Fox

Well done Mike! and I'm glad the picture collection has been useful to someone. I can see this being an ongoing thread. Over here were all going all out for the Trafalgar celebrations (even if the French have complained that it's not PC), and the biggest event of the whole year, the International Festival of the Sea is only about 3 weeks away now. The trouble is that I'm the only person in the group who's ever done Nelsonian living history before. So, in the last couple of months I've: 1. Made a complete "undress" captain's uniform for my father 2. Made a complete master's mate's uniform for me 3. Made new trousers to go with my lieutenant's uniform 4. Made 3 complete sailor's outfits (coats, waistcoats, trousers, and painted top hats), and 3 spare coats 5. Been to no less that 4 meetings at Portsmouth dockyard 6. Done minor moderations to make my skiff authentic for 1805. 7. Embroidered and made a sword knot 8. Researched and printed the words and music to 20 Trafalgar era sea-songs. 9. Portrayed one quarter of a crowd and Nelson's flag lieutenant in a TV documentary. 10. Made a complete lady's outfit (dress, jacket, hat) I am also in the middle of: 11. Making a 4th sailor's outfit 12. Making a second complete lady's outfit 13. Making a midshipman's uniform coat and waistcoat 14. Fitting a bracket to the stern of my skiff to take a flag so we can row Nelson round to inspect his ships in the dockyard by water. 15. Having a nervous breakdown. By the time it's all finished I estimate I will have used up 25 metres of navy blue wool, 10 metres of white duck, 6 metres of assorted linen, 5 metres of assorted wool, about 60 metres of lining fabric, 4 complete reels of thread, 5 skeins of embroidery thread, 198 buttons (aaarrgh, I have nightmares about button holes!), 300 pints of coffee. And this is my HOBBY?!?! Mike, do you think we could start some sort of country retreat for people like us to go and recover?

Obscure quote from a well known film... Man With the Golden Gun

Can't believe I missed this thread! What progress have you made since the last update DP? Here's me own vessel, a replica of a 17th century 20ft ship's skiff, launched a few weeks back after a year in the building. Now to finish them canoes and start on the 29ft longboat Good luck with yourn DP!

Thorn, I'm guessing he can't and that's why his tankard is on the table... Pynch, he normally plays either a boatswain or a seaman, but he wanted a smart outfit for the evenings at a couple of events so we're kitting him out as Sir Sidney Smith - he was an interesting character! I got the idea for dressing him as a Greenwich pensioner when I saw a guy dressed as a Chelsea pensioner (the army equivalent) at an event earlier this year. The Chelsea pensioner was about 80 though and me old man thought it was a bit of an insult to dress him as one too.

Singing in the Rain "Animals are fine, but their acceptability is limited. A small child is even better, but not nearly as effective as the right kind of adult."

Hi, I'm in the middle of making a RN middie's (circa 1805) coat for a friend, and I'm about to embark on a USN lieutenant's coat (1802-14 pattern) for me, and I'm having the devil of a job finding the correct buttons. So, can any of you chaps point me towards a supplier of replica buttons for both or either of these projects. For the middie's coat I need small flat buttons in gold or brass with a fouled anchor motif but no border, for the USN lieutenant's coat the buttons should also be brass or gold, and flat with a fouled anchor with an eagle over the top, the whole ringed by 15(?) stars. Anyone?

Funny you should say that Pynch, I've been trying to persuade my dad to let me make him a Greenwich Pensioner's uniform for some 1805 events we're doing this year, but he made me make him a Captain's uniform instead. I though that was far less interesting...

Ooops, sorry bout that then. You REALLY need to see the Parole Officer, it's one of the funniest films of the last ten years, and for good Brit humour it knocks the pants off Four Weddings or Love Actually. Jill, I think you're right, it's Amelie (knew I'd heard it not too long ago...)

Oooh, dammit, I know that one, I've seen it recently... damme if I can think what film it was though! Fight Club? No, that's not it.

Well, this seems to be going nowhere so I'll give it to you, it was from The Parole Officer. I'll hand over to Mission I think since he's graced us with such a nice nickel...

A good place to start might be "Playford's Dancing Master" (subtitled "plain and easie Rules for the Dancing of Country Dances, with the Tune to each Dance, to be play'd on the Treble Violin") which is a collection of tunes published in the mid 17th century. An online copy with facsimiles of the original stave music can be found here There are of course loads of other tunes which would be authentic but hopefully Playford will give you a good start. If you want tunes with words then I can recommend no better starting place than The Contemplator which has words, midi files, and the history of a large number of tunes. It also has a page dedicated to songs of the sea.

