The Peter Udall Trio with guest Riley Stone-Lonergran on sax at the Cricklewood Library for our May Last Friday concert.
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The Postcard
A Cornish Riviera Series postcard that was published by E. A. Bragg of 1, Claremont Terrace, Falmouth. The image is a glossy real photograph.
The card was posted in Falmouth using a ½d. stamp on Monday the 20th. March 1911. It was sent to:
Miss V. Woodgate,
31, Ashley Down Road,
Horfield,
Bristol.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"My Dear V,
I am very glad to hear
that you are so much
better. Also that Dad
is improving.
We are having rather
a rough time of it here -
blowing a gale all the
time.
Kindest regards to
you all,
Yours sincerely,
I. P. C."
Corn Stooks
Note the stooks of corn in the foreground.
Stooks of corn sheaves were created by standing bound bundles of grain upright against each other in the field to dry, ripen, and harden for several days or weeks.
This traditional method allowed moisture to escape, protected the grain from ground dampness, and prepared it for later, efficient threshing to separate the grain from the straw.
The corn was cut using a scythe or a horse-drawn reaper-binder, which formed the stalks into bundles or sheaves.
Labourers would manually stand the sheaves up, usually in pairs, to create a stable, cone-shaped structure.
A stook was generally made of 8 to 10 sheaves (bound bundles) of wheat, oats, or barley, leaning against each other with the grain heads at the top.
The stooks were left in the field, often for at least 15 days, in order to ensure proper drying.
Once dried, the stooks were loaded onto wagons, transported to a stackyard, and built into large stacks or ricks for storage.
The dried sheaves were eventually fed into a threshing machine in order to separate the grain from the straw.
Stooking allowed for the use of long straw for thatching, which is often damaged by modern, direct-combining methods.
Carrick Roads
Carrick Roads (Cornish: Morlynn an Garrek, meaning Lagoon of the Rock) is the estuary of the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall. It joins the English Channel at its southern end near Falmouth.
It is a large flooded valley created after the ice age by the melt waters that caused a dramatic rise in sea level, resulting in a large natural harbour which is navigable from Falmouth to Truro.
The waters of the fiord-like Carrick Roads are steep-sided and deep, with depths of 12–14 m (39–46 ft) in many places, and can allow large ships to anchor safely midstream. It is a popular location for layup moorings for a wide variety of commercial vessels, during economic downturns, when changing owners, or when being mothballed near the end of their careers.
The Carrick Roads have large tidal flows; the water starts to recede six hours and five minutes before high water at Dover. Tidal speeds can reach three knots in the upper parts of the basin and one and a half to two in the lower stretches.
The journey from Truro to Falmouth is a Grade A route for kayakers.
The Carrick Roads can be seen well from the Trelissick Peninsula. From this viewpoint the waters stretch away towards Falmouth. On the left is Camerance Point, a tree-clad promontory.
The Feock Peninsula is on the right, and beyond that is the creek leading to Mylor village, with the Fal Estuary in the distance behind.
Nearby lie the gardens of Trelissick House with their oaks, pines, beeches, rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias.
The Roads are crossed by the historic and scenic King Harry Ferry, a vehicular chain ferry that links the parishes of Feock and Philleigh.
Pyotr Stolypin
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, on the 20th. March 1911, Pyotr Stolypin resigned as Prime Minister of Russia.
However at the end of the week, he was persuaded by Tsar Nicholas II to return in view of deteriorating relations with China, and problems with his proposed successor, Vladimir Kokovtsov.
The Winter Garden Theatre
Also on that day, the Winter Garden Theatre opened on Broadway in NYC.
Its first production was a double bill, Bow Sing followed by La Belle Paree, which was also Al Jolson's Broadway debut.