Family matters...

This is a portrait of my maternal great-grandparents: Susan Sloan McCluskey, and her husband Richard McCluskey, of Cumberland, England.



Way back when I was in high school, I found this portrait hidden in my grandmother's closet. (I was a terrible snoop as a youngster.) When I asked about the people in it, Nana told me they were her parents. She had told me their names before, many times, but I never knew there was a picture of them until then.

In 1999, I decided to give the portrait to Joan Rekoutis, as she was descended from Richard and Susan McCluskey, as well. Up until 1999, however, Joan did not even know her grandparents' names, never mind what they looked like.

Before I gave the portrait to Joan, I did take photos of it so that I could still be able to see the old image myself, but I have a much higher-resolution digital camera now, so I was anxious to take better pictures of it on this trip.

I did not have pictures of the back of the frame, though. I remembered the original price was imprinted on it, but I didn't recall exactly what that price was. Have a look!

( How much would $10.90 be in 2009 dollars? )

This was no cheap frame by any means! Even if it were, though, the portrait it holds within is a priceless treasure to our family.

 

These are pictures of my room when I was 13-14. On the wall are my favorite memorabilia from my mother's and my trip to the U.K. and Ireland in 1967.




( Brief narration, and a closeup. Sorry for the graininess of the image... )

*smiles* Keyboard and monitor were not inter-operable back then.




And finally, here's me in my room. Judging by the glasses I'm wearing and my 8th grade mathematics textbook there, this was probably taken in Spring 1968.




Now it takes an entire house to keep all my stuff! Ah, for the simpler times... ^^

 

Skipton, in Yorkshire, was the first place I ever legally bought liquor in a store (in 1974). It was Scots whisky. And my name is Scott! So when I saw this 100-year-old "Scott & Co." flask whiskey bottle from Skipton, I simply had to have it.



The fellow I bought it from dug it out of Skipton earth himself not long ago. It's amazing to me to think that this bottle was buried underground during my every visit to Skipton since 1967, and now, in 2008, it's back in the light again, and it's mine, all mine!

 

These pictures were taken the same afternoon in mid-July, 1967, in London's West End, during my mother's and my first vacation to England.

I have always hated them.

I hated these pictures because, in them, at the time, I was consciously trying so hard to look "cool," and quite obviously lacking anything even remotely resembling poise here, I failed completely.





The top one was taken by Mother in a clothing store on then-famous-and-trendy Carnaby Street, where I desperately hoped to find some "mod" clothes that would make me "in" at school. All I found was the silly hat you see in the second photo (which I now recognize was a ladies hat) and a silky, shiny somewhat green paisley shirt that I never wore again.

The second photo was taken by my mother's friend, Florence, as we were walking on Regent Street towards Piccadilly Circus, on our way back to the hotel. The reason I'm posing by a travel agent's window is because the concentric circles centered around London on the globe there were throbbing and pulsing and looked very psychedelic, so I wanted my picture taken with it. Rather sad, really...

A bit of trivia: about 15 minutes before the top one was taken, I had heard The Beatles "A Day In The Life" for the first time, playing in another clothing store. (I would get Sgt. Pepper's for Xmas later that year.)

 

This "Then & Now" isn't nearly as dramatic as the last one of 3rd & Hill Sts. in L.A., as this one is from a country which follows an almost diametrically-opposed approach to its architectural heritage as does ours.

I've written about England's Skipton Castle here before. It's a place I visited many times in my younger years; most recently in 1989. Anyway, a few years ago, quite unintentionally, I started collecting old postcards, and some of my favorite subjects are olden-times views of places I've actually been to. I've got about two dozen vintage postcards of Skipton Castle now.

When I got this postcard below, however, there was something about it that made it look particularly familiar. Then it dawned on me that its photograph was taken at essentially the exact same vantage point as the picture I took myself there in 1989! Interestingly, neither scan below has been cropped at all in their horizontal dimension. The only crop I did on my 1989 photo was to remove a little extra bit of sky in the vertical dimension. Other than that, the two photos are virtually indistinguishable from each other in perspective. Have a look...

Skipton Castle gateway, circa 1913:




click image to enlarge


Skipton Castle gateway, 16 September 1989:




click image to enlarge


Not much has changed, eh! The only real differences in 3/4 of a century are the vegetation and the removal of the two stone chimneys on the tops of the towers. What really fascinates me about these two images isn't only their similarity in perspective, though, it's that little tilting obelisk-shaped stone stanchion at lower right. It's not only still there after 75+ years, it's still tilting at exactly the same angle! Moreover, in the 1989 photo you can see they've put up a post next to the little stanchion ostensibly to protect it.

And while at first glance it appears that the old gas street light has remained in place, too, close examination reveals that the posts are distinctly different. Here is a postcard view from c.1940 that shows a "new" gaslight has replaced the older one, and it's the timeworn remains of that replacement that you see in the 1989 photo. It's telling, though, that instead of simply removing the old light like we Yanks would have done, a point was made to replace the former one with something that had a degree of period authenticity...

Anyway, what of the little stone stanchion today, almost two decades after my last visit? Looking around in Flickr, I found this image from 2006, and look, it's still there...

( ...and still tilting! )

Isn't that funny? A feature like that would simply have been done away with long ago if it were in America. In England, though, they made a point of preserving even this seemingly trivial detail. Quite a substantial difference in attitude toward historic structures, I must say...

