Titanic, Period Pieces and Gambit to get your hubby to watch TV with you.

Colette in her cutting edge fashion hat from Marie Claire Magazine 1937.

My husband and I watched the new 2012 Titanic miniseries last night,well, the first two episodes, anyway.

 It was on the History Channel (in Canada) and that channel had just played a programme with ‘new evidence’ about the Titanic’s sinking (due to mirage/glare, a researcher says) which clashed with some of the old theories put forth in the mini-series.

But this Titanic miniseries was just Upstairs Downstairs on a big boat, a soap opera, so it didn’t matter. Julian Fellowes of Downtown Abbey fame penned this miniseries, which has a kind of Groundhog Day style of plot development, so the first episode seems weird.

Anyway, he clearly had lots of money so the hats were right on, with the first class women wearing Huge Merry Widow style hats and the French mistress of one rich guy wearing a smaller style more like Colette’s up there.

(In 1912, Coco Chanel was making her smaller hats for her boyfriend’s rich friends.)

Gee, you have to wonder if people are going to get tired of 1912, just I get my story Threshold Girl up on the Internet (it’s a free ebook) and I start writing the follow up Diary of a Confirmed Spinster.

But my story is about the middle class in Canada, and even though it has suffragettes, I’m going to paint a more complex picture of the movement, from a Canadian Point of View.

This 2012 Titanic miniseries starts with a rich girl being released from jail for breaking windows or something with the suffragettes. (Played by Perdita Weeks, the girl who played Lydia in Lost in Austen but super thin now.) Yesterday I posted a first person testimony from the WSPU magazine,  suggesting something just like that happened. In April 1912.

Anyway, the science documentary Titanic: Case Closed featuring Tim Maltin’s theory (he apparently has an ebook or e-book out called “A Very Deceiving Night”).. supplied the new evidence that centers around the icebergs in Labrador in 1912. As it happens I’ve already posted an article from the Canadian Magazine, published in April 1912!  about those very icebergs. They were so numerous and splendiferous,they were almost becoming a tourist attraction. Hmm. Although the article was called Iceberg: Floating Menace.

Ironic, the date of that article. The History Channel Documentary revealed that the ocean liners of the time ran a gauntlet of icebergs, but it was especially bad in 1912.

It was interesting, but I thought there were some contradictions in Maltin’s theory or his presentation of same.. He goes to Hamburg to look at old boat logs from Germany. He says they’ve never been looked at before. That’s why it took until the  80′s to find Titanic’s ruins. But, a German boat that sailed shortly after Titanic apparently ran into debris and floating bodies. So the Germans knew where the boat was (around anyway) but never told because war broke out? Please explain. This documentary then recites the testimony of someone on that very German boat that clearly was published somewhere else a long time ago. Case not closed?

Anyway, this same Titanic investigator says the Titanic was very well built and very manoeverable for its size.

That contradicts James Cameron who supplied an interesting and daunting metaphor on a Titanic program aired just previous: that the Titanic is like modern man, powering along in one direction, but about to crash, (Global warming) because it is too big can’t turn fast enough, and no one is paying attention,or the wrong people are at the helm of the world, ie industrialists.

I guess the irony is icebergs play a  big part in this 2012 tragedy in the making.

Anyway, back to the Titanic Miniseries, I see that Julian Fellowes name isn’t on the IMDB entry for the series. Hmm.

Anyway, this Titanic miniseries shows why Cameron’s Titanic movie worked. It had a simple plot! I’ll still watch the other two episodes.

I found one of the miniseries’ subplots especially perplexing, a French mistress is snubbed by an upper class woman. I mean from what I’ve read of the era, the Upper Classes were all fooling around. It was what they did. Prudery was a middle class thing. Alas! (You just have to read the Nicholson Letters, upon which I based Threshold Girl.)

I noticed a while back that for the upcoming movie Gambit, Colin Firth isn’t listed as a star on IMDB.

Alan Rickman is. And yet in all the publicity around the shooting of Gambit, Colin Firth was showcased.

