Fake news 1920s and 1700s style
AFEW weeks ago I was looking through the basement for photos of the 1968 floods to go with the big anniversary article in last week’s BT. I found plenty of older flood pictures, too, including the one on the right here. That’s the Tramways clock on the right, what’s now the Watershed in the background underneath it, and the old Co-op building is the big thing with the clock tower to the centre-left. But the water level? I mean, what the actual … ? This happened in Bristol? When on earth … ? We take our modern drainage for granted but it wasn’t always thus. Bristol fell victim to flooding on many well-documented occasions in the past, but I had no idea that the Centre was ever at any time inundated as badly as this. Heh! It turns out that’s because it wasn’t. Never happened. The picture is a fake, though it took me a while to figure this out. It was made by a man named Fred Little, a well-known Bristol photographer who owned a shop in Castle Mill Street where he sold cameras and photographic supplies and equipment. By the 1930s he was also dealing in wireless sets, having been a radio enthusiast from the beginning. If’s he’s remembered at all these days, it would be for the collection he made of photos of Victorian Bristol, some going back to the very dawn of photography. Part of his business was selling them in postcard form. A book of some of them was published many years ago, though I’ve not seen it. This particular picture only goes to prove that long before the days of digital photo-editing software, it was easy enough for an expert to forge photos of things that never happened. Fred Little was just such an expert. Many of his pictures were manipulated to make them more interesting or dramatic. He tampered with at least one of the famous pictures of the first flights of the Bristol Boxkite over the Downs, moving the position of the aircraft to improve the picture’s composition. He made a fake photo of a mermaid in the Avon, and would happily re-touch pictures of build- ing fires to make the flames bigger. We don’t know exactly when he did the flood picture, but a brief mention of it in an old local paper suggests he made it in the early 1920s. This was apparently after a long spell of rain, and he sold the picture printed on postcards over the caption: “The Centre, Bristol, if it rains any more.” Frederick George Little was born in Easton in 1874 (not sure when he died – does anyone know?) and seems to have started out in business as a newsagent before branching out into photography. Some kind soul has loaded many of his pictures of old Bristol onto Flickr and you can see them at https:// www. flickr. com/ photos/120528204@N07/
Blackbeard - new revelations. (Also beer.)
NOW here’s an interesting curiosity of local street art; Blackbeard ye Pirate on a BMX bike. Don’t know what deep hidden meanings this has, but the artist, Stewy, has done a few stencilled murals around Bristol (including one of the late DJ Derek) and seems to have a penchant for painting famous people on bicycles. You can see more of Stewy’s work on Flickr at https:// www. flickr. com/ photos/ stewysstencils/ The image has been sort-of adopted by Bedminster’s Show of Strength (SoS) theatre co. to publicise their new walking/theatrical tour of Bristol, which launches later this month as part of the Harbour Festival on July 20. Titled ‘Blood, Booze and Buccaneers’, the show promises “extraordinary new revelations about Blackbeard, world’s most the famous pirate.” Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, was born in Bristol in the 1680s, or so we believe – there are no records to prove it. But recent information from Jamaica provides evidence of his Bristol origins and fills in a few missing details of his life. “The real Blackbeard couldn’t have been more different from your average, rum soaked ‘Treasure Island’ pirate,” says SoS. “Much of what we do know about him – including his legendary brutality – was probably self-invented. Blackbeard created his own fake news to terrorise his enemies into an early surrender.” Sheila Hannon, Show of Strength’s Creative Producer, says: “Blood, Booze and Buccaneers may change your view of pirates forever. The new discoveries in Jamaica are fascinating – as are the finds from Blackbeard’s ship, The Queen Anne’s Revenge. The sunken wreck was discovered off the coast of North Carolina and the amazing artefacts are creating a fascinating picture of life on a pirate ship – with lots of surprises.” Blackbeard went down fighting when he met his grisly end in November 1718, hunted down on the orders of Bristolian Woodes Rogers, the Governor of the Bahamas. The tour/show sets off from the Golden Guinea pub in Redcliffe and lasts 2-2 ½ hours, visiting dockside hostelries and landmarks along the way before ending at the Centre. The first tour starts at 5pm this Friday, July 20. Then Wednesdays at 7pm and Saturdays at 3pm from Wed 25 July until Wed 12 September. For details and tickets see http:// showofstrength.org.uk/
Baths history
‘WISHING in the Well: Bathing in the Past’ is the title of a Heritage Lottery Fund-supported project recording the stories of people with living memories of Jacob’s Wells Baths (both as a swimming pool and public baths house), and to record and retell the history of the area that surrounds it. If you have any memories of the Baths, or want to find out more, there’s a launch event at the Baths (Jacob’s Wells Road, Bristol BS8 1DZ) this coming Saturday, July 21 from noon to 3pm. Everyone’s welcome; you can always drop in if you’re down town for the Harbour Festival. It’s an informal event with a couple of short welcoming ‘speeches’ at around 12.30 as well as information and stories about the baths and their neighbourhood. A booklet co-written with the local community will be available as well as a series of oral histories to listen to.
Frederick Douglass in Bristol
IRISH writer and historian Laurence Fenton is giving a talk about the visits of American anti-slavery campaigner Frederick Douglass to Bristol tomorrow night. Fenton has recently published ‘I Was Transformed’ Frederick Douglass: An American Slave in Victorian Britain (Amberley, 2018). Douglass spoke at the Victoria Rooms in Clifton in 1846, enthralling his thousands-strong audience with vivid denunciations of slavery. He was feted by the mayor and received great support from the people of Bristol and made friendships here that would last for the rest of his life. Laurence Fenton will talk about Douglass’ visits to Bristol and look at John and Mary Estlin, the antislavery activists at whose Park Street home Douglass stayed. He will also ask if it is time Douglass’s visit to the city was marked more formally with a commemorative plaque or statue. ‘The Lion of the Occasion: Frederick Douglass in Bristol’ is at the New Room, 36 The Horsefair, Broadmead, Bristol tomorrow at 7pm, admission free (donations welcome).
The day Jack the Ripper came to Bristol
SLEAZY and unscrupulous huckster that I am, I will end by saying to how you mustn’t miss next week’s BT, as we have a big article about the 130th anniversary of the day Jack the Ripper came to Bristol.* (*Legal disclaimer: Other suspects are available.) Cheers then!