SKATING THROUGH HISTORY


Britain has extensive associations with ice skating, whether it’s cultural, personal or stylish. And, now, what would London be during the Christmas period without its annual array of accessible rinks?


“And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and visible for many a mile


The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom, I heeded not their summons: happy time It was indeed for all of us – for me It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud The village clock tolled six, - I wheeled about Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home. All shod with steel, We hissed along the polished ice in games Confederate, imitative of the chase.”


Taken from the ‘The Prelude’ by William Wordsworth


Winter is a season of contrasts. Tere’s


the harshness and the cosiness, the shiver- ing cold and the fiery heat. Tere’s the end- of-year excitable optimism of Christmas time and the dragged-out blandness of January and February. Tere are also the winter sports and activities that bring an energised sense of fun to otherwise limiting weather. Tey work in harmony with na- ture, using natural surroundings as the base and motive: skiing and snowboarding


when mountains become thickly coated with snow, for example, or being pulled along blanketed roads in a usually neg- lected sledge. Ice skating is an activity that originated


from the natural manoeuvring over frozen lakes in boots made of bone with pierced holes for leather straps (1800 BC) or planks of wood with an iron blade fastened underneath (13th to 18th century). Paintings from 1786 by Julius Caesar Ibbitson depict scenes of men in their hats and long coats sliding across the Serpentine in Hyde Park in a similar way to J. Baber’s 1839 oil painting of people socialising in the park – some sitting having their boots fitted, others in movement on the ice as though dancing. Both are observations of liveliness and both have faint pastel tones to them like the cool, quiet air that sweeps through a winter’s day. During the 19th century, ice skating in


London became associated with the leisurely and upper class, ice carnivals took place consisting of partying and fancy dress. Tere is also the segment from Queen Victoria’s diary, whereby the ice cracked beneath Prince Albert, causing him to have a minor accident. As Queen Victoria recounted: “My dearest Albert managed to catch my


26 FOCUS The Magazine November/December 2019


arm and reached the ground in safety. Oh, how thankful I felt to see him at my side again and that God should have mercifully preserved him from such a great danger! He cut his chin a little, and was of course dripping with water, so that he ran home as fast as he could. It was a horrid experi- ence, and I never felt anything so dreadful as seeing my beloved one in the water and thinking, as I did, that I should lose him before my very eyes unable to rescue him!” At the beginning of the 20th century,


skating established its own stylishness in London, New York and Paris. In 1915, US Vogue described leather coats, accordion pleated skirts and silk scarves flung over the shoulder as some of the garments suited for skating, as well as velveteen in the form of a deep purple (coat and turban) and green (sweater coat). In 1928 London, a skating collection for department store Harvey Nichols consisted of short pleated skirts with printed sweaters, scarves and hats – capturing the essence of the Jazz Age with a wintery vibe. Te Museum of London holds a pair of


ice skates from the late 1930s that were owned by a Londoner named Christina Greenberry. Tey’re cream, laced and sim- ple in design but were an object of senti- mental value. “[Greenberry] was


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