pumpkinstrokemarrow

Now finished the book by Barney White Spunner, noticed above (18 August). Good read, all the way to the end. Apart from being good history, it contains a good selection of factoids. For example, the subject of a lady's painting, posed above, was one Corporal Clay, a prize fighter, amateur model and hero of Waterloo. He took part in the famous charge of the heavy cavalry which finished off the charge of the French infantry - one of various necessary conditions for victory. Sadly he died of wounds in the mess that followed our cavalry's failing to stop and overunning. Interestingly, Spunner, a cavalryman, thinks that Wellington fought the battle in the wrong place and would have done better at Quatre Bras, partly because Wellington's battle map for Waterloo did not cover quite the right area. Even more interestingly, my other detailed account of the battle, in a bigraphy of Wellington by one Sir Herbet Maxwell, Bart., places much less emphasis on the charge of the heavy cavalry and makes something of the careful choice of Waterloo for a defensive battle, the position having first come to Wellington's notice the year before.

Another factoid was the finding, on the Household cavalry's return from the second war, a couple of old soldiers in the Knightsbridge barracks who had spent the entire war sharpening swords for the final push, on horseback, into Germany. And another was the capture by HCR of something which became known as 'Cavalry Bridge', exploiting a weakness in German staff work to break through their line, 'a turning point of the [1945] campaign in France'.

Back at Burke's peerage, was challenged to find the gentleman in Jane Austen for whom it was favourite reading. The result of this was that I learnt that I knew her novels a good deal less well than I thought. However, while I had thought he was in an interior, he was run to ground on page 1 of 'Persuasion', Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch-hall in Somersetshire. Burke's peerage is not referred to specifically, but there is a reference to the 'Baronetage' being his only reading, so I think I can claim the point. Sir Walter, however, is either a member of a fictitious Elliot family or an extinct Elliot family. The best Burke can do is an ancient Eliott baronetcy of Stobs, a Scottish rather than a Somerset family. Perhaps Jane did not take the baronetage as seriously as her creation.

And back in the kitchen, have found out a new cut-prive version of kedgeree. Take four ounces of cold, boiled white rice. Take twelve ounces of smoked haddock. Cook this last in a little butter and milk. Flake into the rice, return to the cleaned pan with a little more butter, heat through and serve. Very satisfactory - and without all the cholesterol in all those eggs that we would usually have used. Very handy for a quick breakfast dish.