Roy’s observations

Elizabethan aristocrat Lady Hoby

of Bisham Abbey, just across the river Thames from Marlow, was determined that her son William should have a good education, an education taught by herself with merciless determination. In a classroom in the Abbey tower, poor little William, having spilled ink all over his work, and failed to make the necessary progress, was severely beaten by his mother till his wounds bled, was tied to his chair, and told he would only be released when he produced good quality work.
At that moment Lady Hoby was summoned to attend Queen Elizabeth’s court, and hurried off to Windsor, forgetting all about William.

Several days later when she returned, William was no where to be seen. Lady Hoby had assumed that the servants would have released William. The servants thought William had accompanied her mother to Windsor. William was found dead in the tower classroom, still tied to the chair.

Lady Hoby’s ghost, with blood still on her hands, has been seen many times at the Abbey, searching for poor William.

My recent day time visit to Bisham Abbey was not propitious for seeing ghosts.

So using my daytime photos and the creative facilities of Photoshop, I have revealed above the ghost of Lady Hoby looking into the tower window hoping to see poor William.

Soon the wallflowers will add even more colour.  Meanwhile the red tulips are amazing.

The Cadman family is a very old one. They may be related to Rufus Cademan, a Norman master barrel maker, who came to England with William the Conqueror.

Whilst there are no definitive mediaeval family records, another possible link is with Caedmon the first English poet. It is thought that a Tudor relative was King Henry VIII’s executioner. At least he had regular employment.

Being at the top of one’s profession has been a recurring theme in the family. Euclid Cadman was Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University in the 16th century. His invention of the seven sided dice enabled him to amass a considerable fortune at the gaming table. This caused a great deal of envy and strife. One bankrupted player insisted on a duel. Euclid killed his opponent. In deep remorse he never gambled again. His ghost, rattling dice in its hands, can sometimes be heard late at night, walking the passages of Maudlin College.

The English Civil War saw two Cadman brothers on opposite sides. Lord Royston Cadman was a Royalist and his brother Sir Christopher was a Parliamentarian. Both commanded formidable numbers of soldiers. Matters came to a head near the tiny village of Soddit, with the opposing troops each side of the village. A bloody conflict seemed inevitable.

However, prior to commencing battle, the two Cadmans agreed to meet at the village inn. After several flagons of good ale, they agreed not to fight and dismissed all their troops, to the dismay of King Charles I and Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. Both brothers retired to their country estates and took no further part in the Civil War.

In the world of politics, Sir Anstruther Cadman was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Walpole Government, but managed to escape to France before the empty government coffers were discovered. It was there that he bought several great Bordeaux châteaux and devoted himself to wine. Sadly he died of sclerosis of the liver exacerbated by dissipation.

Sir Anstruther’s grandson Cnute Cadman restored the family’s fame and fortune through his invention of the ‘eye-pod’ - an indispensable device for concealing laudanum (tincture of opium) in hollow false eyes. The literati of the time frequently resorted to laudanum to enliven their parties and sharpen their creative wits. This association with literature bore fruit in the later writings of Magdalena Cadman, who wittily combined the roles of mistress to Prince Albert and the secret authoress of numerous novels that could only be printed privately in France where censorship did not exist. It was rumoured that Queen Victoria was not amused.

The French branch of the family, escaping from the Revolution, left Bordeaux, moved south and settled in Arles where they took up the medical profession. The late 19th century Dr Alphonse-Hercule Cadman was a minor painter in the Impressionist style and is credited with sowing Vincent van Gough’s ear back on.
Science and fashion have much to thank the Cadmans for. Dr. Marlowe Cadman, the noted Edwardian chemist, invented knicker elastic. His son Jock, a Olympic athlete, went on to invent the famous strap. Marlowe Cadman was also a music lover. Inspired by the contemporary popularity of petomania, he composed several works for the tuba and serpent. Sadly they no longer appear in concert programmes.

Professor Codean Cadman, who, until recently, held the City University’s Chair in Pain Relief, was acknowledged as the world expert on the therapeutic benefits of gin.

