Here is a quick round-up of this week's tweets, including the best blog posts, internet resources and places offering a glimpse of life for the British Soldier of the First World War. 

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[Syndenham Police c.1860. The bloke on the far right is looking particularly sharp.]

PITY THE POLICE.

THE Horse Guards have, in the matter of accoutrement, a body of formidable rivals over the way. These are the authorities who preside over the equipment and clothing of the Constabulary Blues in Scotland Yard.
   The boots of Policemen have long been objects remarkable for their excessive clumsiness and disproportion. They are obviously uncomfortable; that we see, although none but the wearer can know where the shoe pinches. But the head of the Policemen is even worse clad than his feet are, though the demerits of his hat are less conspicuous than those of his highlows.
   The objectionable peculiarities of the Policeman's hat are chiefly its extreme hardness and excessive weight,  which is greatest at the crown, so that the thing is not only heavy, but top-heavy. It gets,therefore, instantly knocked off in a row and leaves unprotected the head which it was designed to defend. The glazed top attracts the heat of the sun when that luminary presides over the beat of the wearer. Thus rendering him hot-headed,  it necessarily hinders his obedience to the standing-order of his corps, which requires that, "a Constable should on all occasions execute his duty with good temper and discretion."
   The hat of the Policeman has been compared to a chimney pot, wherefrom, however similar to it in shape and weight it differs in the important particular of not allowing the heat and exhalations which ascend into it to escape. In want of elasticity, its resemblance to that other cylinder is perfect. Hence it effectually resists that expansion of the Policeman's cranium which is a condition requisite to accompany the progressive mental development of an intelligent officer.
   By night, when the path of the Policeman's duty is irradiated by the silvery moon or the refulgence of the gas-lamps, the glimmer reflected by his glazed hat-cover enables thieves to recognise him at a distance, and elude the vigilance of their pursuer. The glazed hat thus answers a purpose which could not be more effectually served by appending a contrivance to the tail of his coat like the apparatus which nature has attached to that of the rattlesnake.
   The necks of Policemen are moreover constringed with high stiff collars and rigid leather stocks, deserving the name of black chokers, which necessarily cause congestion of the brain. This organ of the mind, thus overgorged with blood, undergoes a baking process within the head enclosed the glazed hat. Such stocks might serve for the punishment of evil-doers, but should be banished from the uniform of those whose vocation it is to take offenders into custody. The police force is not too numerous, but it may be truly said to be overstocked.
   The stock of the Policeman is no light grievance, and the hat is still heavier. The Commissioners of Police are respectfully solicited to take stock, and hat also, with a view to necessary reform in both particulars. They will not, surely, after this appeal, continue to expose themselves to the too well-merited banter implied in the popular question. "Who's your Hatter?"

- Punch, July 6, 1861

(for more contemporary accounts of nineteenth-century police & policing, you can do no better than to immediately scurry over to Lee Jackson's brilliant online resource Victorian London)

Inspired by The Victorian Policeman by Simon Dell, Shire Classics

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Here is a quick round-up of this week's tweets, including the best blog posts, internet resources and places offering a glimpse of the life and work of the Victorian Policeman – enjoy!

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In her best-selling Book of Household Management, first published in 1861, Isabella Beeton offers an insight into the comforts of Victorian domesticity with the statement: "The beverage called tea has now become almost a necessary of life." The British love affair with tea drinking has a long history, evolving from an exotic luxury to a nationally indulged custom, fuelling many a sociable gossip and boosting morale during times of war. Introduced into England in the mid-1600s, it was immediately hailed for its medicinal qualities and bore the hallmark "by all physicians approv'd" in 1658. Royal patronage and a flurry of newly-established coffee-houses later, an array of delightful new range of hot beverages (including tea, coffee and chocolate) were causing quite a stir.

Quickly establishing a reputation as a consolation for melancholy and an inspiration for literary creativity, it is perhaps unsurprising that Samuel Johnson – a man famed for both – became one of tea's most vocal devotees. Calling himself a "hardened and shameless tea drinker... whose kettle has scarcely time to cool", he seems to have paid duty to no other beverage. A self-confessed addict, "who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the evening", it's a marvel that his Dictionary took less than a decade.

