Over To You English painting please!
With every issue of BRITAIN, I feel the need to visit your splendid country again. Special time is always allotted to read and bask in its glories of Great Britain covered in your magazine. With Volume 80, Issue 1, I was somewhat surprised as I was settling down to read your “Hope and Glory” article on pages 46-52 that revealed a chronological overview of the Edwardians. As I turned to page 48, I was surprised to see a French painting by Jules Alexandre Grun chosen as, I assume, to be an example of the “sumptuous confi dence of the Edwardian upper classes”.
Holiday at home
I loved the feature in the latest issue of BRITAIN (Volume 80, Issue 1) about Scottish road trips (Vroom with a view). With such variety of scenery, architecture, pretty villages and castles, not to mention the history and legends, only a drive away I wonder why I so often travel abroad!
Stranded on Skye
I’m ashamed to say that despite holidaying extensively in Britain I have yet to explore Scotland in any depth. But your article has inspired me to visit again and I look forward to following some of the inspirational routes you suggest. Annabel Kantaria, Surrey, United Kingdom
THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE
Your issue (Volume 79, Issue 5) of BRITAIN has a photograph of the bridge to the Isle of Skye. In late November 1971, I was stranded on the island because poor weather meant the ferry couldn’t make the crossing. The bus driver offered me a room for the night, in his cottage! Those were adventurous days. I walked to Eileen Donan castle when the ferry returned me to the mainland. It was 4pm, and the sun was setting as I read the inscription in stone about the men who lie in Flanders Fields. It was an unforgettable evening in Scotland. Thank you for bringing it all back. Ms Evelyn Vay Lawson, Victoria, Australia
Auld Reekie, continued…
I am a Swedish linguist and translator with an interest in history. In the last issue of BRITAIN, L Gordon Tait wrote in about the defi nition of Auld Reekie. The word ‘reekie’ is described as Old Scots but similarly to many words described as Old English, they have in fact Old Norse roots. In Swedish today, smoke is ‘rök’. The similarity is too great to be incidental and one can imagine that the Vikings were more familiar with fi res and smoke and more likely to use the word both home and away than people are today. Words do have a way of altering their meaning over the centuries although they seem to remain in the same general area. The two meanings suggested for reekie are both in the same realm. Interesting magazine! Helena Sjöstedt Ware, USA
36 BRITAIN
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It is a lovely painting of a fashionable dinner party during the Edwardian age. Your article dated it as circa 1905 (it was painted in 1913). I know and admire this painting, because it is in my dining room. When I fi rst chose to buy it, I secretly wished I could be one of those elegant ladies conversing with successful, artistic men! This painting undoubtedly presents a sense of the Edwardian age, but it is not England. I am certain that Warwick Castle or any other grand English houses might have paintings of such a dinner party where a young Winston Churchill and other infl uential British personages of the fi rst decade of the 20th century would be dining. Wouldn't such a painting be more appropriate? Thank you for considering my viewpoint. I will continue to enjoy your future issues with the passion of a true Anglophile. Gloria Metz, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
www.britain-magazine.com 27/07/2011 16:30
BRITAIN REPLIES Thank you for your note about this, Gloria. The image is a picture postcard of Grun’s painting, titled After Supper. Like you, we thought it was a good representation of the period, but we fully appreciate that you would have preferred to see a British dinner party. We would welcome readers’ suggestions of a painting by a British artist that encapsulates this era. [Ed.]
BRITAIN'S BEGINNINGS
Thank you very much to Derek and Clarissa Liveford from Beecroft, New South Wales, subscribers to BRITAIN since 1982, who sent us a wonderful old issue of the magazine (then called In Britain) from July 1958. We enjoyed reading it and loved the beautiful cover image of an English lavender harvest in progress. [Ed.]
If calling Britain from overseas, dial your international code, then 44, and drop the first zero ●
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