It's certainly the nicest nickel I've seen today. At least we know you don't cheat by googling Mission

While looking for something else today I can across this and could hardly believe it. It's a caricature of a Greenwich Pensioner (an inmate of the Greenwich Hospital for wounded seamen) drawn by George Cruikshank in 1827.

It is spelled absolutely correctly, I was hoping the appalling grammar and general nonsensicalness of the quote would make up for the shortness in terms of identifying the film...to anyone who's seen it of course... FWIW, neither of those guesses is correct.

Yar, twas Sweet Liberty, I love it because it's a film about the frustrations of one man who strives to bring some integrity into historical entertainment, and I know only too well some of his frustrations. It's like Alan Alda wrote a film about my life, when I was about 10... Is yours Groucho Marx in Animal Crackers? If it was then here's another quote, if it wasn't then...you know the drill... "Look! It's get Kirsty in!"

Nope and nope, oh dear, I seem to have gone too obscure... It's one of my favourite films (anyone who has seen it and knows anything about me will understand why). Wanna clue? The line is spoken by Alan Alda

My quote was at the bottom of my post, though I can see how it might have been mistaken for a signature. No, it's not from Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Mission's is from House of Flying Daggers so I'll try mine again please "They have a rule here. The writer's not supposed to have anything to do with words."

Except that PEW isn't correct. The quote about pigs doesn't come from "Hannibal", it's from "Snatch". Misson's quote is from National Lampoon's Animal House. Have I ruined the game or won it? "They have a rule here. The writer's not supposed to have anything to do with words."

It's a good series! If anyone caught the Armada episode I was the priest, a gunner, a musketeer, an English seaman, a Spanish seaman, and a Spanish soldier... The book is available from Amazon.co.uk (I'm on p101...)

There's no real significance to the Cartagenan flag. I noticed that lots of people put flags in their signature so I figured I'd put in an obscure one and see how long it took for someone to comment - reckon I'll have to change it now. (for posterity) Cire, if you ever fancy coming along to any of our events you'd be very welcome. You've got my email address I believe - if you haven't then you can contact me via my profile, or our webpage.

OK, back in the 60 my grandmother was a teacher (until the 80s actually, but our story begins in the 60s), and one of her subjects was drama. She staged and directed the school plays at more than one school for more than two decades and over that time collected an enormous amount of costume, much of it antique. Among this costume is this coat which I am now trying to give a decent identification to. I believe it to date to the late 18th or early 19th century, but I'm hoping that someone else might notice some detail I have missed or misinterpreted. The entire coat is handsewn, so it's not a later am-dram copy, and the buttons and braid appear to be an integral part of the coat, ie not added on later. Officially the crown was not added over the anchor on RN buttons until 1812, so this may help date the coat, but on the other hand there was a certain amount of personal leeway with officers' uniforms so this may not be entirely reliable. The pattern of the coat does suggest an earlier rather than later date. The presence of fittings for two epaulettes rule out the possiblity of it being less than a Post-Captain's coat, and one of more than 3 years standing at that. What is somewhat confusing is the arrangement of the gold braid. The marks left on the coat show that although a couple of small pieces have broken off and been lost none has been deliberately removed, and none seems to have been added. From the front the coat looks like a Rear Admiral's coat of the early 19th century, but the very modest amount of braid on the pocket flaps lead me to doubt this. On the other hand, there is far too much braid for a Captain's undress coat, so unless it is an unrecorded and unofficial Commodore's coat I don't see what else it can be except a Rear-Admiral's coat with minimal braid on the pocket flaps. So, any thoughts anyone?