However, this enthusiasm for "the infusion of this fascinating plant" was not universally shared in the eighteenth century, and debate raged in print about whether it was proving a delight or a detriment to the country. Professing a concern for the health of the nation, theologian John Wesley condemned tea as harmful for the body and soul, claiming that his own sufferings of a 'Paralytic disorder' were brought about by tea drinking (I wonder if anyone enquired exactly how much he was drinking). Philanthropist Jonas Hanway went further to decry the physical effects of tea drinking: "Men seem to have lost their stature, and comliness; and women their beauty. Your very chambermaids have lost their bloom, I suppose by sipping tea."

But perhaps the most vehement opposition comes in Cottage Economy (1821), penned by William Cobbett, a radical pamphleteer and social reformer (who I had previously considered to be fairly sensible). Having discussed at great length how a labouring family might best brew and enjoy their own liquor at home, he embarks upon a fantastic, fevered rant about the evil consequences of tea beginning to supplant beer as the nation's favourite drink (the modern mind boggles). He begins by outlining the time wasted by women in preparing, drinking, and clearing up after a morning's cuppa when they should be more usefully employed. Insisting that this amounted to around two hours a day, he concludes that a woman could easily spend a whole month of her year faffing around with a teapot (I paraphrase, of course), "besides the waste of the man's time in hanging about waiting for the tea!". This adult preoccupation with hot beverages is the top of a slippery slope to idleness, lost wages and child neglect. He continues to brand tea drinking as "a destroyer of health, an enfeebler of the frame, an engenderer of effeminacy and laziness, a debaucher of youth and a maker of misery for old age", which fitted an Englishman for nothing but "a seeking for the fireside" and "a lurking in the bed." If the pernicious habit continues, it will guarantee you an early death and turn your daughters into harlots:

It must be evident to every one, that the practice of tea drinking must render the frame feeble and unfit to encounter hard labour or severe weather, while, as I have shown, it deducts from the means of replenishing the belly and covering the back. Hence succeeds a softness, an effeminacy, a seeking for the fireside, a lurking in the bed, and, in short, all the characteristics of idleness, for which, in this case, real want of strength furnishes an apology. The tea drinking fills the public house, makes the frequenting of it habitual, corrupts boys as soon as they are able to move from home, and does little less for the girls, to whom the gossip of the tea table is no bad preparatory school for the brothel... the girl that has been brought up merely to boil the tea kettle, and assist in the gossip inseparable from the practice, is a mere consumer of food, a pest to her employer, and a curse to her husband, if any man be so unfortunate as to fix his affections upon her.

But, is it in the power of any man, any good labourer who has attained the age of fifty, to look back upon the last thirty years of his life, without cursing the day in which tea was introduced into England? Where is there such a man, who cannot trace to this cause, a very considerable part of all the mortifications and sufferings of his life? When was he ever too late at his labour; when did he ever meet with a frown, with a turning off and pauperism on that account, without being able to trace it to the tea kettle? When reproached with lagging in the morning, the poor wretch tells you, that he will make up for it by working during his breakfast time! I have heard this a hundred and a hundred times over. He was up time enough; but the tea kettle kept him lolling and lounging at home; and now instead of sitting down to a breakfast upon bread, bacon and beer... he has to force his limbs under the sweat of feebleness... To the wretched tea kettle he has to return at night with legs hardly sufficient to maintain him; and thus he makes his miserable progress towards that death which he finds ten or fifteen years sooner than he would have found it had he made his wife brew beer instead of making tea. 

Fortunately, Cobbett's tirade seems to have fallen on deaf ears and tea became the favourite weapon of the Temperance movement in its efforts to rid Victorian Britain of the vices brought on by drunkenness. As the ritual of taking afternoon tea became a fashionable pursuit of polite society, the chink of cups and saucers continued to be a familiar and comforting sound in the grand country manor, the rented apartments of the town house, and even the beach-hut during a moment's repose on the family holiday (see image below). 

Sitting here as I do, cuppa in hand (stereotype? moi?), I find the simple sentiments of Cobbett's contemporary Reverend Sydney Smith much more favourable: 

"Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea."

[Images: I. A family take afternoon tea in a beach hut in Felixstowe; II. Front page of an American edition of Cobbett's Cottage Economy; III. Portrait of William Cobbett]

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Inspired by Tea and Tea Drinking by Claire Masset, Shire Library (2010)

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Here is a quick round-up of this week's tweets, including the best blog posts, internet resources and places offering a glimpse of the history of tea & tea drinking – enjoy!