Speaking of Gambit, I watched Get Carter on Turner Classics last week. I recorded it thinking it was an In Like Flint movie, but it’s about a hood and pretty gritty, even for today. Not my kind of movie. But I stayed with it, as it is stylish and Michael Caine is terrific. He was very good looking, wasn’t he? Never really thought about it. I was 13 in 1968 and David McCallum was more my type

And then I watched a bit of Withnail and I,  liked it and saved it for Saturday (Titanic Night) with my husband – but my husband doesn’t get British comedy. That’s why we watched Titanic the miniseries, although my husband doesn’t get period pieces either.

I said “Wait a while and there’ll be some pretty naked people” just like your Throne of Kings. (I knew it wasn’t gonna happen, though.) He said “Game of Thrones, not Throne of Kings.”

Marion Nicholson of Threshold Girl in her big hat for 1912. I think she’s on the Charles in Boston. I will have to write about that trip in Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, as she went to visit Dr. Henry Watters with her sister Edith, August 1912. Relations were trying to fix her up with another man, Chester Coy, who later went to war and lost his mind. Henry Watters never married, although very well off and about as nice a man as you could find. Hmm. He is buried in Melbourne. He died in 1937, a decade before Marion.

A hat like that could sink a boat, and I wouldn’t be writing these books.

Spreading the News "Broadcast"

Yesterday, my husband came into the house and told me, “It’s Williams.” He was referring to our neighbours. We’ve lived in this suburban development for 10 years but never learned the last name of our next door neighbours.

As it happens, I am in the midst of editing the 1911/12 Nicholson letters. I haven’t cut them down much. Mostly I’ve added background and clarification.

I expect my editor to get back to me and say that I left in too much gossip.

But I did it on purpose: I wanted to show what life was like in a town back then. How you had no privacy. Or, as Edith Nicholson put it in a 1908 letter, how “Everything is spread broadcast in a few hours.” (Actually, she was referring to Radnor Forges, an even smaller place than Richmond.)

I think this is important, because I hope these letters will be used (continue to be used) by high school teachers, and modern teens are apt to recognize or at least sense something familiar in these letters.

After all, they use Facebook.

There was been a lot of controversy over Facebook Privacy. Those who aren’t that concerned say that all Facebook is doing is returning us to an earlier time, when people lived in towns, and when everyone knew everyone else’s business.

I think it would be a terrific exercise to compare my 1911/12 letters to Facebook (when I’ve finished editing and annotating them.)

I already can see how the Nicholson Family Letters both prove and disprove this idea.

Yes, everyone knew your business but, in 1910, you sacrificed privacy for security. There was a kind of trade-off.

Mrs. Montgomery was a nosy and sometimes interfering neighbour, but she was always there with the chicken soup when Margaret was sick!

Anyway, privacy was considered an issue in 1911 with respect to the Census. I think they only released these documents to the public after 91 years.

The Census is online now and I’ve been checking it out. Firstly, I looked up McCoys and Watters and they spelled Watters WATERS and mixed up Isabel and Marie McCoy. On top of that, Margaret Nicholson lied about her age!

There must be tonnes of lies and mistakes on the Census. In the McCoy’s case, it looks like the Census person is French, so perhaps he didn’t understand. (“He” because I seriously doubt women were employed as Census takers; Norman Nicholson worked for the 1901 Census.)

I made a mistake,myself, reading the Census. On an earlier blog I said that the McCoys employed a live in-couple to do housework. Wrong. These were neighbours.

But many families on their street had maids. Just on this same Census page I found 4 maids: one West-Indian, one from France, one Swedish and one from England, all girls between 16 and 21.

I searched further up and down and street and noticed some ‘servants’ were as young as 12 and 14, and others in their 30′s and 40′s.

(It just occurred to me: a ‘servant’ is called ‘a maid’ probably, because it was usually a young, unmarried woman.)

I know these Hutchison flats were big, because Marion remarks upon it in a letter. But if the family was large, with lots of kids, they either had no maids (letting the kids do the housework) or they had live-out help. Or so it seems.

