Halloween or All Hallows Eve...

Granny Bonnet and the witch head she made for Halloween.

So, the shops are full of cheap Halloween goodies and the children are planning their outfits for Trick or Treat, that recent import from America. It is all a very long way from where the tradition began, being more concerned with witches and pumpkins than actual history; seen as a bit of innocent fun to lighten those creeping dark days of winter. Afterwards, we can step inside our cosy homes with electric lights, heating, well-stocked larders and other entertainments, and forget the original meaning of the festival that is almost as old as time.

Imagine then that you are a lowly Celtic peasant who by the end of Summer has cropped anything that can be harvested from mean little fields and hedgerows. There is no surplus to feed any large animals throughout the bleak coming months, so you hoard anything sustaining, slaughter surplus beasts and preserve of both what you can. A 'bonefire' is lit on the last day of October to mark this important transition from Summer to Winter. There is feasting and drinking but also an acute awareness that this is the closing of the productive year, marking a time between plenty and famine, and when the veil between life and death is at its thinnest.

Whilst our forebears were happy to celebrate their dead, they also imagined that evil roamed the land in the form of wicked witches, fairies, elves, goblins and the unsettled recently deceased, so lanterns were carved from turnips or pumpkins to scare them off. So terrified were they of recognition by those spirits that they smeared their faces with ash and otherwise disguised themselves. So, masked or 'guised', they were free to join the celebrations, revealing themselves only to any friendly ghost they recognised.

Samhain, (Summer's End) was the name of the Celtic festival our ancestors celebrated, while the new Christian religion that largely supplanted it renamed it All Hallows Eve, the night before All Hallows Day, (also called All Saints Day) on November 1st, which venerated all men and women canonised by the Catholic Church.

The following day, November 2nd in Christianity is All Souls Day and is an extension of the observance of All Saints' Day, remembering departed men and women of faith who were suffering in purgatory until cleansed of their sins before entering heaven.

So many cultures across the world share these sentiments and celebrate in different ways. It seems to me that honouring those who went before is no bad thing if undertaken in a spirit of love, gratitude and understanding.

Happy Halloween from Granny and Hubby entering into the spirit of things!

Granny is rather fond of witches and has designed her own set of posters for you to collect.

There is an alphabetical selection and one or two more available at https://www.kittywitchcurios.co.uk

The Wise Old Crone by Granny Bonnet

Use It or Lose It!

Granny choosing broomstick flying over cycling!

I well remember my own mother holding her arm straight out in front of her and kicking up her foot to touch her fingers. She was in her seventies and I had seen evidence myself of her flexibility as she gamely hauled herself up into the attic space to locate something stored away.

She also peddled on an exercise bike because as she said, "once your knees have gone, that's it!" She must have been doing something right because she lived until she was 99 years and six months old, still cooking every day and looking after her bachelor son. So it's no great surprise that Hubby and I believe the same.

Flexibility is key to everything we do and it really doesn't take many minutes in the day to circle hips and shoulders, knees and ankles. Posture is everything and you can do no better than study The Alexander Technique in which you imagine you are a puppet on a string with your head held vertical and not thrust forward like a turkey. Keep your thigh muscles strong too so that they can propel yourself out of your chair without too much difficulty.

Years ago, we were always encouraged at school to stand with chest pushed forward and shoulders back which actually forces a rather unnatural curve to the base of the spine. Rather, the pelvis should be thought of as a shallow basin tipping slightly forward so as to contain all our intestines comfortably and keeping that niggly sacrum from contracting and squeezing our nerves!

If you have trouble with your knees and/or ankles, try gently rotating them on a regular basis and elevate your legs above heart level if possible to take down any swelling.

When my old Mum, near the end of her life, finally consulted a doctor, they had no records for her as she had never been. She had always taken responsibility for her own health. Yes, she may have been fortunate, or have had good genes or whatever, but she never swallowed pills unnecessarily nor (obviously) dashed off to the surgery at the slightest twinge. I too am of the same opinion that given a little time, the wonderful organism that is us, each with our own complex chemical factory within, will generally be able cope with most situations.

I am not a doctor, but I don't have to be to know that by getting myself outside for about twenty minutes a day to soak up natural vitamin D, and sticking to a regular exercise regime, I am helping myself breeze into a happy and healthy old age. For as long as I am able, I shall certainly carry on using it, as I try not to lose it!

The Jenny Lind

Jenny Lind by Eduard Magnus

I should think practically everyone in Norwich knows what you mean when you say 'I'm going to the Jenny Lind.' Do you?

Many years ago when my children were small, I had cause to visit 'The Jenny' in Norwich. I am referring of course to the children's hospital, an attractive red-brick building on a garden-like corner plot in Unthank Road. I did not know then that the land was a gift from Mr. Jeremiah Coleman, nor did I know why it was called the Jenny Lind and apart from the welcoming sight of a beautiful dapple-grey rocking horse, I have little detailed recall of its interior or why I was there.

The children's hospital left that site and was incorporated into the West Wing of the newly-built Norfolk and Norwich Hospital at Colney in 2001. Still called the Jenny Lind, it tends to over 60,000 in- and out-patients a year, a far cry from the 51 and 250 it took on in its first year in 1854. Since then it has cared for over 4,000,000 children from across the region.

Its history began back in 1847 when the Swedish singing sensation, Jenny Lind first came to Norwich. An international star who had toured America with the famous P.T. Barnum, who had flowers thrown at her feet by Queen Victoria, and was admired by great composers of her day, was in the city on a provincial tour of England! The streets heaved with people, church bells rang out and she even had a gun salute. Her concerts were sell-outs and after her wonderful welcome and performance, she arranged to return two years later. True to her word and whilst staying with Bishop Stanley of Norwich, she gave two more concerts at St. Andrew's Hall donating the takings to charity. A children's hospital was sorely needed and with the money, an old house in Pottergate, Norwich was bought which opened to its first young patients and mothers due to give birth in 1854. This they called The Jenny Lind Infirmary for Sick Children and it was only the second in the country devoted to children after Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. It was when this building became delapidated and out-grown that the purpose-built hospital was established on Unthank Road.

Jenny Lind herself had been discovered by chance when a passer-by in Stockholm heard her singing. At nine years old, she subsequently became the youngest person ever to gain a scholarship to the Swedish Opera House and it was after Hans Christian Andersen wrote a story called The Nightingale about her that forever after she was known as The Swedish Nightingale. Born out of wedlock, moved between different relations as a young child, Jenny suffered ill-health and anxiety at the age of seventeen shortly after taking the operatic world by storm. She lost her voice and it was only with careful nursing that she recovered it. Perhaps it was gratitude that led to her generosity wherever she performed around the world. Certainly Norwich will never forget her and many youngsters and their parents have cause to give thanks to a modest yet world-acclaimed soprano who never forgot to think of others less fortunate than herself.

Jenny Lind wrote to the chair of the hospital management committee:

“Of all the money which God allowed me to give away when my poor throat could call an audience to listen to it’s production. None has borne a more nobler fruit than the Jenny Lind Hospital of Norwich.”

Johanna Maria "Jenny" Lind born 6 October 1820 died on 2nd November, 1887 in Herefordshire England.