Four score and seven years ago...

Well hello to you!

This is a bit of a tribute post to my mister (not the greatest post in the world - just a tribute) who has long since been an American Civil War geek, in no small part down to his admiration of this gentleman

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He's read anything he can get his hands on about the subject, most notably 'The Civil War: A Narrative' by author Shelby Foote and many others.  Our bookcase is practically collapsing under the weight of history books.

Obviously he was chomping at the bit to see 'Lincoln' the critically acclaimed biopic of the man himself.

We went to see it on Friday night and it didn't disappoint.  Daniel Day Lewis was absolutely mesmerising in the lead role. 

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He completely inhabited it to the point where you stopped actually seeing the actor.  

Other notable performances include Tommy Lee Jones (always good value) as Thaddeus Stevens, the radical republican from Pennsylvania and James Spader as the rather corpulent, not altogether above board, but likeable, 'fixer' Mr Bilbo

 I thought of wearing something in keeping with the civil war theme, but, oh my, those necklines and sleeves do me no favours...  also I'm just not sure about the bonnets!

Pauline Cushman, Union spy

Love this gown though

 

So I played it safe with a black dress, lace collar and some Victorian style boots

and of course, stripey tights

Not the best quality shots, just some phone snaps taken when we got home

Here I am posing with the book that the film was based on.  It has sat on our bookcase forever but I have finally lifted it out and added it to my reading queue.

Thank you Mr N for your contagious enthusiasm for history and for introducing me to this fascinating era and this remarkable character, so troubled and so old for his years. 

I would heartily recommend the film 

Of course one of the other great things about the cinema is getting to eat like a 9 year old 

xxx

Death Mask

  Whilst in Jedburgh we visited the Mary Queen of Scots Museum.  A house in which

Mary is believed to have stayed for around 4 weeks when she was seriously ill.

 The house belonged to the Kerr family of nearby Ferniehirst Castle

Mary's bedroom

 The most interesting exhibit in my opinion was this

The death mask of the queen herself.

The thing that struck me most about this was the fact that it depicts a rather beautiful, serene looking woman as opposed the large nosed, dowdy old lady depicted in portraits.

Found here

My morbid curiosity got me to thinking about this rather macabre but fascinating practice

 

 Extreme close up

Whilst taking this photo I was half expecting this to happen

Usually only royalty or eminent members of society were immortalised in death and the cast was then used as part of the funeral service.  In the days before photography, it was also used to capture the likeness so that subsequent portraits could be made.

A couple of Google searches brought back some notable immortalisations.

Dante

Goethe

Abraham Lincoln

Marie Antoinette

A serene and beautiful John Keats

Alfred Hitchcock, unmistakably

Thank you for sharing that furtive walk down Macabre Lane with me

If this kind of thing fascinates the hell out of you like it does me I would suggest trying here here and here for some further reading.

Lucy x