Perhaps as far back as 35 years ago when I was at primary school and into my early teens it was customary to make then sell wisps.
What I hear you ask yourself? Well wisps were simply a handful of straw around 6 - 8 inches long - both ends were bent over and tied with a piece of straw of string - that was it.
We - that's my brothers and a few friends, would get a bale of straw, we kept horses so straw was readily available and spent 30th and 31st December making the wisps. We then walked around the local neighbourhood, selling the wisps door to door on old years night - no set price just a donation to our sweets fund!
Wisps were said to bring good luck to your household so there were plenty of superstitious folk willing to part with a few schillings to ward off evil spells or curses.
Now, I am not sure of the correct history of this custom, perhaps I will look a little deeper and try to find out - but bringing good luck was certainly why we Anderson's kept a wisp behind a picture or painting at home.
On a similar theme, last year I invited 2 x retired school teachers to Loughries summer school to show the children through a craft workshop how to make corn dollies - its an old countryside tradition and proved very successful with the children - I will try to look out a couple of pictures to show what I mean by the corn dollies or follow this link -
http://www.strawcraftsmen.co.uk/project04.php
HMA
Friday 31 December 2010
Thursday 30 December 2010
SHENANDOAH - An old sea chanty.
Over the Christmas Holiday’s, when the children and Mrs. A had gone to bed, I watch a movie called The Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd is a slow moving, smoldering spy film, based around the CIA 1940’s to early 1960’s an excellent film. During the film there is a scene where a choir sings Shenandoah – a very moving American tune, which I play on my low D whistle.
On the Blog Nelsons View http://theministerspen.blogspot.com/2010/12/shenandoah.html
HMA
The Good Shepherd is a slow moving, smoldering spy film, based around the CIA 1940’s to early 1960’s an excellent film. During the film there is a scene where a choir sings Shenandoah – a very moving American tune, which I play on my low D whistle.
On the Blog Nelsons View http://theministerspen.blogspot.com/2010/12/shenandoah.html
Nelson mentions the tune and the film of the same name – here is a version of the tune, music is all around us!
HMA
Lookin in!
Thanks to the new 'blogger recognition tab' I have been able to see who has been viewing my blog in recent months, yes I have been surprised, but pleased that I have a regular audience.
Not been bloggin too much recently, however with new projects and opportunities on the horizon in 2011, I intend to increase my bloggin to promote, enhance and develop my self employed status as a fife and lambeg drum tutor.
Loughries Historical Society have a number of projects planned in 2011 - so regular updates there also.
Keep lookin in I appreciate your e-mails, telephone calls and comments.
HMA
Not been bloggin too much recently, however with new projects and opportunities on the horizon in 2011, I intend to increase my bloggin to promote, enhance and develop my self employed status as a fife and lambeg drum tutor.
Loughries Historical Society have a number of projects planned in 2011 - so regular updates there also.
Keep lookin in I appreciate your e-mails, telephone calls and comments.
HMA
Friday 17 December 2010
A Christmas Carol
Just watched The Muppet Christmas Carol - fantastic!
If you get a chance settle down with the kids, light the fire and enjoy a festive treat.
If you get a chance settle down with the kids, light the fire and enjoy a festive treat.
HMA
Wednesday 15 December 2010
Movilla High School - 2
Tuesday evening I attended Movilla High School, Newtownards for their Christmas Carol Service. I was there with the tin whistle class - that I teach on a Friday mornings who were asked to perform. The students choose 5 pieces - Amazing Grace, Once In Royal David's City, Silent Night, Away In A Manger and We wish you a Merry Christmas.
They played very, very well and received a great cheer from fellow students, the gang were quite nervous but excited - but great for their personal development.
Following the service we had tea, coffee, mince pies and shortbread and great crack with a few old school chums of mine - we may look a little older and greyer but the memories remained clear.
HMA
They played very, very well and received a great cheer from fellow students, the gang were quite nervous but excited - but great for their personal development.
Following the service we had tea, coffee, mince pies and shortbread and great crack with a few old school chums of mine - we may look a little older and greyer but the memories remained clear.
HMA
Tuesday 14 December 2010
Time Team - Jamestown - America's birthplace
Jamestown - America's birthplace - A Time Team Special.
Over Christmas I have checked the T.V. schedules to plan some of my viewing, in between visiting and receiving visitors. One of the programs that caught my eye was on the Discovery Channel a Time Tram Special - Jamestown - America's Birthplace.
A very important piece in Ulster Scots History was the Forgotten Sir Thomas Smith Colony of the Ards + North Down in 1572, followed by the Hamilton + Montgomery Settlement of 1606. All this including the Jamestowne Settlement 1607, was part of the English Monarchy’s plans to expand their Empire and increase their wealth through Colonisation / Settlements!
Here is a piece about the program:-
Four hundred years ago, at the end of 1606, three ships set sail from what is now Virginia Quay in London. Five months later, on 14 May 1607, the 105 men on board the Discovery, Godspeed and Susan Constant arrived at the site on the east coast of America where they would establish the first permanent English settlement on that continent. They named it Jamestowne, after James I, who was king of England at the time.
Thirteen years before the Pilgrim Fathers set sail from Plymouth in the Mayflower, the Jamestown settlers were building a fort, church and houses on an island on the James River. They were to lose some of their number in clashes with native Indians and many more due to disease, largely caused by unhygienic water supplies. Twenty-five of them died in just four weeks and almost half of the original colonists were dead by the end of the settlement's first summer.
Persevere and Prosper. But those who survived persevered and eventually prospered. Despite various setbacks, by 1619 the colony was well enough established to set up the first representative assembly of settlers in what was to become the United States. The new crop of Virginian tobacco provided the basis for growing economic prosperity, and Jamestown became the capital of the expanding colony of Virginia.