Now in a way Hawkyns you've admirably illustrated both sides of the argument (and I acknowledge that the argument goes far beyond stays). There is a world of difference between the standards of dress for upper- and even "respectable" working-class people and those in the gutter, but on the other hand it is that difference which illustrates who we portray. For any re-enactor (or indeed anyone) to tell your wife that she is incorrectly dressed for not wearing stays as a bottom-of-the-heap doxie is nearly as ludicrous as someone disregarding Hogarth as a good source. BUT on the other hand, for someone to say "I'm a working class tradeswoman, so I don't need to wear stays" is just as daft. A poor re-enactor might say either "all women should wear stays", or alternatively "women don't have to wears stays if they don't want to unless they're playing gentry". A good re-enactor will say "what kind of women wore stays and what kind didn't?". The stays/corset argument rages this side of the pond too, though perhaps not as fiercely, and sitting here writing this I wonder why it should be so. I mean, it's just like those other things in re-enactment that some people should do/wear and some people shouldn't, depending on their roles: heeled shoes, long boots, buff-coats, feathered hats, men's jackets, underskirts, sashes, cotton v. linen, expensive dye colours, and... hang on a minute...how many times have I debated those issues too? Why do re-enactors have such difficulty looking at period sources and making reasonable deductions therefrom? Why do people with their own pre-conceived ideas refuse to accept new interpretations or new evidence except in the light of their own "knowledge"? And why do I get the feeling that sometime soon JT is going to turn up and tell us it was all ok 20 years ago so why change? Oh and FWIW, over here we take a different view of the founding fathers of America, but let's not get into that - you outnumber me In 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock. Oh, that Plymouth Rock had landed on them.

HEADS UP! Foxe's Oar coming in! One of my real pet peeves is the cluster of statements that surround the wearing of corsets/stays. Strictly speaking RumbaRue is right, it's not essential for a working class woman to be wearing stays, but really the vast majority of them did. In the 18th century people tended to conform to norms much more than we do today, and stays quite definitely made up one of the norms of female underwear, from beggars to queens. FWIW, I object equally strongly to the statement that ALL women must wear stays. I was therefore delighted to find the following article on the MaraRiley page GoF quoted.

What ho, recently there has been a number of people mentioning that they're looking for crews and events in the UK I thought I'd try to put together a definitive list of UK maritime groups on the web. To avoid any accusations of favouritism I'll do them alphabetically. THE BLUEJACKETS: The Bluejackets depict members of the Royal Navy of the Victorian period 1879-91. A good authentic group. BONAVENTURE: Bonaventure are based in the South of England (from London to Devon) and specialise in high quality, authentic portrayal of seamen of privateers and the Royal Navy (occasionally pirates or smugglers) from the Elizabethan, late Stuart (1680-1714) and now Nelsonian periods. They have a good working relationship with the Golden Hind at Brixham and are the only UK post-dark age group to own and operate their own boat (see photo). Bonaventure are also the host group of the annual South West Pirate Festival. BONNY'S BUCCANEERS: I haven't worked with Bonny's Bauccaneers personally so I can't tell you much more than is on their website. A fun looking bunch (loosely) portraying Jack Rackham's (or Anne Bonny's) crew. COLCHESTER HISTORICAL ENACTMENT SOCIETY (CHES): CHES are an Essex based group whose activities include Anglo-Saxon, 18th century and Nelsonian maritime living history. CHES are dedicated to authenticity as much as having fun, and their displays are thoroughly researched and accurately presented. Although nominally based in and around Colchester CHES do events all over the country and often do joint events with Bonaventure. As well as portraying pirates CHES also portray smugglers and Royal Navy. De WARENNE: De Warenne are a fantastic bunch of black-powder loonies based in Sussex who have only this year taken to the seas as pirates and the notorious Hawkhurst gang of smugglers of the mid-18th century. De Warenne also take part in events as Normans of the conquest, medieval soldiers and 16th century Spanish mercenaries. HISTORICAL MARITIME SOCIETY (HMS): HMS are one of the oldest UK maritime re-enactment groups, and are certainly one of the best. Specialising in Nelson's Navy and the Royal Marines of the same period their dedication to historical accuracy and integrity is second to none, and they are justly known for it. HMS were the first group to recreate naval gunnery below decks, and also operate the largest bore carronade in Europe (so I'm told). Many of their members are in the north of the country, but they perform at events from Falmouth to Dundee. PIRATICAL UNION OF BUCCANEERS, CORSAIRS and ASSOCIATED TRADES (P.U.B.C.A.T): PUBCAT are based in Scotland but attend events in England (including the Whitehaven Maritime Festival) as late 17th century buccaneers. SENIOR SERVICE: Senior Service are the naval arm of the mid 18th century society "Lace Wars", though they also portray later RN seamen up to the time of Nelson. Their main website (http://www.seniorservice.co.uk) seems to be down at present so I've linked to an old site of theirs which really doesn't do them justice. For those interested in pirate re-enactment in the UK there is also a Yahoo group open to anyone. There are also several groups re-enacting various aspects of our maritime past or playing as Hollywood pirates who have no web presence, I've only included those groups with websites but I can put people in touch with most groups if required.

I don't know exact timing for the event, here's what Morwellham's website has to say about it: