An August Writer and Other Subjects

'Mangan' by John D. Sheridan, published in 1957 by the Talbot Press Ltd. Dublin and Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. London, is a little paperback on the life of James Clarence Mangan, the Irish poet, born in May 1803, died June 1849. This book is apparently in a series called 'Noted Irish Lives' for so it says on the cover. I have no idea of the titles of the other books in the series, and not a hint is given anywhere in this little volume. It was rescued from the recycling centre and truly is in terrible condition. Still, I had to read it first, it seemed such a waste of all the endeavour that goes into the making of a book to simply leave it on the shelf to go its way to ignominy. I have never seen so much foxing on a book, so many of those brown spots that tell the sad story of a book's life in some damp and dreary spot, under the eaves or in the basement or in an old, hardly-ever opened cupboard of some probably musty, stale-smelling house. Someone had thought enough of it to sellotape the spine where the front cover was hanging off.
The author gives credit for many of the facts in his little work to a D.J. O'Donoghue, “and to that writer's very full Life I am, of necessity, much indebted.”

John D. Sheridan was himself a well-known Irish writer, mostly of essays which are full of wit and interest about his life and encounters. As a child I remember them in the newspapers, and collections were published which I often brought home from the public library.

Mangan had a peculiar and somewhat morbid personality, it seems.  I would also call him a typical oldest son, though, having experience of the breed both in my own siblings and among my offspring. Add to that that he was a poet, who wrote several well-known poems, among them two of the most famous Irish poems ever, “My Dark Rosaleen” and “Oh Woman of Three Cows”, the latter a translation from the Irish, which Mangan had diligently taught himself. He was mad about languages and is reputed to have bluffed his way through a lot of them, giving many translations from, John D. writes “the Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Welsh, Coptic, Danish, French, Serbian and Spanish, and on one occasion he informed the editor (of The Dublin University Magazine) that he could supply him with Hindoo poetry if he wanted it.” The translations, by what I read in this book, were often more invented than true to the originals. However, in his day very few of his readers knew the difference, and to his credit, some of his fancied translations were apparently pretty good.

In his unwrinkled prose, John D. Sheridan's describes him as wearing strange baggy trousers, green spectacles and often a fez, summoning up a unique character marching around the Dublin of his time. In his neat, unwrinkled prose, John D. quotes a description of Mangan by a contemporary, John Savage:

“He is of middle height, and glides rather than walks. A dark, threadbare coat, buttoned up to the throat, sheathes his attenuated body. His eye is lustrously mild and beautifully blue, and his silver-white locks surround, like a tender halo, the once beautiful and now pale and intellectual face.”

His friend, Father Meehan, mentioned frequently in the book, described him also:

“And the dress of this spectral-looking man was singularly remarkable, taken down at haphazard from some peg in an old clothes shop – a baggy pantaloon that was never intended for him, a short coat closely buttoned, a blue cloth cloak still shorter, and tucked tightly to his person. The hat was in keeping with this habiliment, broad-leafed and steeple-shaped,”......”Occasionally he substituted for this headgear a soldier's fatigue cap, and he never appeared abroad without a large malformed umbrella which, when partly covered by the cloak, might have been mistaken for a Scotch bag-pipe.” It would appear he wore several types of individualistic headgear.

I got so much from this little book. It really brought home to me what Dublin was like in those days, when my own ancestors walked the same streets as James Clarence Mangan. Who knows, maybe my great-grandfather, a printer and stationer at the time in Dublin, may have actually known him!

There are so many interesting little pieces in the work – the story of how Mangan was evicted from a lodging consisting of a hay-loft, because he refused to agree not to light a candle in it in order to read. Two or three times he is hospitalised, and it is surprising to read of the clean sheets and orderly wards at a time before the middle of the 19^th century – when we are hard-pressed to provide similar refuge for our sick in this day and age. Indeed, we are told that when he was brought to the Meath Hospital, where he died of cholera a week later, a surgeon who knew his fame provided him with writing materials which he duly used despite the seriousness of his condition; sadly, a nurse who had been scolded for her untidy beds disposed of them immediately on his death. No contract cleaners in those days.

Here is the link to a site I found where the poems mentioned above, and another, 'Siberia' are printed:

http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/Poetry/Mangan.html Have a look and see what you think of them.


I found two little Russian grammars a few years ago in a bookshop. They are Vol. 1 and 2 of 'Russian Grammar Simplified' which is in the 'Hugo's Simplified System' published by Hugo's Language Institute, London, and describes itself as “An Easy & Rapid Self-Instructor.” I can't for the life of me find a date anywhere on the books, but I would make a guess at sometime in the 1950s. I have plodded slowly through the first volume, which consists of 18 lessons, and am now revising at Lesson 11. It says something for this book that I have stuck it out. I understand everything I have done so far and am determined to endure to the end. I'm very old-fashioned, probably on account of being quite old, and when languages were taught in school years ago, grammar was very important. It's like going into a forest and finding your way by getting to know the trees along the route. The trees get more familiar the more often you take the route. At first you are totally lost, of course, but it gets easier. More modern language books plunge straight into conversation, but for me anyway, there is nothing in that to hold on to, nothing to tell you where you are. The person who owned these little books before me obviously used the first volume a lot too, and doesn't seem to have got to the second one, which is clean and new-looking while the first was a bit worn. Now the first is even tattered, being a paperback and travelling everywhere with me in my little satchel.

Why am I learning Russian? Well, I made a few attempts before, starting at age eighteen when I found a book called 'Russian Through Reading' in our local library. Full of teenage angst, I lolled around reading Dostoevsky, Turgenev and Tolstoy and it seemed a natural step to have a go at learning Russian. There were many abandoned attempts since then, but now I think I am making some progress. Also, recently to my delight I acquired a beautiful new daughter-in-law who is a native Russian speaker, so there is even more incentive to learn. Of course, she speaks perfect English too and is an English teacher, but I think it would be nice to know her native tongue even a little before we meet

I heartily recommend these Hugo language books. I also have the Italian set, found with the Russian one at a local secondhand bookshop which departed with the 'boom'. They are still obtainable online from book companies, I see. They are the forerunners to the Hugo Learn a Language in Three Months series, and I prefer them at least for beginning. Everyone has his or her own method, I expect.

Kenneth Lemmon wrote 'Winter Gardens', an old Mini-Book by Corgi, published in 1970 by Transworld Publishers Ltd. London. It is a little paperback, with a picture of crocuses appearing through melting snow on the cover. I have this book a long time and have always loved it I think I bought it new, and it pops up every now and then on the shelves when I am looking for something else, you know the way. It consists of six chapters and two appendices, giving details of all the plants that will grow happily in our gardens despite the cold. If even a small part of a garden were separated from the rest a lovely little winter garden could be made that would cheer the darker months. Our own garden is large and we do have winter-flowering plants in it, but I can imagine how well they would look if all were growing close together where they could be seen in a block. I think if I only had a little room-sized patch, as many have these days, I would fill it with winter plants, and in the summer grow annual climbers and other temporary plants all over them so I would enjoy the two seasons to their fullest. A couple of spring-flowering shrubs and autumn-flowering plants, and the show would be complete, no matter what the weather. Placed near windows, the view could be admired cosily from inside if it were not desirable to venture out.

Plant Sales - it really is a jungle out there....

I have three long shelves full of gardening books of all kinds.  Gardening has been a passion of mine since I was little.  I still remember the very first plant I ever bought.  It was a dark purple petunia with an unforgettable scent and it cost me fourpence.  There were about six for sale in a box outside the greengrocers, along with all the cabbages and turnips.  I don't think petunias have that scent any more.