All very interesting.

I think I will pitch this story to someone.

Nicholson Family Saga: Letter 3: Visitors, Visitors

Magical Mystery Tours. Marion, seated in front in neighbour’s car. Possibly the Skinner’s, but maybe the Montgomery’s, They lived on the other side of Tighsolas.

Margaret to Norman

June 10, 1911

Dear Norman,

Your letter to Edith received Friday morning. As she was not here I opened it.

She had left an hour before with Dr. and Mrs. Skinner for an auto ride to Montreal left here 10 am arrived in Waterloo at 12.30 had dinner left at 2 o’clock arrived safely without any stop. In Montreal at six pm.

They said when leaving that they would be home Tuesday; she said they had a delightful ride. She was staying with Marion.

I had a letter from Herb Friday night. He is very well. Said the last letters went to Qu’appelle (Saskatchewan). They were diverted by some mistake and he was longer in getting them. (An excuse for not writing sooner?) He said the manager was going to have his holidays and that he was to be Manager for two weeks. Says he does not like the town one bit and if he does not get transferred will leave. I hope he will stay and get a transfer before long. I hope you will write him to stay until he is sure of something better. I am going to.

Just when Flora and I were preparing for the Ladies Aid meeting 16 women, Aunt Christie (Watters) and Malcolm arrived from Lingwick. Aunt C. was away two weeks. M. went up to meet her stayed one week. (That was his first trip to Lingwick. I don’t think he was much taken with the place there are not many young people there. Of their friends.)

They did not send any word that they were coming. Uncle Alex (Watters)came down about 5 o’clock to meet Christie and take her home.

Mrs. Nielson (Norman’s sister) went up to Bella’s And Clayton and Bella took her out in the auto. She stayed with me for 3 days.

So Flora and I are having a quiet time. It will be a rest for her as her exams begin tomorrow morning; she is very well.

I was quite tired after all this but feel quite rested now as we were alone last night. We did not get up until quarter to nine and we both went to Sunday school.

Morse cut the lawn once, took him three evenings, clipped it one eve, he does it well. But said he would not promise to do it regularly.

We put our plants out and beans in. Taylor said he would put the tomatoes in Tuesday. Says his own were not in Friday when I spoke to him. He is so slow.

I will enclose you a clipping from the paper about Dr. Moffatt’s loss. Mrs. Montgomery was telling me that they had offered him 50 cents on the dollar, that is a loss of 4,000, he was in Sherbrooke Friday. I supposed he made it on stocks so he need not feel it so much. Mrs. Moffatt was working at the sale but did not mention it to me. Only she was rather short in the temper. They have sold all their horses.

Uncle Alex had a great many questions to ask (about you.) He knows more about that part of the country than I could tell him. Had to come up to the office (home office!) to look at the map, of course. Cochrane was not on it. We found Lake Abbott, a mining town he said it was.

Is that place in the woods from Cochrane?

I was trying to tell him it was quite civilized around there.

I hope you will like the crew. Too bad you have to walk so much.

I will tell Alex all the good points, he always wants to know your business before you know it yourself. He is jealous if anyone is doing well.

Dan and Grandma are well. (Maragaret’s brother and mother.)

I did not get the Herald last night, hope you got it. Let me know if you feel any of the indigestion.

With Much Love,

Your Loving Wife
Margaret.

Visitors, visitors. They could be welcome and unwelcome in 1911, but you still harboured them, because in turn they harboured you. Alas, with no maids, visitors were a lot of work.

Dr. Moffatt was the Nicholson’s GP and he also was related to them by marriage. He was a victim of an Eastern Townships stock market swindle, the Nicholsons cut out a newspaper clipping.

He soon moved to BC and wrote many letters to Norman during the First World War (he felt young British men were signing up merely to get a free ride home) and even one during the 1918 flu epidemic where he described himself as “dead on his feet.”