 

Another little treasure I am glad to've been able to acquire before my life was over is this old room key from the Regent Palace Hotel, my home away from home in London.


The 1d. stamp square indicates that this key is from an era long before I ever knew the hotel, though – most likely pre-WWII. My mother and I never stayed in Room 217, but this was definitely on the Sherwood Street side of the hotel, which was where we always lodged.

I wonder how many of these old keys are still in existence. Not very many, I'd wager.

I've actually been "traveling" back to Old London a lot in recent days: to the pre-Wren Old St. Paul's Cathedral and Ludgate Hill, to the buried Rivers Fleet and Tyburn, to 16th-18th century London in general. Living in the past is a sure sign of old age! Ah well, it sure beats living in the present...

 

My maternal grandmother and grandaunts, Bromley, London, England, circa 1912.



The McCluskey sisters (l to r): Catherine, Mary Elizabeth and Sarah, known more familiarly as Kitty, Lily and Sally. Lily was my Nana. She was a wonderful grandmother and a truly grand lady...

 

I realize my writings of late have been on the rather morbid side. It won't always be like that, I assure you. It's true, though, that morbidity and mortality are subjects I've long been used to, because my father made his living manufacturing steel burial caskets.

I recently found this family relic on eBay:



Dad kept one of these in his pants pocket for years after he had them made in the early '60s. I distinctly remember he had scratched his initials "E.M.S." on his tape measure. I don't recall exactly when he lost it, but it was long before his death. (It was nowhere to be found among his personal belongings.) So I was glad to find this one as a keepsake.

Incidentally, it may surprise you that there is a religious connection between otters and caskets! You see, Cuthbert of Lindisfarne was the Catholic patron saint of both otters and the funeral industry. (He began the practice of Christian burial in pagan Britain.) I'll leave it to this page to explain the connection between otters and St. Cuthbert.

 

Imagine you're a 12-year-old boy, traveling to England for the first time, and you're given a private guided tour of one of the most well-preserved castles in the realm by its most knowledgeable living authority. An amazing privilege, to be sure, and truly memorable. I had no idea at the time, though, that was only the beginning of my experiences over the next several years at this almost fairytale place...

Entry in family album written in my mother's hand.

The four times I've been to England, there were two places I stayed every visit: the Regent Palace Hotel in London, and my spiritual home Over There – the market town of Skipton, in Yorkshire's historic West Riding.

Perhaps a little background's in order. My mother was born in the US, but she spent most of her childhood growing up in England; in Burnley, Lancashire, to be precise. An older neighbor girl, Florence Stevenson, befriended her when Mother was only 5, and they remained friends all their lives. (Mom called Florence her "cousin," but she wasn't really a blood relative. I still think of Flo as a cousin, too, though. ^^) Florence grew up to be a nurse, and was assigned to a post in Skipton, in rural Yorkshire, and she remained in Skipton for the rest of her life. So every time we visited England, we spent quite a lot of time in Skipton, to the extent that the place became my adopted home town in the UK.

Getting on with it, the "X" below marks the spot in Skipton near the castle where Florence's friend, Mary Wales, lived (or may still live) in a flat at the west end of the Gate House. Miss Wales was a retired architect, and during the long time she dwelt adjacent to the grounds, she made the architectural history of Skipton Castle her highest avocation. Good god was she enthusiastic about that structure! Whenever she spoke about it, Miss Wales really made the place come alive...



When I visited again in 1969 and we called on Miss Wales, I remember she walked me down to the Castle Gateway (below) and bought us both admission tickets. Then she gave me the personal tour again, but without my mom this time. That was totally bitchen! After that second visit, I pretty much had all of Skipton Castle memorized room by room, and I was definitely enchanted for life with the place.


click image to enlarge

( The rest of the story... )

So that was my castle. Perhaps it was only all mine for a few hours altogether, but that was honour enough to last a lifetime...

 

I've been to England more times than any other overseas country. I went there in 1967, 1969 and 1974 with my mother, and on my own in 1989. There were only two places that I stayed at every time, and one of those was the Regent Palace Hotel in London.

Arriving at Piccadilly Circus by Air Google Earth, I was pleased to see the RPH was still standing. (I wasn't so sure it would be.) It's the large quadrangular building at upper left in this view, with the intersection at Piccadilly Circus visible at lower right.



Then I thought, OK, the building is still there, but is it still the Regent Palace? So I did a quick search, and what do you know, the hotel has its own website. Yay, it still exists! But then I read the page on the history of the hotel, and I saw that the Regent Palace had in fact closed its doors forever at the end of 2006, and was now threatened with demolition.

*sigh* So that was the end of that. Even if I ever did get the chance to travel to the U.K. again, I now knew I wouldn't have a familiar place to call Home in London anymore. I was sad. I almost felt like an old friend had died...

But I kept reading the history page and noted that the owners are still asking former guests to send them stories and pictures of the RPH. Accordingly, right then and there, I set about trying to track down everything I'd collected over the years that had to do with the Regent Palace so I could share my memories of the place.

( Home Sweet Home! (10 photos) )

Oh yeah, I almost forgot!

( My RPH collectibles! )

So now you've toured my Palace. Next you'll visit my Castle! ^^