His son Buck passed up a career in medicine and put into practice his remarkable skills in the City as a Bonus Consultant. He has taken a lucrative and well deserved early retirement in an anonymous tax haven.

Buck’s cousin Roy could be described as a serious dilettante who might have felt at home in Renaissance Italy. However, such trifles as electricity, cars, computers, money, decent wine and a good health service have kept him firmly in the 21st century, where a little touch of impresarioism in the world of music (www.pianorecital.co.uk) and a dalliance with words and images elsewhere might one day even add a little lustre to this branch of the Cadman family.

© Roy Cadman 2009

As my adaption of Boticelli’s wonderful painting ‘The Birth of Venus’ shows, I have been enjoying myself with alternative compositions.  Why, for example, is there no companion painting ‘The Birth of Adonis’ - I have of course produced one with the help of PhotoShop.

Returning from a concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank, I took the London underground Bakerloo line from Waterloo station.  Sitting opposite me was the reincarnation of Boticelli’s Venus.  She had the same almost translucent beautiful complexion, the same limpid eyes, high brow, slender nose, sensuous lips, framed by unruly hair that merely needed a little more golden tone and more of it.  Oh - she was wearing jeans and a sweater, unlike Boticelli’s girl - unfortunately there is a dress code on the tube trains!

To my surprise and delight on a November 2008 viewing day at Bourne End Auction Rooms I discovered three lots of very old Burgundies. They were all premiere crus vineyards from the best villages. The earliest being the 1964 vintage. The best lot contained four different Burgundies. To bid in the next day’s auction was a serious risk - the auctioneers knew nothing about the wines - had they been kept properly, were they good years, was there any chance they would have survived, let alone improved over the years?

However, as Chairman of the Marlow Wine Society, I could not let this very rare opportunity pass. At the auction next day the hammer fell on my, or to be accurate, the Society’s bid. Subsequent research revealed that they were all from outstanding vintages.

I decided that the wines could be the centre of a comparative tasting of “very mature” and “ready to drink and at their best now” premiere crus Burgundies. Add in a couple of fine pinot noirs from the New World and an exceptional wine tasting evening would be assured. I had not anticipated the difficulties of getting hold of wines to match the very mature ones. It took a great many phone calls to some of England’s most respected wine merchants to get ready to drink and at their best matching premiere crus’s of the right villages from top producers or negotiants. No exact matches were possible. The nearest I got were vineyards on opposite sides of the same road! (My photo below is of the Hospices de Beaune, a 15th century charitable foundation for the care of the sick. Today it functions as a modern hospital, funded by sales of wine from its own vineyards)

Not surprisingly, the Society’s January tasting attracted a record turn out. With two bottles each of the ten wines, sixteen had to be decanted (to be accurate, filtered), and the very mature ones opened at the last moment in case any fleeting bouquet might be lost in even a few minutes. It was a considerable labour of love.

The results were most interesting. Needless to say opinions differed widely, but with the exception of two bottles that had died, the very mature Burgundies had fascinatingly complex bouquets and palates and were definitely superior to their younger brothers. Needless to say the young brothers were very expensive, so represented very poor value for money and hardly made anyone into Burgundy fans. The Burgundians would have been devastated to learn that the best wine was the pinot noir from California!

The village and vineyards of Gevrey-Chambertin, home to some of Burgundy’s finest wines, which were included in the tasting.

I recently had the extremely painful misfortune to dislocate my shoulder as a result of falling on a wet slippery surface outside the Maidenhead Library. A total stranger rushed to my assistance and drove me all the way to the Accident and Emergency department of Wycombe Hospital where, under the influence of morphine, my shoulder was put back.

The lady would not give her name or address, so when my ordeal was over I was unable personally to express my enormous gratitude to her. How rare and wonderful to find such a kind person.

As the photo of part of the top of the front of my house shows, “Vine House” is aptly named. On the 10th December 2008 I harvested spätlese quality grapes whilst perched up a ladder. As the leaves had almost all fallen, the grapes had reached the end of their ripening process. They were quite delicious, with a very fresh fruity taste and abundant sweetness. At this time of year Vine House becomes a very popular venue for blackbirds who adore my grapes. It can be a contest for who gets the grapes first!