Those were also the days when every spring saw our local Woolworth's putting on an enormous display of the most wonderfully coloured seed packets - ever since, seed packets have symbolised for me a time of excitement, of freshness, of being young.  Sadly Woolworth are gone, but spring and seeds go on.

One day in my local library I came upon Margery Fish, and my gardening life changed.  Before that, it was all about taming our large and overgrown garden and putting in it as many plants and cuttings as kind neighbours gave us.  There was also a sale in a very large shrub nursery nearby where every shrub imaginable could be had for 50p.  'Imaginable', that is the keyword, for after I found Margery Fish I found that there were in the gardening world plants about which I had never dreamed, rare plants, in other words, maybe quite ordinary plants to the novice eye, but to Margery and her friends, these plants with their variegated leaves, their double flowers, or their flower colour uncommon in that particular variety, these were the ones to be sought after above all others.  Granted Margery Fish also had time for the ordinary, but mainly when it was old in origin, or difficult, so it seemed to me.   Still, there is something fascinating about the way she writes about her garden.

The pursuit of unusual plants is not that difficult in this day of computer searches and nursery websites specialising in them, but in the nineteen eighties and nineties the main places to find them were the plant sales in large gardens open to the public, or the sales section of horticultural society shows.  At one of these shows my then two year old son took the cup for the Best in Show.  I really mean he took it, and I was so busy looking at labels and admiring displays, that it was not until I heard a chorus of genteel tuttings and delicately raised voices,  and the trotting of committee feet that I realised that he had somehow got the cup from its stand on the prize table and was staggering around with it .  Many's the time I heard those genteel tones again, but a little more raised  - "Excuse me,  I am buying that" - "Oh no, dear, I just put it down for a second" - "Well, I found it on the table"  - "Oh, I just put it down for a moment while I was looking for my purse, dear"  -  Too busy hunting myself to see who eventually won these bouts - I actually saw once a rather large lady knocked sideways by a much smaller one who grabbed the plant she was contemplating from under her nose literally.  At the back of the stalls and even under the tables one could see various very interesting and exotic-looking plants which were being 'kept', obviously for friends of the stallholders.

I never saw Margery Fish's books in any secondhand shop, nor in the recycling centre, and the library copies are no longer on the shelves, so I conclude that they were snatched up at one of the library sales.  A sister of mine, however, very kindly came across some while she was browsing the web and bought them for me, truly a kindness, although I, and most gardeners, have got over our 'thing' about the more unusual plants. There was good reason why these rarities were so.  Variegation in flora is more often than not a sign of virus or at least a general weakness of constitution, and such plants generally do not come true from seed, (although there are exceptions such as nasturtium 'Alaska'), and double flowers are usually of absolutely no use to pollinating insects because they do not produce pollen.  Both variegated and double-flowered plants have therefore to be propagated by cuttings, which eventually tires out the 'mother' plants and the whole line.  Nowadays the trend in gardening is towards helping bees and other pollinators propagate plant life naturally, thus ensuring the continuance of plants, insects, and ultimately ourselves.

"Cottage Garden Flowers", "An All The Year Garden" and "A Flower For Every Day" are all published by David & Charles, Newton Abbot, my copies in 1970, 1972 and 1973 respectively,  There are several others, but those three deal particularly with the rare and unusual flora.  They have lots of information about plants in general also, and Margery Fish's wonderfully conversational writing will ensure their survival even if many of the plants in them are going out of fashion, and are maybe not even very 'pc'.

"Cottage Garden Flowers" begins "Nowhere in the world is there anything quite like the English cottage garden.  In every village and hamlet in the land there were these little gardens, always gay and never garish, and so obviously loved."  In Ireland also.  And while in "An All The Year Garden" Margery is chatting away about daffodils,  I recall the farmer in the Midlands who had a quarrel with his wife and opened a field gate to allow his cattle to trample the swathes of daffodils in her new bulb garden.

