stone near the star. Their little faces were very grave in the candle-light. Some of them closed their eyes tightly and whispered a prayer.

“No sooner had the last of them gone, than I heard the chink-chink of the censer; and into the gloom of the Grotto of the Nativity came again a Greek priest like an Assyrian king.”

§

A very happy Christmas and a good New Year.

Niall Taylor, Glastonbury, Somerset, England

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December 14, 2019 · 7:55 am

The BBC Listener Magazine, 7th June 1945

This article was originally distributed as HVM Society Snippets – No.247, 8 December 2019

The BBC’s Listener magazine was published weekly from the 16th January 1929 and was described by the Guardian as one of the most distinguished publications in British journalism. It was intended to expand on the topics of various BBC broadcasts in a way that wasn’t possible in the programmes themselves or in the BBC’s listings magazine, the Radio Times. In its early days it was an eclectic publication which reflected the BBC’s cultural ideals but changes in society were mirrored by a change in editorial policy as ownership of the magazine was taken out of the BBC’s hands in the late 1980’s. As a result of this change and increasing competition the publication ceased production in 1991, after a total of 3,197 issues.

In the summer of 1945, shortly after Germany’s surrender at the end of the second world war in Europe, the 7th of June edition of The Listener was delivered to the MacKenzie household at number nine (price threepence). I have no idea who the MacKenzie family were or in which street number nine was but I am forever grateful to them as, nearly 65 years later, their extremely well preserved copy of volume 33, number 856, found its way to me in Glastonbury (price – a lot more than threepence), complete with their name and number written in pencil at the top right corner of the cover.

As if to illustrate how little some things have changed, the first article of this edition (on page 619) is entitled The Levant: its People and their Problems. Section one, The Place, is written by popular travel writer of the time and recognised authority on the region in question, HV Morton.

It is perhaps not one of HVM’s finest pieces of writing but nevertheless it is fascinating to see him simply as part of popular culture, someone who had done so much to bring the countries under discussion to the attention of readers in Britain and the US, commenting on the affairs of the day in the same way that others, including Stephen Fry and Ian Hislop, would do in later editions. Of course, Morton had recently also contributed to the allied war effort in the middle east and North Africa by publishing his condensed (“light enough to be carried in a haversack”) volume “Middle East” and later another similar paperback version, “Travels in Palestine and Syria” which was specifically intended for issue to the troops in that region.

The cover of Morton’s “Middle East” depicting a window overlooking Aleppo.

I have included the text below for your interest along with a few pictures and advertisments from the magazine which give a feel for the time it was written as well as adding to the enjoyment of looking back at history in this way!

§

The Levant: its People and their Problems
I—The Place
By H. V. MORTON
(from: The Listener vol. 33, no. 856, 7th June 1945)

SYRIA and Palestine are, geographically speaking, one. Syria is the north; Palestine is the south. They are much the same to look at; a thick central spine of barren mountains sloping away on the east to a vast desert and on the west to fertile plains washed by the waves of the Mediterranean Sea. Syria is much larger than Palestine (which is only a little narrow strip of a country), but the greater part of Syria is desert stretching eastwards for about two hundred miles to the Euphrates and Iraq.

When you leave Galilee and start to climb up the Syrian frontier you see ahead of you a grand mass of mountains topped by Mount Hermon wearing a white cap of snow. This mountain dominates the whole country and snow lies on it all the year round. At the frontier you see a little stream tumbling out of a cavern. This is the eastern source of the Jordan, which flows south through Palestine into the Dead Sea. And when you cross the frontier you are in Colonial France.

Now history. Syria has always been the trackway for migrations and for every conqueror who has ever broken loose. The Egyptian Pharaohs marched across it from the south; the Babylonians and the Assyrians from the east; Alexander the Great came across it from the north. So did the Romans, the Crusaders and the Turks. This means that Syria is scattered with the most wonderful collection of ruins you could find anywhere, from vast temples like Baalbek and complete ruined cities like Palmyra, to the superb castles which the Crusaders built on the tops of the mountains. And they built them as if to last for ever.