The vine is about twenty two years old, taken from an older vine I planted in the back garden. That covers the back of the house and two sides of the garden, including a pergola under which we sit and eat during the warm summer days - alas not many this year. The vine is completely disease resistant and gives us an abundant crop no matter what the weather is like. Its roots are deep in Thames Valley gravel and being near the river, the vines have all the water and minerals they could possibly want for good growth and grape production.

Every Christmas day we enjoy our own grapes - straight off the vine if there are any still on it, or from the freezer.

I have been a keen photographer from my school days. One of my several diverse careers was 18 years spent as a professional photographer, copywriter and designer. In the main I used 35mm colour transparency film in a Canon F1 camera (with Canon lenses of course) and 5′X4′ transparency film in a Linhoff Technikardan camera with Schneider lenses. Not surprisingly I have a considerable image library.

But film has given way to digital so I have upgraded, with Canon, naturally. I am delighted with the results. However I have a considerable library of 35mm colour transparencies, even some black and white negatives dating back to 1962. It is possible to scan colour and black and white negatives and colour transparencies to make them into digital images. I now have a Nikon Coolscan V device, which, with its amazing software programmes linked to my computer, is producing outstanding results.

The first picture of the interior of Risby Church in Norfolk was a twelve year old 35mm colour transparency. The view of the River Seine in Paris taken from the third stone rain spout at the top of the east tower of Notre Dame Cathedral - yes I really did climb over the parapet - was a forty year old Kodachrome transparency.

The civil engineer William Tierney Clark is remembered for his remarkable chain suspension bridges. By suspending chains made from cast iron links, rather like stretched links in a bicycle chain, across the river, he could hang a roadway from the chains. The same principle is used today, but the chains have been replaced by cables.

Tierney Clark’s first bridge was across the river Thames at Hammersmith in west London. The above engraving of 1829 shows this bridge. It was replaced by a wider suspension bridge of Bazalgette, later in the century. Clark’s second bridge of 1832 was also across the Thames but at Marlow in Buckinghamshire. Happily this bridge still exists, thanks to public outrage at a proposal to replace it, and subsequent restoration.

The third bridge was over the river Adur at Shoreham by Sea in Sussex, which dates from 1834.

No trace of this bridge remains. Clark’s fourth and by far his greatest bridge is over the river Danube, linking Buda with Pest in Hungary. Tierney Clark’s reputation had spread far and the Hungarian Count Széchenyi visited London to discuss his project to bridge the Danube thus permanently linking to two cities. Tierney Clark got the job. The bridge was constructed by the Scot Adam Clark and is the pride of Budapest.

The members of the Marlow Budavar Town Twinning Association, making their inaugural twinning visit to Budapest in September, were given the very rare privilege of a private conducted tour of the Sandor Palace, the official residence of the Hungarian President.

The building was made for Count Sandor in the early 1800’s, when its position next to the Hapsburg’s royal palace on Buda’s Castle Hill was politically and socially most significant. At the close of the second world war, the palace and most of the buildings on Castle Hill were devastated by the bombs and shells of advancing Russians and retreating Germans. Fortunately, the Communist authorities chose, all be it slowly, to rebuild the historic Castle Hill area as it was before the war.

Now, the Republic of Hungary has gone a step further and restored the Sandor Palace to its magnificent past appearance, worthy of their President. In one of the rooms, with an external balcony giving superb views across the Danube to Pest and beyond, was a grand piano. As a piano addict, I could not resist asking our guide if I could play it. To my delight I was given permission. But oh, alas, the Bosendorfer grand was in a very sorry state, almost unplayable. As a highly polished piece of furniture it looked fine, but sadly could not be considered a musical instrument worthy of a presidential palace. Perhaps the President is not musical.

Never the less, I am probably the only Englishman ever to have given a mini recital on the President’s piano!

If the Marketing and Public Relations Departments at Bosendorfer read this, it could be to their benefit to present the Hungarian President with a new grand piano - and one for me as well, please!