"Adam The Gardener" was my father's favourite gardening book.  He followed it faithfully from "January - First Week - Sowing Sweet-Peas"  to  "December - Fourth Week - Pips and Stones".  The book is apparently composed of weekly columns published in the British 'Sunday Express' at some point in time, and the only clue to an author besides Adam is under the title inside "With an introduction and contributions by Max Davidson".  It is quite possible that there were several editions of different years' columns too, but this is the one my Dad used.   At the end of January I read with surprise that the fruit of the plant known as Oregon Grape, Mahonia aquifolium. can be used just like the blackcurrant to make "delicious jam, jelly or pies".  I've had that plant for years and I never knew the berries were edible.  If you follow Adam's calendar, there is a right time to do everything in the garden.  I wonder if global warming makes much difference to the schedule.  Hearing on the radio about strawberries in bloom now in January,  and globe artichokes also flowering at the moment, I wonder would Adam have been knocked off his stride even a little.  My father bought this book in the nineteen seventies so we may only speculate.

I found "Dr. Gesal's 3ft x 7ft vegetable garden" in the recycling centre.  The original price was 10p, reasonable enough for what is really just a pamphlet in size.  It was published by Ciba-Geigy (UK) Ltd. and researched and written by Peter J. Triffitt, and no date of publication is given.  It is the fact that a vegetable garden can be successfully made in such a small area that is so intriguing.  Dr. Gesal gives a little plan, and instructions on how to mark out and prepare your plot, and tells you exactly which vegetable should go where, talks about early crops and later ones, and how to avoid a glut.  The downside to the little book is that there is a lot of use of artificial fertilisers, weedkiller and insecticide, not too surprising considering that this book is probably around forty years old and produced by a chemical company.  Still, you can follow the advice and leave out the chemicals, and the fact that you can produce enough vegetables for your family from a 3ft x 7ft garden is good news.

If you are not interested in gardening, you can still sit outside and be productive.  "The Weather Wizard's Cloud Book", as it says itself is "A unique way to predict the weather accurately and easily by reading the clouds."  It's by Louis D. Rubin Sr. & Jim Duncan, "with the assistance of Hiram J. Herbert"  and this copy is published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, N.C. in 1989.  It is in very good clean condition, but I actually cannot recall how I came by this book - probably in a secondhand book shop, because I know I did not find it in the recycling centre.There are lovely photos in black and white and in colour throughout the volume, which help to identify the different types of cloud and the weather they indicate.  It probably would turn one into a weather forecaster, I don't know myself because I haven't read it yet, although I love the idea of looking at the sky and knowing immediately what's going to happen, and whether I will need a raincoat or that we'll be fine for a picnic today.  Of one thing I am sure, the best free show on earth is in the sky, and it never stays the same, except that it is always beautiful.

Neither can I recall how I came across a little book called "Know yourself through your Handwriting".  It is a publication of The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. of  Pleasantville, New York, written by Jane Paterson, and it gives a succinct introduction to handwriting analysis.  This is a subject I have always thought I would find fascinating, if I were ever to get into it, and that seems to be exactly what Jane Paterson does, she shows without any beating about the bush how to analyse different samples of handwriting to get an insight into the character of the writer.  I know that there has been a lot of research into handwriting analysis, which is usually called graphology, and that forensic scientists  even use it to detect the perpetrators of crime because of the access it can give to their mindset. I recall reading newspaper crime reports about expert witnesses being called for their opinion on handwriting, and it is a sensible kind of study, as well as an interesting hobby that anyone can take up.  There are many many more books on it than this, but this one is a very good start. The first sample  Jane Paterson shows, Sample A,  is very neat and flowing and, as I would have thought,  gets a positive analysis as to the writer's character, but then so does the writer of sample B., whom on seeing his/her writing I would have thought to be a rather scatty, hasty person.  So obviously there is a lot more to this topic than meets the eye, or mine at least.

If you are looking for something new to do, there is bound to be a book about it,  and one day you will open the pages and fall in love with your new interest.