In 1698, however, a fire devastated its government buildings and the Virginian capital was moved to Williamsburg. The original site of Jamestown, including its fort, church and other buildings, were abandoned and fell into decay. The modern town of Jamestown is located a couple of miles away.
For many years it was thought that nothing remained of the original settlement, and that the fort and other structures had been lost to the river. A tourist-oriented reconstruction of how the settlement might have looked was built, but little attention was paid to the archaeology of the site.
Jamestown Rediscovered. Some archaeologists, however, were convinced that they could locate remains of old Jamestown. Among them was Bill Kelso, who had nurtured a lifelong interest in finding the place where America was born.
In 1994 he got his chance, when the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities and the US National Parks Service, who jointly administer the site, set up an archaeological project to see what could be found out about old Jamestown. With the 400th anniversary of the settlement – and of America's birth – in mind, this long-running project has unearthed a huge amount of material. Not only were Bill Kelso and his colleagues able to locate the settlement, and demonstrate that it had not, after all, been submerged by the river, but they have turned up something like one million artifacts relating to the early settlers.
Stunning Finds. As Time Team discovered while filming this special, some of the finds have been stunning. For example, the waterlogged conditions at the foot of a large well have yielded some perfectly preserved finds from the early years of the settlement. Those discovered while Time Team was present include a young child's leather slipper, a halberd (a large axe blade and spike mounted on a long wooden shaft) and a hammer.
Unusually for an archaeological investigation, the extensive written records relating to the Jamestown settlers mean that it is possible to put names to the people who lived and died here – and in some cases even to link particular finds to particular individuals. Some of those links are purely speculative; others are based on solid evidence. In this program, Time Team helps to bring alive the personal stories behind the birthplace of America.
HMA
Over Christmas I have checked the T.V. schedules to plan some of my viewing, in between visiting and receiving visitors. One of the programs that caught my eye was on the Discovery Channel a Time Tram Special - Jamestown - America's Birthplace.
A very important piece in Ulster Scots History was the Forgotten Sir Thomas Smith Colony of the Ards + North Down in 1572, followed by the Hamilton + Montgomery Settlement of 1606. All this including the Jamestowne Settlement 1607, was part of the English Monarchy’s plans to expand their Empire and increase their wealth through Colonisation / Settlements!
Here is a piece about the program:-
Four hundred years ago, at the end of 1606, three ships set sail from what is now Virginia Quay in London. Five months later, on 14 May 1607, the 105 men on board the Discovery, Godspeed and Susan Constant arrived at the site on the east coast of America where they would establish the first permanent English settlement on that continent. They named it Jamestowne, after James I, who was king of England at the time.
Thirteen years before the Pilgrim Fathers set sail from Plymouth in the Mayflower, the Jamestown settlers were building a fort, church and houses on an island on the James River. They were to lose some of their number in clashes with native Indians and many more due to disease, largely caused by unhygienic water supplies. Twenty-five of them died in just four weeks and almost half of the original colonists were dead by the end of the settlement's first summer.
Persevere and Prosper. But those who survived persevered and eventually prospered. Despite various setbacks, by 1619 the colony was well enough established to set up the first representative assembly of settlers in what was to become the United States. The new crop of Virginian tobacco provided the basis for growing economic prosperity, and Jamestown became the capital of the expanding colony of Virginia.
In 1698, however, a fire devastated its government buildings and the Virginian capital was moved to Williamsburg. The original site of Jamestown, including its fort, church and other buildings, were abandoned and fell into decay. The modern town of Jamestown is located a couple of miles away.
For many years it was thought that nothing remained of the original settlement, and that the fort and other structures had been lost to the river. A tourist-oriented reconstruction of how the settlement might have looked was built, but little attention was paid to the archaeology of the site.
Jamestown Rediscovered. Some archaeologists, however, were convinced that they could locate remains of old Jamestown. Among them was Bill Kelso, who had nurtured a lifelong interest in finding the place where America was born.
In 1994 he got his chance, when the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities and the US National Parks Service, who jointly administer the site, set up an archaeological project to see what could be found out about old Jamestown. With the 400th anniversary of the settlement – and of America's birth – in mind, this long-running project has unearthed a huge amount of material. Not only were Bill Kelso and his colleagues able to locate the settlement, and demonstrate that it had not, after all, been submerged by the river, but they have turned up something like one million artifacts relating to the early settlers.
Stunning Finds. As Time Team discovered while filming this special, some of the finds have been stunning. For example, the waterlogged conditions at the foot of a large well have yielded some perfectly preserved finds from the early years of the settlement. Those discovered while Time Team was present include a young child's leather slipper, a halberd (a large axe blade and spike mounted on a long wooden shaft) and a hammer.
Unusually for an archaeological investigation, the extensive written records relating to the Jamestown settlers mean that it is possible to put names to the people who lived and died here – and in some cases even to link particular finds to particular individuals. Some of those links are purely speculative; others are based on solid evidence. In this program, Time Team helps to bring alive the personal stories behind the birthplace of America.
HMA
Thursday 9 December 2010
The Harvest Fair
On September 23 will you come along with me.......
Great to be Bloggin again!
HMA
Every year on the 23rd September at the square, Newtownards, The Harvest Fair comes to town! This fair has been a focal point for the community in N'Ards and Ards Peninsula for generations.
Over the coming weeks and months Mark Thompson - http://clydesburn.blogspot.com/ & myself - and later with the help of others, plans are in place for a project or two aimed at bringing the Harvest Fair to life.
I will not give too much away at this early stage, so I will keep you folk guessing but it is an exciting project!
Great to be Bloggin again!
HMA
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