Linguick was nearby farm country, (the Malcolm in the letter above walked from Linguick to Richmond) and where the Isle of Lewis Scots of Quebec landed in the mid 1800′s. Norman’s people were from there (The Gore) although these Watters’ now live in Kingsbury, where Margaret’s people, the McLeod’s landed in 1838, with nothing but the clothes on their back. These people were poor crofters (tenant farmers) cleared from the land to make way for sheep. Margaret’s people, from what I have read, had to be thrown on the boats at Uig Carnish to come to Canada, they were so reluctant to leave their barren but beautiful homeland.

These were Gaelic speakers. Margaret’s mother spoke only Gaelic and Margaret was bilingual, but clearly not ‘trilingual’.

Both Flodden and Kingsbury are marked are on Google Maps despite the fact they hardly exist as destinations being just crossroads, houses and fields.

The Nicholson Family Saga: Letter 5: Fire!

June 21, 1911

Tighsolas
Richmond Quebec

Dear Father,

Just a few lines to give you a little of the news. The station was burned to the ground this afternoon ! It started about half past four. Flora went down to see it with Paul. And at six Dr. Skinner took Mrs. S, Mother,Flora and myself down in the car. All that is left are the tall chimneys so I guess we shall have a new station at last.

I have been up for breakfast and every morning since I came home. That is quite a record, don’t you think. Monday we had a large washing, got up early and had it all finished and out at a quarter to eleven. And finished the ironing today. We are still busy with the sewing.

Marion’s school (Royal Arthur in Little Burgundy) finishes today so she will be home soon. I saw by the paper last night that Isabel McCoy (teacher and family friend) was to be married July 12th.

I had a splendid trip home to Montreal with the Skinners. It was a beautiful day going out. I will name the places we passed through so you will know the country we passed through. Melbourne, Flodden, Racine, Sawyerville, Warden, Waterloo, Granby, Abbotsford, St Caesar, Rougemont, Marieville, Chambly, Longueil, St. Lambert, Pointe St Charles. In Montreal, we went shopping in the morning,to the theatre in the afternoon and to tea at Dr.Cleveland’s. Then Dr. Skinner took us for a ride, from 8 to 10 at night.It is beautiful riding on paved streets.

Don’t you think I was a very fortunate girl to have such a trip? Tomorrow the 22nd I am going to North Hatley with the Skinners. Will be back that evening. They are very kind to us.

Flora is feeling better since the exams are passed. (Results would be posted in the local paper later on.)

Yvonne Villard (daughter of Principal Paul Villard of Ecole Methodiste) is coming out next week for a few days. Miss Wilson’s barn is not yet finished, Walker is still working. They have the foundation very well along at the Montgomery’s.

Another Bryant preached last Sunday evening. He was through the General Assembly. I cannot think of any more news so will close. Hope you are well and that the fly season will soon pass.

We are all well. Write soon.

Flora got your letter With much love, Your affectionate Edith

….Richmond exists because of the Grant Trunk Railway, which in 1910 was still one of the two major employers in the town. Richmond was a railway hub, poised between Quebec City and Portland, Maine.

Norman Nicholson used the GTR to get his loads of hemlock bark to the tanning businesses in New England (mostly New Hampshire) and in Montreal, all by the Lachine Canal, near Marion’s Royal Arthur School. He left his reciept books behind showing that a great deal of money was flowing, at least in the 1880′s, through his bark business.

This is the year they get a big new station, which stills stands (vacant) today. Richmond was already in decline in 1910 (as the letters clearly reveal) but by the 1930′s the railroad had little business.

According to the 1911 census, Mademoiselle Villard lives with her parents at 1095 Greene, in Westmount, the same address Edith stays at during the school year.

It is likely the site of Ecole Methodiste. Today, 1095 Greene is a site of a more modern post war school.