(Thanks also to blog Airs, Waters, Places for the mention in this month's History Carnival: http://j.mp/gsKi3y)

"Throughout the whole of England the drinking of tea is general... Though the expense is considerable, the humblest peasant has his tea twice a day like the rich man." - Duc de la Rochefoucauld, 1780s

  “AMONG the many minor comforts that render lift agreeable, there are, perhaps, few that can fairly take precedence of a good cup of tea—the cup 'which cheers but not inebriates.' It is a daily blessing.. & one within the reach of the slenderest purse." The Leisure Hour, 1852

 "They talk of Hitler's secret weapon, but what about England's secret weapon - tea. That's what keeps us going and that's what's going to carry us through." A. A. Thompson, 1942. 

Objects & Images

'SEE what a glow you get from hot & hearty tea for dinner.' Lots of vintage advertising for tea http://bit.ly/hoJhCg 

'The preferred English beverage': Some great tea-tasting images http://bit.ly/eQwem5

Trade cards for Georgian Tea Houses & companies http://bit.ly/gnFTux http://bit.ly/fUzXhd http://bit.ly/dHXysj 

'A Gossip Over a Cup of Tea' by Matthias Robinson (mid-Victorian) http://twitpic.com/3taenc

A Lyon’s teashop window from the 1920s http://bit.ly/ePdWwe 

A snippet from the tea, coffee & chocolate-related collection of the V & A http://bit.ly/hDF7ro 

What better time to revive the Moustache Teacup? http://bit.ly/i0mcFd http://bbc.in/flzPMz 

The Merry Maid: c17th depiction of a female tea-seller (she is not much of a looker. But she does look quite merry.): http://bit.ly/eV8Lof

Blogs

Rag Linen: An unexpected consequence of the Boston Tea Party (1773)... Fish that taste of tea? Maybe? Maybe not. http://bit.ly/gcyxAI 

Edwardian Promenade: The Tea Rooms of Edwardian London http://bit.ly/eCrDvA

Edwardian Promenade: Tea inspiring fashion – The tea gown http://bit.ly/hKl9Pf

Georgian London: Philanthropy, Umbrellas & Tea: The Life of Jonas Hanway http://bit.ly/idX0CX 

Philaahzophy: Rebelling against the Tea Tax: A First Hand Account of the Boston Tea Party  http://bit.ly/dX6k28 

Films

'A Tea Time Topic!': Newsreel film from 1931 about tea growing & picking in Ceylon http://bit.ly/hX8xu4 

Historical Resources, Articles & Books

 "Individually & nationally we are deeply indebted to the tea-plant." From 'Tea; its effects, medicinal & moral (1839)  http://bit.ly/fLdfWB

Tea smuggling & adulteration in the eighteenth century (from the UK Tea Council) http://bit.ly/eqjpQu  

The rudiments of tasseography, or the art of reading tea leaves: http://bit.ly/gpIEtU A popular c19th pastime http://twitpic.com/3tiq29

NAAFI Break Tea – produced since the 1920s http://bit.ly/hKhb88 

A history of J. Lyons & Co teashops http://bit.ly/faVsTw 

A Mad Tea-Party from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland http://bit.ly/gyz3B2 

The Good & Bad Effects of Tea Considered (1745) http://bit.ly/hPm1i2 

Online Exhibition: The Chinese Empire & Trade, 1600-1834 (inc. Tea, Silk, Porcelain & Opium) http://bit.ly/g3sVFD 

Places to Visit

Tea fit for a Duchess: Talk and Tea Tasting Workshop in London, 3rd Feb http://bit.ly/eLE7JR  

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So, this week I have been horribly self indulgent and spent my time swanning around the 1930s, a decade which I have come to appreciate all the more recently because of two fantastic period dramas – Any Human Heart & The King's Speech (the fact that each stars a one-time Mr Darcy can't have done them any harm, either). 

I am an unabashed devotee of historical dramas (my childhood was practically defined by my mother's obsession with Pride & Prejudice and/or Colin Firth's wet shirt, and perhaps the enthusiam is hereditary). Those taking us back to an England as yet untouched by world war are often hopelessly veiled in romance, with delicate courtships, amorous adventures and - dare I say it? - heaving bosoms generally foremost in modern representations.