Palestine is the land of the Gospel; Syria is the land of the primitive Church. St. Paul was converted on the road to Damascus. He gained new vision in the Street called Straight, which is still to be seen in that city. The Church that was at Antioch was the first missionary Church (by the way Antioch is now part of Turkey but geographically and historically it is Syria). Another wonderful sight in Syria is about a dozen complete desolate Byzantium cities lying out in the sand. And there is the lovely ruined Church of Kalaat Semain built round the pillar on the top of which St. Simon Stylites spent his life. Syria was the home of those strange early ascetics—the Pillar Saints.

Now the towns: what are they like—Beirut is the great port. It is a large white city on a fine bay, with the Lebanon rising at the back. Damascus: a city of minarets and domes in the middle of a large flat orchard, sometimes ablaze with apricot blossom. Commerce and bargaining are in the very air. You have only to admire a carpet in the bazaar to find it in your bedroom on approval when you get back to the hotel. Aleppo: a lovely Arab city with a bright little chromium-plated French town built round it. But go into the dark covered bazaars of Aleppo and you slip into the Arabian Nights. In the plain of Aleppo are clusters of strange Arab villages. Each house is a mud cone painted white. The villages look like clusters of fifty or a hundred eggs in an egg-rack—if you can imagine such a sight. When a polite Arab invites you inside to drink a cup of coffee you discover that these mud houses are as clean as a Dutch dresser. Homs and Hama are two purely Arab towns on the railway. They are always full of camels and donkeys and street markets. They smell of the Eastern Desert. Then there is Tripoli, a big port north of Beirut and Lattaqieh (where the tobacco comes from) and Tyre and Sidon.

One leaves Syria with an impression of great brown mountains, vast sandy deserts, sunny orange-groves near the sea, old gentlemen in Turkish fezes smoking hookahs under palm trees, silent, dead cities, ruined temples built of the most lovely honey-coloured stone, minarets, domes, and busy cities full of life and colour.

With best wishes,

Niall Taylor

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November 24, 2019 · 5:04 pm

Under Waterloo Bridge by Rob Jeffries

The floating police pier under Waterloo Bridge, complete with police launch.

Henry Vollam Morton is one of my favourite authors. He was a widely travelled journalist and from the 1920’s through to the 1960’s he recorded his wanderings in a series of beautifully written travel books. His style was simple and elegant. He wrote short descriptive chapters about anything that took his interest and his legacy is a fascinating insight into a society that was rapidly changing from the old ways to the world that we know today. His books on London in particular, written between the wars, shine a fascinating light on a city that we will never see again.

H.V. Morton’s “The Nights of London”

Morton seems to have had a particular affinity for the River Thames and its police force proved to be a rich source of material for him. He wrote about them on more than one occasion. In his book “The Nights of London” he recalls a visit he paid in the 1920’s to the floating police pier under Waterloo Bridge (now Tower Pier RNLI Station – the busiest in the country) and the conversation he had with the sergeant on duty. As a retired Thames police officer myself who served for many years at Waterloo Pier, I can almost feel the ghosts of serving officers past looking over my shoulder as I read his words – and my, how times change.

“I know of few more dramatic places in London than the Suicide Room of this police raft; the bed ready, the bath ready, the cordials ready. The little dinghy with the rubber roller on the stern, its nose pointed to the dark arches.”

Waterloo Bridge in July 1937, as seen from Cleopatra’s Needle and complete with contemplative young lady (The floating pier can just be seen under the arch on the left).

The sergeant being interviewed recalled one particular rescue. “We heard a splash and we were there in a second. She was a good looking, nice spoken young girl but she did want to die. I have never seen anyone who wanted to die so much. She fought and told us to go away. What right have we got to come and interfere with her private affairs?” The sergeant went on to describe how the ensuing struggle almost led to the small boat being swamped by the river before they managed to land her at the pier at around 3am. This sad tale then took a twist that plainly amused Morton.

The floating pier with Somerset House in the background

The sergeant described how they needed to put this attractive young lady in the bath to warm her up and apparently in those days a police matron needed to be summoned from Bow Street police station to deal with female patients. But, on this occasion, she was not available to attend. This left the police crew with an awkward problem – after all, the officers on duty were all unmarried men and not used to such jobs as undressing young ladies. Morton queried the sergeant that surely it would have been ok to assist the woman in these exceptional circumstances but our shy and bashful young sergeant was adamant, “You can’t be too careful, how did we know that she would not turn nasty for having her life saved and complain that she had been treated disrespectfully?”

Thames Police rescue someone from the river (not the young lady in question!)

Fortunately for all concerned this tricky problem was resolved. It seems that the police pier in those days employed a “Handy Man” called Sam, and Sam was quickly summoned and informed that because he was the only suitably qualified man present (in that he had at some point in his life been married) He would have to undress the patient – a task he apparently performed without question.

Struggling to suppress his amusement that London’s finest, so often accused of callousness, could be so demure in its behaviour Morton completed his interview with a last few questions:

“And is that the end of the story?”

“Yes”

“Did she complain?”

“No, she didn’t”

“And why did she jump?”

“I think it was love”

As Morton left and walked along Victoria Embankment he wrote “I glanced back from the Embankment and saw the Thames heavy with the secrets it has carried to the sea these thousand years; and in the sky was a remote half moon lying on the curve in a ridiculous and careless attitude, as if London did not mean anything.”

This article was originally circulated as HVM Society Snippets – No.170 on 1st August, 2014

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November 10, 2019 · 8:14 am

The Soul of Scotland

HV Morton’s “In Search of Scotland” was first published in 1929. A year later a section of chapter two was reproduced in a pamphlet, “The Soul of Scotland”, a guide for visitors to the Scottish National War Shrine in Edinburgh Castle, something which Morton said he found it more difficult to write about than anything he had ever attempted to describe. This publication is now possibly the rarest piece of Mortoniana there is and I thought this excerpt from it would be a fitting one for today’s post.

If you mount the Castle Rock in Edinburgh you will find the Soul of Scotland. Men call it the National War Shrine…

AS I stood inarticulate before the Shrine a thought came to me which was like a light. I was, not so long ago, in Ypres at the opening of the Menin Gate. It was a fine day with a wind blowing over the old front line. When the gate was declared open Scots pipers mounted high on the ramparts played the ‘Flowers o’ the Forest’.

No man at that moment dared to look into another man’s eyes. It was one of life’s terrible moments. The lament sobbed its grand way out along the road to Hooge, it wailed its way, sobbing, sobbing, ‘the flowers o’ the forest are a’ wede awae’ into every little dip and hollow where the corn now grows. . . .

It seemed to me, as I stood in Scotland’s Shrine, that the sound of this lament had flown home to crystallize in stone upon the rock of Edinburgh. The Shrine is a lament in stone, the greatest of all Scotland’s laments, with all the sweetness of pipes crying among hills, with all the haunting beauty of a lament, all the pride, all the grandeur.

I think the Cenotaph in London and the National Shrine in Edinburgh are the most remarkable symbols in existence of the temperamental difference between the two nations. One is Saxon and inarticulate; the other is Celtic and articulate. Grief locks the English heart, but it opens the Scottish. The Celt has a genius for the glorification of sorrow. All his sweetest songs are sad ; all his finest music is sad ; all his greatest poetry springs from tragedy.

That is why Scotland has built the greatest war memorial in the world.

THE ‘Flowers o’ the Forest’ have all turned to stone.

With best wishes,

Niall Taylor, Glastonbury, England
Sunday, 10 November 2019

(Originally issued as HVM Society Snippets – No.244)

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October 1, 2019 · 10:23 am

Protected: 2003-12-17 – The very first HVM bulletin

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May 26, 2018 · 12:58 pm

HV Morton and the American Tourist

LI0258 copy

HV Morton was in the habit of using caricatures of certain groups of individuals as foils for his carefree narrator, enabling him to make a point in a lighthearted way, in keeping with the nature of his travelogues. The travelling salesman came in for a bit of stick on occasions, as did the ‘yokel’. But one of his favourites was the hapless American Tourist. Morton would paint him as naive and well-meaning, camera in hand, shutter clicking and uttering phrases such as ‘gee’ and ‘say, mister’. He would generally have daughters with names like Maisie, who would refer to him as ‘Dad!’ Well, that’s the male version certainly; of the female version, HVM was generally more complimentary. These unsuspecting individuals would provide ample opportunity for Morton’s traveller to expound fulsomely on a variety of topics as the reader pictures with amusement his assumed look of Old World superiority, the Tourist looking on, basking in his erudition.

However, in the years between the wars when Morton was writing about the British Isles, the world was growing steadily smaller. His books were such great successes in his mother-country, inevitably the lure of the even more lucrative American market began to exert its pull in a way that must have been difficult to resist. Morton was approached by North American publishers, with a view to expanding his readership (and his bank-balance) on the other side of the pond and the first US edition of “In Search of England” appeared as early as 1928 from publishers including the National Travel Club, and McBride, both of New York, and later Dodd, Mead and Co., also of New York.

But what to do about all those references to the American Tourist? All very amusing to a homespun readership certainly, but how would his irreverence be taken in the United States, already well on its way to supplanting the British Empire as the global superpower to be reckoned with? One can only imagine the mental gymnastics which must have gone on and the negotiations which must have been had prior to the publication of the first US edition.

We can get an insight into the thought process from the introduction Morton wrote to a 1935 revised US edition of “In Search of England”, published by Dodd, Mead and Co. and featured below for your interest. It seems at one point he considered expunging the offending references altogether but in the end decided that a bit of ‘context’ in the introduction might do the job instead. This introduction makes fascinating reading – never has back-pedalling been undertaken so elegantly. As you read it you will see that Morton has apparently always thought of the American Tourist as ‘loveable’ and ‘part of the English scene’ and he explains how he really misses them, now that the post-First World War travel boom was over.

And well might Maisie’s ‘Dad’ have responded, ‘Pull the other one, Limey!’

In Search of England - Dodd, Mead and Co - copy

The cover of my Dodd, Mead and Co. edition of “In Search of England”

‘Introduction to the Revised Edition

‘WHEN Messrs. Dodd, Mead and Company asked me to revise for the United States this new edition of “In Search of England”, I was faced with the task of reading the book. I had no idea, when I wrote it some years ago, that the book would become a best-seller.

In fact, I never thought of such things. I just wanted to put down on paper the day-to-day impressions of a high-spirited journey over the roads and through the lanes of England. But, in the inexplicable way these things happen, “In Search of England”, with no assistance from the critics, began to sell all over the English-speaking world.

‘Reading it again at the request of Mr. Dodd, I am delighted to discover that it possesses two of the qualities by which I judge a book of travel: it deals sincerely with the unchanging and abiding things, and it is flavoured, but not too highly, by the time in which it was written.

‘This brings me to the only serious criticism I have received from readers in the United States. These criticisms are always the same. “Why,” I am asked, “do you draw such revolting Americans? All Americans are not vulgar. All Americans are not Babbitts. No Americans talk the kind of slang you put into their mouths.” And so forth.

‘I have received so many letters in this strain that my first reaction to Mr. Dodd’s revised edition was the desire to cut out every American in the book. But, as my pen hovered over these “guys,” I could not bring myself to do it. They are part of the English scene as it was when the book was written.