Edith says she enjoys every minute of a 6 and 3/4 hour drive over 94 miles. But if you crunch the numbers, it is clear that the Skinner’s automobile went an average of 14 miles an hour to make that trip.(15 miles an hour was the speed limit in the country, 8 miles an hour in the city). If you consider that the E.T. is very hilly, the drive was probably more fun than the roller-coaster at Dominion Park, the amusement park opened in 1906, on Notre Dame on the eastern side of the island. Imagine how fast the car went down the hills!

The Nicholson Family Saga: Letter 1: A Toothpick and a Silver Bowl

Margaret Nicholson, Edith and Flora and Neighbour. Home alone.

North Bay, May 27, 1911

Dear Margaret,

You will see by heading of this letter where I am today.

This is a town of about 8 thousand situated at the end of Lake Tamiskaming. Flora can look it up for you on the map in the secretary.

I left Ottawa at 12 50 PM. Arrived here this morning at 9 am.

When leaving Ottawa last night they gave me a ticket over the CPR for here, also a berth ticket which I enjoyed very much. The porter made me a nice bed in one of the lower berths.

I got up this morning at 7 o’clock. Went into the diner and had breakfast which comprised 3 eggs, one baked potato, 3 rolls, and a glass of milk. And a toothpick served on a silver tray for my entree where I washed my fingers in a silver bowl.

All at the expense of the Transcontinental Ry.

On arriving here I went and saw the transport engineer and he sends me to Cochrane where the Tamiskamming and the Northern Ontario intersects–with the orders for my destination about 50 miles east of Cochran on Division D.

But I will be on the rails and I will be pleased not to have to walk. I leave here tomorrow at 5:20 am. Will stop at Cobalt for three hours then proceed to Cochrane. I am supposed to get to Cochrane at eight tomorrow morning.

I will try and write you from there, Now the distance from Ottawa here is 123 miles and from her to Cochran is 252 miles from Montreal to Ottawa is about 120 miles with 76 from Montreal will give you some idea of how far I am from home.

But I can cover the distance quicker then when I was in La Tuque, only it will be more expensive to go home when I do.

When I arrive at destination I will try and give you a better idea of where I am.

But so far they have treated me fine. I only saw Parent for a few minutes, he had arrived from Chicago and was busy in his office. He said he thought I would be suited with my change.

Will tell later. Hope you had a pleasant time in Montreal with Marion. I will send you address to write to as soon as I arrive. And will try and write you tomorrow from Cochrane.

I am taking things cool and intend to do so, do not worry about me.

I am feeling fine and the Commission is paying the bill as I go so I am not worrying about it in the least. I cannot think of any news so I will close for this time.

You will have quite a time to read this letter as I am writing in a hurry along with being a poor writer. Love to Edith and Flora also to yourself.

Your affectionate husband, Norman.

…In May 1911, Norman Nicholson, 60, former dealer in hemlock bark and leading citizen of Richmond, Quebec, leaves for a second stretch as Inspector on the Canadian Transcontinental Railway, a Laurier Government initiative.

He had been fired in May, 1910, from his first assignment working near La Tuque, Quebec, for going absent without leave.

At that time, Norman, a devoted family man, had been overcome with worry, mostly generated by his only son, Herbert, 26, who had just been caught ‘borrowing’ sixty dollars from of the Eastern Townships Bank where he was employed as a teller.

Norman had been working away in the Quebec bush, inspecting railway ties for 2 1/2 years. He was hired shortly after the the collapse of the Quebec Bridge, and that was likely no coincidence.

In early 1907, with his bank book balance at $33.00, Norman applied for work with the CTR.

In July 1907, despite having area Liberal M.P. E.W. Tobin as a patron, he was informed by a letter from the CTR’s head office that they had their full complement of inspectors.

Then, on August 19th, came the infamous bridge disaster that made headlines around the world. The bridge was “one of great engineering undertakings of the century” …”a topic of universal discussion” according to Technical World Magazine. Close to 100 men perished, most of them employees of the US contractor and Mohawk labourers from Caugnawaga, south of Montreal. (Kanewake).

The bridge was also a component of the Canadian Transcontinental Railway.

Suddenly, there was a need for inspectors at ‘end of steel.’