The new technologies that began to blossom in the early twentieth century, namely radio and motion picture, allow us to make our own journey into more recent decades gone by. This, combined with the memories of war and their immeasurable impact on our social outlook and national consciousness, perhaps lends something of a nostalgic air to dramas set in the early-mid twentieth century. However, the exploits of the fictional Logan Mountstuart paint a grim portrait of England after the 1960s, and it seems that more recent years are not quite so easily reconciled with such a sense of romance and wistful affection. Not yet anyway. Perhaps one day the 1990s will be seen as a golden age of glamour and creative genius. You never know...

Anyway. Returning briskly to inter-war Britain, I will ramble no more about historical drama and let you experience the real thing. Below are three films of the era. The first two will now be recognisable to many of you, as the abdication speech of King Edward VIII (1936) and his younger brother George VI's first wartime speech (1939). The third film, perhaps not quite so momentous in terms of national politics, is no less of a treasure for it! From the archives of British Pathe, it presents a series of clips from 1930, including a rotund man in a bowler hat doing some terrible singing, a spot of female wrestling and the fabulous "celebrated variety turn" of Max & Harry Nesbitt, who are just "crazy about freckles." Intriguing.

Inspired by 1930s Britain by Robert Pearce, Shire Living Histories (2010). And Colin Firth.

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Here is a quick round-up of this week's tweets, including the best blog posts, internet resources and places offering a glimpse of life in 1930s Britain – enjoy!

Objects & Images

Moustaches in History: Rhett Butler, Gone with the Wind (1939). The epitome of all that is caddish & bounderish? http://twitpic.com/3rqa9e 

Great 1930s advertising: http://bit.ly/dR79EX (oh the glamour of Dunlop Rubber!)

No, wait, it gets better: 'OXO with hot milk: It's Meat & Drink to you' http://bit.ly/f9VgJz Mmm. Meaty milk.

1930s fashion: some beautiful dress designs from Norman Hartnell & others http://bit.ly/fPIsPu 

A glimpse of the 1930s world through contemporary postcards http://bit.ly/fp4vxA

The Daily Sketch, 1939: Neville Chamberlain, THE MAN THE WORLD LOOKS TO. Journalism in the 1930s http://bit.ly/eT4SfH

The best toys of the decade (featuring a fairly scary looking doll) http://bit.ly/g06hzV

The glamour of female smokers in the '30s... http://bit.ly/f3U9fL

...& the brilliant advertising targeting them http://bit.ly/gQIvS7 (personal favourite:“After a man’s heart… nothing else will do”)

A selection of 1930s toys from @MuseumChildhood: http://bit.ly/gnET1r http://bit.ly/egkBwD http://bit.ly/gAaFDa http://bit.ly/fS6jOB

A wonderfully retro 1930s television http://ow.ly/3xVab

The Jarrow Crusade (1936),marching the 300 miles to London against unemployment & poverty in the north-east http://twitpic.com/3rq348

Film

Here's a bit of 1930s swing music to wake you up (from Check & Double Check, 1933) http://bit.ly/eLDy1A

British Pathe: 'What are we going to do with all these powers and inventions?' Here is the answer from 1930... http://bit.ly/erawi7

  From the blossoming age of cinema, Hollywood blooper reel c. 1936, feat. Humphrey Bogart “tetched in the head”? http://bit.ly/hvb3dQ

Drinking, Dancing & Making Merry: The Ace of Spades Club, 1933 http://bit.ly/3Mz0wP

Some 1930s colour film of the British seaside (featuring a fairly miserable looking woman..) http://bit.ly/e5xbya

Historical Resources & Books

The impact of the Great Depression & American influence on literature & the arts in 1930s Britain http://bit.ly/eHjc9x  

V & A: The Changing Role & Status of Women 1930-39 (lots of nice vintage ephemera) http://bit.ly/eTZnko

In the decade that saw Edward VIII renounce the throne for Wallis Simpson: Wedding fashion from the 1930s http://bit.ly/e2yuD2

More info on the Jarrow Crusade here: http://bbc.in/ro8Lo

Exploring c20th London: Brilliant exploration of 1930s London http://bit.ly/hJpD4X http://bit.ly/h5QuQ4

Places to Visit

Places to visit: Birmingham Back to Backs (National Trust). Includes a traditional 1930s sweetshop http://bit.ly/11oRqH

