Monthly Archives: April 2026

Art, Family History

Is there an old master in your loft?

Have I found an old masterpiece in my loft?

Not quite, but just as exciting.

I decided to sort out my grandfather’s bureau which I’d been meaning to do since my father died in 1992 and I found this little box which Dad had meticulously labelled when going through the same process after his own father’s death in the early 70’s. It contained colour photo slides on glass. I held them to the light but couldn’t make out the subjects but they definitely weren’t holiday snaps. Was I to pack them back in the draw and leave them another 50 years and a new generation?

Curiosity got the better of me! I managed to get them printed.

Firstly — a harrowing picture of the crucifixion, clearly a large oil painting, unframed and leaning against a chair, by an artist I recognised. My grandfather, as a young man had been involved in representing and selling this man’s work before 1934 when he worked with his wife’s cousin David Croal Thomson, at the London gallery, Barbizon House. It was during the depression and eventually went bust. The artist was Sir Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956) who I have heard described as the Welsh National Artist. The actual painting survives and I have tracked it down today to Glasgow Life Museum, but not precisely enough for us to be able to visit it.

As a young man Brangwyn travelled widely, sponsored by a shipowner who allowed him to go on a freighter to Istanbul. Fascinated by the colour and diversity of the scenes he saw, he continued to paint around the world, visiting Zanzibar, South Africa, Egypt, Turkey and Morocco. This scene from another painting photographed by my grandfather, A.F. Buck, shows the pressing of maybe olives in North Africa.

Above is another harrowing religious scene; rather melodramatic, is this to do with Jesus healing, the chap with the crutch is in etchings I have seen of Lazarus. I don’t know where this one has ended up. Does anyone recognise it? The costume reminds me of someone.

Lastly, there are several shots of this mysterious and uncomfortable looking lady with her two children. I cannot work out who she is but I know that my Grandfather’s cousin by marriage, David Croal Thomson was quite keen on having his children painted by the famous artists of the era. I remember a particularly beautiful painting (long since sold) of Evelyn in a bluebell wood by Whistler, very “Pre-Raphaelite” with the family’s red hair! Could this be DCT’s wife and 2 of the children? Anyway she doesn’t look too happy about it, I’m sure her corset was killing her — I doubt she liked the image. Perhaps it was consigned to an attic somewhere!

I think they could be either gender, if you find them in your attic: the painting is by Sir Frank Brangwyn!

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food, Heartwarming, lifestyle

Proper Shops

We can’t all live in the country.

Life in town is eased by local heroes… Like Mark, this Kettering butcher.

That’s not Mark. Here he is (same pinny}:

He doesn’t display a mission statement, which is a relief, but if he did it would be about nourishing and innovating and educating — all of which he does and more, quietly in Hawthorn Road.

He’s corrected my pork crackling so that it crunches without risking our teeth. He’s taught me the secret of slow cooked beef ribs that melt in the mouth — add dental health to his mission! He saves the tails of fillet steak for our pensioner’s Beef Stroganoff! He has genuine Brixworth pate, smokes his own chicken breasts and has the best parmigiano reggiano in the eastern counties.

He provides employment and opportunity for a whole gang of skilled and experienced ladies to exercise their alchemy. To create pies and quiches and magical scotch eggs, cooked, ready (still warm, crisp on outside and moist and delicious on the inside) to collect on my way home from swimming.

There’s my reflection, drooling, clutching my rucksack of precious traditional Cumberland Scotch Eggs!

Literary Note:

Mark also, like any good butcher, swaps books and shares recipes and novels. Good taste across many arts. I’ve been reading Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano novels about crime and food, humble but ethereal, in Sicily — which brings me back to the just-cooked Scotch Egg! Italians don’t have a monopoly on ambrosia.

Here’s to family butchers the world over!

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Moths, Wales

Imperial Interference!

We were very excited to find this whopping moth sitting on an eggbox in our trap last week. It is an emperor moth Saturniidae pavonia and although not uncommon, it was very large and beautiful and the first we had ever encountered. The previous day had been unusually hot and sunny and must have encouraged her emergence.

Here she is in all her splendor about 7 cm across.

Stretching to reveal her hind wings, the females wings are all the same colour. The male, though smaller, has brighter orangey hind wings. But that was not the reason we knew she was an Empress… Look what she left behind.

A clutch of shiny Empress eggs and a dilemma — do we rush out and buy a large fish tank (that is what the family assumed we would do) or do we compromise with Mother Nature?

Here is what we did.

In a thicket of blackthorn that emperor caterpillars like to eat above a bramble bush where they will also happily roam, we pinned the eggs to a branch where we hope in 6 weeks, maybe later, if it’s cold, they can hatch.

Meanwhile here is an Estonian one by Ivar Leidus CC.BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia

They start off black and eventually are this bright green with bands of spots which become black and hairy (I think)… We will see… Maybe.

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