DOI Heft:
No. 29 (August, 1895)
DOI Artikel:Richards, Frank: Newyln as a sketching ground
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17294#0199
Newlyn as a Sketching Ground
following in the wake of a funeral, yet when on the
cricket field I think there is little trace of such a
melancholy spirit in us. Because we work so hard
in the week and rest on Sundays, and are all
teetotalers and go to bed at 10 p.m. occasionally,
they dub us a band of wry-necked mourners; but
our work is our sorrow.
The little thoroughfare, " Rue des Beaux Arts,"
is the most important street in Newlyn as far as the
location of studios is concerned ; the new studios
with glass houses are in a small plot of land
opposite, and all look out upon the bay.
Bramley's old studio, in which was painted his
Hopeless Dawn and Saved among many other
important works, is the most strangely situated.
It is an edifice of two flats, each being com-
posed of one room only. Bramley is his own
landlord. The ground-floor is his studio, and the
" eventide "
room below earth is a school for weanlings, also a
potato and turnip shop governed and kept by a
big, strong woman with an elephantine voice; and, I
believe, as good a creature as ever lived—always
cheery and in a good-humour, though she is
minus both her arms, which were lost in a railway
accident, I understand. She is one Mrs. Barrett by
name, a woman whose physique is decidedly on
the big side, a vendor of potatoes, of cabbages
and turnips, which she has to manipulate with
her teeth in the absence of her arms ; her pupils
are simple, rough, and very much, unschooled,
varying in ages from six months to two years, fat
and sleek, seated around on forms in the very
cheerless room with its dirty stone floor, like a
circular row of young tomtits in a huge nest, with
never a vestige of a pin, feather, or even fluff on
their little helpless weighty noddles—some asleep,
others sucking windy bottles and a score of im-
promptu comforters—squeaking, chattering, squab-
bling and squalling—the place is for all the world
like a huge rough-hewn earth" nest of a monster
bird!
180
Bravo Bramley! A man who can not only
endure the daily hubbub beneath him with never
a flinch, as I have known him to do from long
experience, but can work well under the circum-
stances (or rather above them), is much to be
praised. He is very good to the old woman, and
she lives there rent free. I believe she gets a few
coppers per week from the fathers and mothers
of the fledglings under her care, for keeping a
guardian's eye over them whilst they are working
in the fields and at sea.
To hear the remarks of correction from the old
woman with her ever-bandaged face (suffering,
perhaps, from perpetual face-ache—anyhow for five
years I have always seen her so), uttered to her
tender charges, is very amusing, and sometimes
not a little shocking ; her language is generally
more forcible than polite, but good-humoured, for
a kinder-hearted creature
never lived. Far above
the sad, unkindled intellects
of the dribbling infants
whose only awakened sense
is hunger, her arguments are
thundered forth ; many a
time in the studio above,
when Bramley has been
peacefully at work, have I
heard the serene silence
by frank richards broken into by a big roar, as
of some volcanic eruption,
rom an angry throat beneath; saying, " 'old
yer row, yer griert bulldog," and "you ruffian,
stop that row or I'll thump yer 'ed," with
full emphasis on the " I'll." Such-like ponderous
expressions bellowed forth at regular intervals,
with a voice causing every timber in the tottering
cottage to heave a sigh; while from the little band
of tomato-coloured-and-shaped fledglings will be
heard a sort of half-suffocated chuckle ; then they
will nestle together again and peace will reign
supreme. There are few of us who have not heard
the noise made by young starlings, sparrows, &c,
when the parent bird approaches, worm in mouth,
feeds them, and flies off again ; the noise made by
the infant band is very like it. This baby-farm
is quite one of the sights of Newlyn, and well
worth a visit. When the young fledglings require
chastisement, she uses a flapper, or the empty
sleeve, with which she shows great dexterity, in
case of need. Of course the power she possesses
with her volcanic voice generally suffices to quiet
the little offenders when they are squabbling
over a suck-nob.
following in the wake of a funeral, yet when on the
cricket field I think there is little trace of such a
melancholy spirit in us. Because we work so hard
in the week and rest on Sundays, and are all
teetotalers and go to bed at 10 p.m. occasionally,
they dub us a band of wry-necked mourners; but
our work is our sorrow.
The little thoroughfare, " Rue des Beaux Arts,"
is the most important street in Newlyn as far as the
location of studios is concerned ; the new studios
with glass houses are in a small plot of land
opposite, and all look out upon the bay.
Bramley's old studio, in which was painted his
Hopeless Dawn and Saved among many other
important works, is the most strangely situated.
It is an edifice of two flats, each being com-
posed of one room only. Bramley is his own
landlord. The ground-floor is his studio, and the
" eventide "
room below earth is a school for weanlings, also a
potato and turnip shop governed and kept by a
big, strong woman with an elephantine voice; and, I
believe, as good a creature as ever lived—always
cheery and in a good-humour, though she is
minus both her arms, which were lost in a railway
accident, I understand. She is one Mrs. Barrett by
name, a woman whose physique is decidedly on
the big side, a vendor of potatoes, of cabbages
and turnips, which she has to manipulate with
her teeth in the absence of her arms ; her pupils
are simple, rough, and very much, unschooled,
varying in ages from six months to two years, fat
and sleek, seated around on forms in the very
cheerless room with its dirty stone floor, like a
circular row of young tomtits in a huge nest, with
never a vestige of a pin, feather, or even fluff on
their little helpless weighty noddles—some asleep,
others sucking windy bottles and a score of im-
promptu comforters—squeaking, chattering, squab-
bling and squalling—the place is for all the world
like a huge rough-hewn earth" nest of a monster
bird!
180
Bravo Bramley! A man who can not only
endure the daily hubbub beneath him with never
a flinch, as I have known him to do from long
experience, but can work well under the circum-
stances (or rather above them), is much to be
praised. He is very good to the old woman, and
she lives there rent free. I believe she gets a few
coppers per week from the fathers and mothers
of the fledglings under her care, for keeping a
guardian's eye over them whilst they are working
in the fields and at sea.
To hear the remarks of correction from the old
woman with her ever-bandaged face (suffering,
perhaps, from perpetual face-ache—anyhow for five
years I have always seen her so), uttered to her
tender charges, is very amusing, and sometimes
not a little shocking ; her language is generally
more forcible than polite, but good-humoured, for
a kinder-hearted creature
never lived. Far above
the sad, unkindled intellects
of the dribbling infants
whose only awakened sense
is hunger, her arguments are
thundered forth ; many a
time in the studio above,
when Bramley has been
peacefully at work, have I
heard the serene silence
by frank richards broken into by a big roar, as
of some volcanic eruption,
rom an angry throat beneath; saying, " 'old
yer row, yer griert bulldog," and "you ruffian,
stop that row or I'll thump yer 'ed," with
full emphasis on the " I'll." Such-like ponderous
expressions bellowed forth at regular intervals,
with a voice causing every timber in the tottering
cottage to heave a sigh; while from the little band
of tomato-coloured-and-shaped fledglings will be
heard a sort of half-suffocated chuckle ; then they
will nestle together again and peace will reign
supreme. There are few of us who have not heard
the noise made by young starlings, sparrows, &c,
when the parent bird approaches, worm in mouth,
feeds them, and flies off again ; the noise made by
the infant band is very like it. This baby-farm
is quite one of the sights of Newlyn, and well
worth a visit. When the young fledglings require
chastisement, she uses a flapper, or the empty
sleeve, with which she shows great dexterity, in
case of need. Of course the power she possesses
with her volcanic voice generally suffices to quiet
the little offenders when they are squabbling
over a suck-nob.