 Podcasts

National Archives: A History of the Pub & the People. Begins with drinkers in the 1930s http://bit.ly/bHJpG0

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In 1628, one young man felt that the follies of fashion had gone too far. So much so, in fact, that he felt inclined to pen a sixty-three page treatise furiously condemning the "Ruffianly, Graceless, Whorish, Ungodly" (& 25 other insulting remarks) manner in which many men were choosing to wear their hair. In The Unloveliness of Lovelocks, William Prynne expressed his disgust at these "unnatural and unmanly times" in which men had "broken the very Ordinance... of God, and Nature, by their womanish... False, excessive hair." The gent below, adding a flourish of ribbons and feathers to his flowing locks, doesn't do much to disprove his point. Prynne's was not a lone voice, and presumably their grumblings softened when revolution and puritanism heralded distinctly less extravagant times.

Unfortunately for Prynne, the Restoration was to revive pomp and parade with a vengeance, and he lived to see the 1660s transform the English court into a sea of lavish tumbling periwigs. The fashion first took root in early seventeenth-century France, reportedly after Louis XIII's attempts to conceal his premature baldness had inspired a scramble to emulate him. When Charles Stuart returned from his exile in France to assume the English crown, the trend spread quickly, but as these expensive full-bottomed wigs remained the preserve of the elites, they offered an immediate indicator of wealth, status and prestige.

But the popularisation of false hair, and the wearer's preference of colour, size and shape, often raised a fashionable eyebrow or two (which, by the by, might also nothing more than meticulously styled mouse-hair ceremoniously applied to the face). As a consequence of the growing prevalence of wig-wearing, deportment was key – any gentleman sporting an unkempt hairpiece could be immediately branded an eccentric, an outsider, or a pretender to gentility. The idea of the peruke being a disguise for an "empty head" became a common attack, and satirists such as Tom Brown (1662-1704) never missed an opportunity to poke fun at these absurd creatures: "One made a most magnificent figure: his periwig was large enough to have loaded a camel, and he bestowed upon it at least a bushel of powder I warrant you."

Clearly, although some considered the full-bottomed wig a fantastic coiffed ornament to the human head, others saw them as ridiculous, or even an unchristian attempt to thwart God's design of the body. A sudden attack of conscience on this count prompted former perruquier Mr John Mulliner to renounce his profession and burn his own wig as "a Testimony for God against them" in 1677.

But those who conformed to the trend must have suffered in the name of fashion. The wigs inevitably became heavier and more ungainly as size became a measure for quality. The majority of them were fashioned from human hair (and often women's hair, introducing a whole host of objections on the grounds of distortion of gender roles) and were perenially lice-infested. Aside from the heat, the scratching, and the inevitable smell, "big-wigs" became a favourite target of thieves, and wig-snatching was as lucrative an enterprise as pick-pocketing. It seems that some young ne'er-do-wells perfected a strange method of robbing the rich in broad daylight. A thief passing through a crowd carried on his head a young boy concealed in a basket, who could easily spy the most attractive hairpieces and snatch them from his victim's head before ducking back out of sight. 

Diarist Samuel Pepys was sufficiently enamoured of his periwig to worry about its fate in the aftermath of the plague of 1665, noting "what will be the fashion after the plague is done, as to periwigs, for nobody will dare to buy any haire for feare of the infection, that it had been cut off the heads of the people dead with the plague". (This, added to the fact that Pepys' primary concern during the the Great Fire of London the following year was to make sure his parmesan cheese was safely buried, suggests to me that the man occasionally had trouble prioritising. His portrait of 1686 is the second image at the bottom).

In any case, he had little need to worry. As the eighteenth-century dawned, the man's periwig became such a necessary accessory that a bald-headed man could strike horror into the hearts of a genteel company of swooning, nay, screaming ladies. Propelled by blossoming economic markets and the introduction of cheaper models, elements of fashion were becoming an increasingly universal concern. The wig was continually recast in both its style and its function, but maintained a prominent and visible role in English culture until the end of the eighteenth century, often seeming to hold as much power and personality as the "weak brains they kept warm." Or, perhaps even more so, as the following contemporary remark suggests:

"A HEAD is a mere bulbous excrescence, growing out from between the shoulders, to fill up the hollow of a wig."