‘I went in search of England during that brief, golden age after the War when the Rue de Rivoli was an American possession, and when every English cathedral city received its daily quota of visiting Americans. These travellers were drawn very largely from a type that had never before strayed so far from home. Money had suddenly come their way and they were out to see the world. They did talk slang, and they did observe a lovable naivete which is faithfully reproduced here and there in these pages. For instance, the man encountered in Peterborough, who was making a cultural tour of Europe, could not be met with anywhere to-day, but he was an interesting phenomenon during the post-war travel boom. Therefore I ask my readers to understand that I am not setting up characters in any way typical of a nation, and if I were writing this book to-day not one of these people would appear in it, because they have ceased to brighten the rural life of England; much, I confess, to England’s regret.

‘But the England of these pages is still the England of to-day. The changes that have taken place are purely superficial. No Cornish farmer now listens to radio from London with a primitive valve set, and the old Mauretania has ceased to slip into Plymouth Sound.

‘Nevertheless the ancient background of the picture is unaltered. Jack Blandiver still kicks up his heels against the bell in Wells Cathedral, and Hadrian’s Wall still runs its solitary course into the mists of the northern fells.’

H. V. M., London, 1935.

Niall Taylor, Glastonbury, Somerset, England

(this article was originally circulated as HVM Society Snippets – No.195 on 3rd December 2015)

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September 6, 2017 · 11:52 am

The Father of the Dog

A vocation as a veterinary surgeon has its fair share of highs and lows. It is a privilege to be able to assist animals and those who care for them but there are also those occasions when sadly the time comes when it is no longer possible to do more. At this point it is both a blessing and a painful duty sometimes to be able to offer help by means of a final act of kindness.

Here is an account by HV Morton of just such a heart rending situation as he illustrates both the pleasure and the pain which we willingly enjoy and endure when we take an animal into our hearts.

It is from Chapter 8 of “In The Steps of the Master”, first published in 1934. Early in the chapter Morton describes how he came across a dog, a Saluki, lying in the dust in the village of Banias, dying of hunger. Unable to walk, she was covered in flies. Morton writes “… her eyes were lost in a world of unutterable pain… I had never in my life seen an animal in such a ghastly condition”.

Angered and profoundly moved but unable to help her himself Morton instead prevails upon “a nice, gentle Arab in an old suit of khaki” whose job it was to sweep out the shrine at El Kedir, and gives him ten shillings to look after the dog and try to restore her to health. He promises to return then departs to continue his travels with mixed feelings as to whether he has acted for the best.

Sometime later, having thought of the starving Saluki of Banias every day since, to the bewilderment of his driver, he disrupts his intended route and makes a return visit, desperate for news of her:

In the Steps of the Master

… as soon as I appeared the whole village gathered round, but not with the grim, hard expression which terrifies nervous tourists: they were all laughing and smiling, and a cry went up “Abu kelb, Abu kelb!” which means “Father of the dog.”

The Arab is a great hand-shaker. I went round the group shaking hands, telling the driver to ask them how the dog was.

“Come and see, O Abu Kelb!” was the reply.

And a crowd of bare-legged little children went running up between the mud walls announcing the great and spectacular news that “Abu kelb, the father of the dog,” had returned.

I was led to the squalid little hovel behind the mud walls. The crowd was so great that we had to shut the gate, but the children climbed up on the wall to watch. A white mare was tethered in the yard. A douanier, whom I had not seen before, came out of the house, dressed in a pair of khaki breeches and a grey army shirt. He shook me warmly by the hand, explaining in French that he was a lodger in the house, but had unfortunately been out on duty when I had been there before. Now, however, how happy he was to make my acquaintance! How glad he was that I had come back…

All the time the douanier bubbled with affability and I gazed round for the dog, but could not see her. My heart sank. So she was dead! Perhaps it was just as well. But I was too familiar with the habits of the Arabs to ask any questions. All would be known in time.