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Inspired by Restoration England by Peter Furtado, Shire Living Histories (2010)

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Here is a quick round-up of this week's tweets, including the best blog posts, internet resources and places offering a glimpse of life in Restoration England – enjoy!

 Objects & Images

I will start with the best portrayal of Charles II I have ever seen. 

The earliest known English ‘lonely hearts’ advert, dated 1695 http://twitpic.com/3pc0yv 

Object: Set of wall tiles depicting the ‘Popish Plot’, a fictitious Catholic conspiracy of regicide (dated 1769-70) http://ow.ly/3CyZC 

Historical Resources & Books

The digitised diary of Samuel Pepys, searchable online & updated every day: http://www.pepysdiary.com/

Restoration Theatre: Fantastic resource on c17th theatres, their companies, playwrights & historical background http://ow.ly/3CvUm

Search the proceedings of the Old Bailey from 1674, after the medieval court had been destroyed by the Fire: http://ow.ly/3BGaU

Records of 16th and 17th century political history from the National Archives http://bit.ly/gjhSD5

A guide to Restoration literature, including the Libertine Lyrics of the 2nd Earl of Rochester http://ow.ly/3BNpA

Online Books: Full text of Robert Boyle's 'The Sceptical Chymist' (1661). A fascinating glimpse of c17th science http://ow.ly/3CoXN

The British Library: Treasures in Full – Renaissance & Early Modern Festivals 1475-1700 http://bit.ly/4bCRgh

Blogs

Res Obscura: 'A compleat history of druggs' http://bit.ly/dneYmQ 

Fragments: Mary Carleton, c17th fraudster thief & serial bigamist. http://bit.ly/gOsqRd 

Mercurius Politicus: Cabinets of Curiosities in the Seventeenth Century http://bit.ly/gJsyJU

Mercurius Politicus: Wonders on the Deep – Great prints showing frost fairs 1683-4 http://bit.ly/9CbSFs

Places to Visit

Ashmolean Museum. Built on a founding collection established in the Restoration era http://bit.ly/rlhuS 

Online Exhibitions

Museum of London: : London’s Burning - The Great Fire of London 1666 http://bit.ly/aCM1Ro

Museum of London: Online Exhibition: Pepys' London http://ow.ly/3Cn10

Royal Society: The Royal Society was founded 1660. Explore their recent '350 Years of Science' exhibition: http://ow.ly/3BRpJ

 Podcasts

National Archives: Clandestine or ‘Fleet’ Marriages of 17th & 18th century London http://ow.ly/3Ctnd

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Happy New Year, 1949! *clink*

This video from British Pathe takes us to the Chelsea Arts Ball, held at the Royal Albert Hall to welcome 1949. Drunken jitterbugging optional extra. I'm all for it, though...

Whatever the New Year has in store, it has at least got off to a noisy start....

MIDNIGHT REVEL GREETS NEW YEAR

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Last year, I spent the majority of the festive season dressed as a Victorian streetwalker. I wandered the cobbled streets inhaling (nay, choking on) the smells and sounds of nineteenth-century London, paid my dues to the local Goose Club and perfected the art of the booze-fuelled Victorian Christmas jig. It was all very Dickensian. 

I would wager, with more than a hint of confidence, that the bleak, black-drizzled days of Victorian midwinter would be the first to creep into most people's imaginations if I were to ask you to picture a historical christmas scene. Perhaps with the gentle glow of log fires gleaming through the frosted windows into the gloomy street, and the music of carol singers hanging sweetly in the night air. Perhaps Prince Albert is happily scampering about inventing the Christmas tree (which, of course, he didn't really. But this is imaginary, after all).

However, in this particularly austere winter I have decided to take up my post elsewhere. In any case, the Victorians weren't the only ones who knew how to celebrate. I feel a need for glamour and prosperity, perhaps with a snowball fight in Trafalgar Square and some carols jazzed up with a flourish of silver trumpets? Now, that's not much to ask. So, I have decided to spend this Christmas in the 1920s. And I defy you, dear reader, not to get into the festive spirit watching the video below.

(I am particularly fond of the rotund bag lady having a good old go at skating in her heeled boots. Apparently the wintry excitement has cured her of her need for a cane [c. 2:00])

"Terry!"

" 'allo."

"Strike me pink, 'ere comes Father Christmas."

 "Ooooh yeah, so it is. Look at 'is beard!"

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