The douanier, it appeared, was an Armenian from Aleppo. He had a great affection for England. He had learnt English from a priest at a mission school in Aleppo. Ah, if some day he could go to London! He would like that very much… So he rattled on. Then the crowd parted and the man who sweeps out the shrine of El Kedir came up with the Saluki.

I could hardly believe my eyes. She could stand! Her hind legs trembled woefully and her tail, bare and mangy, was still well down. But her eyes had lost the fear of death, although they were still full of pain.

The Arab had made her a little coat from a pair of khaki trousers and he had bound up the wounds on her forelegs with pieces of rag. The Armenian explained that he had bathed her wounds with wine and oil the remedy which the Good Samaritan used on the wounded traveller.

The dog seemed to know in some way that I was the cause of her present well-being and she did something which completely finished me. She walked up to me and just rested her bruised muzzle on my knee. I decided at that moment that, grotesque and blown out with starvation as she was, wounded, mangy and sore, I would somehow take her home with me to England.

I thought how extraordinary it is that a show of interest and a little money can make so much difference to any living thing. The poor creature that a week ago had been stoned and kicked about was now a feature of the village. She was the protege of the rich, mad, Englishman.

I asked the Armenian what would happen if I did not take her away.

“This man,” he replied, pointing to the Arab; “will look after her as long as you pay, but when you stop paying he will turn her loose, because he is too poor to buy food for her.”

I told him of my intention of taking the dog to Jerusalem. He shook his head. The Palestine Customs would not allow her to enter in her present condition. But if I got an order from the Government? I suggested. Yes, it might be done.

So we agreed that they should continue the feeding and the bathing of the dog, and I handed out some more baksheesh.

“That is the name of the dog,” I explained. “I shall call her ‘Baksheesh’ ”

This was a joke that everybody understood!

I went off, promising that I would either call again at Banias or send someone in my name to take “Baksheesh” into Palestine. And as I went off I heard the children shout ing “Abu kelb!”

Weeks later I got a letter which read:

“My dear friend, Mr. Morton, I am verry glade I get a great satisfaction by this relation which commenced with a dog. You can be able for its hospitality. I brought a big jar of sea water from Sidon by which I wash it evry day, morning and evening. Now it is better than bifore. I hope that we will not forget ourselves, and I am allways redy to execute your commissions. Excuse me for my mistakes, be cause the last war of Turkey in 1930 wich resulted after two years with all Christchen immegration has destroyed our futur and high life. God be with you till we meet.

JOHN.”

It was from the excellent Customs Officer at Banias. So he was bathing the dog with water from Sidon.

That sounded excellent.

In a few days I was able, through the kindness of the Palestine Government, to get poor “Baksheesh” through the Customs and into the kennels of the S.P.C.A. in Jerusalem, an organization that, although dying for lack of money, is striving hard to make the Arab understand that animals can feel and suffer.

The report was encouraging. I saw myself taking “Baksheesh” for walks in Hyde Park and for long tramps over the Sussex Downs. Then one day I received a letter saying that she was dead. She was too weak to stand treatment.

“Knowing how much you cared,” wrote Mrs. Reynolds, a member of the Society, “I have buried her in my own garden, where you can think of her sleeping among the rock flowers.”

When I was near Banias again I made a detour to thank John for all his kindness. The Arabs and the children crowded round my car with cries of “Abu kelb!” looking and peering into the car for “Baksheesh.” I told them she was dead.

“It is the will of Allah!” they said.

And they looked at me with the respectful sympathy due to any man who tries to defy the inscrutable will of God. Even John, the Good Samaritan, said it was a good thing, and that when I went to Aleppo he would give me two much finer dogs. Even he did not understand that the crucified eyes of poor “Baksheesh” had marked her out from all the other dogs upon this earth.

With best wishes,

Niall Taylor,
Glastonbury, Somerset, England (Originally circulated as HVM Society Snippets – No.217).

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