Return to the Sketchbook challenge

Yeah, I know. It has actually been several weeks since I last did any drawings at all. Why? Well, if a personal challenge is becoming a chore sometimes you’re just as well giving yourself a little break from it, rather than risk giving it up entirely. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. Still, yesterday I did pick up my pens and my sketchbook. So what have I been doing.

Well, to start with I made 2 sketches of London featuring buses and trams of years gone by. To be honest with you I wasn’t that impressed with the first that I made. The second was better, but took ages. So I decided to fall back on an old favourite and made a copy of a John Tenniel cartoon from Punch. This one depicts Old Father Thames, although I do believe that it is from some time after the Great Stink, bearing in mind that looks like the Embankment.

This morning I thought, I wonder what Tenniel made of the (2^nd) Boer War? Bearing in mind that while I love his skill and artistry, politically I am poles apart from Tenniel, I wasn’t expecting to like what I found that much. So far I have copied two of his cartoons made in 1899 at the outset of the Boer War. The first is called Kruger’s Vision.

Paul Kruger was President of the Transvaal, one of the two Boer Republics. The caption is “What, will the ‘thin red’ line stretch unto the crack of doom?”. This is an adaptation of a quote from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. In the play, on his second visit to the witches, he insists that they show him whether Banquo’s descendants will ever rule. At first they refuse, but he insists and they show him a line of kings descended from Banquo, and he asks the question.

In Tenniel’s cartoon, Kruger is not seeing kings, but columns of British and Empire troops, showing him the irresistible might of the forces ranged against him, and also subtly suggesting that Kruger and the Boers are just as doomed as Macbeth, considering the overwhelming weight of numbers able to be brought against them.

What the cartoon and Tenniel ignored was that in 1881, a few years earlier, the same British and Empire army were defeated by the same Boer Republics in the first Boer War, where superior tactics and marksmanship had prevailed, the same superior tactics and marksmanship that would cause huge setbacks to the British and Empire army in the early stages of this second Boer War.

This second cartoon depicts a scene where a troopship in the distance is setting sail for South Africa, and Britannia is consoling a wife and children, whose husband, presumably, is on board the ship. The title is “Britannia Consolatrix” and the caption beneath reads:- ‘I will take care of you! Your man has gone to do his duty – and I will do mine!’ There’s a lot I don’t like about this. Firstly, the idea that it was anyone’s duty to go and fight in South Africa. Even judging by 19^th century standards this was an unjust and unnecessary war.

Then there’s the idea that Britain, represented by the allegorical figure Britannia, would do its duty, and take care of the casualties of war and their families. Now, I will admit that it was in 1901 that pensions were paid to war widows of NCOs and other ranks. But this had not been on the table in 1899 when the cartoon was made. Nor was it very generous when it was made, and it was subject to strict conditions regarding conduct and being of good character. Should a war widow remarry, she would receive a very small sum and the pension would cease.

Even in the 21^st century we see British army veterans having to accept help from charities because of the injuries, mental and physical, that they received in the name of our country which are not catered for by the Ministry of Defence. So you can imagine just how little real help was available to veterans of the Boer War on their return to Britain.

Cadbury's - Not flavour of the month with Charlie

When you get right down to it, it’s very difficult to know what members of the Royal Family really feel about things. The higher you go up the pyramid, the less scope that they have to be partial. So I don’t actually know if His Majesty the King really doesn’t like chocolate. But buying the Rowntree’s Edward VII Coronation tin has made me do a little bit of light research about the connection between the royal family and chocolate. What do you know, I found out that King Charles has withdrawn the Royal Warrant from Cadbury’s chocolate, and if I’m correct this is the first time they haven’t had one for over 170 years.

Queen Victoria first granted the Royal Warrant in 1854. We can be pretty certain that she was a bit of a fan from the way that Cadbury’s were her first port of call when she wanted to send a present of the finest British chocolate to soldiers fighting in the Boer War.

The Royal household doesn’t go into details about why companies lose their warrant, but since 2010 Cadbury’s have been owned by US based Mondelez International. It’s believed that the King faced calls to withdraw warrants from companies still operating in Russia, as does Mondelez. Has it made a material difference to Cadbury’s? I doubt it. All it means is a certain loss of cache, no invitation to warrant holder shindigs and having to remove the crown logo from packaging.

The silly thing about all of this is, I can’t eat chocolate now because my blood sugar is way too high as it is!

Tin Tales - Supplemental

Oh dear, I’ve been buying tins again. Or to be specific, a tin. I didn’t actually plan to. But if you ‘suffer’ from having a collector’s gene, you’ll maybe understand how it is. You see, since completing my Victoria tins collection, I’ve been doing the odd bit of research, sniffing around the subject. I was researching just what sort of tins each of the three chocolate companies was producing on or after the turn of the 20^th century. I came upon a Rowntree’s chocolate tin made for the 1902 coronation of King Edward VII (God Bless ‘Im!) and Queen Alexandra. I was interested in what seemed to me to be clear similarities in design to the Victoria tins.

So, as you do, I thought to myself, well, I wonder how much they go for on Ebay and I had a look. And without boring you with figures, you can pay a lot for a particularly fine one, but a decent one will set you back quite a bit less than a decent Victoria tin. So I thought – that’s interesting – and went on my way.

Now, if you’re not an ebayer you might not be aware of this. When you are the first person for ages to show interest in an item with a long listing, the dealers get alerted and will sometimes knock a bit off the price and offer it to you for a limited time. It happened to me with the Rowntree’s coronation tin and before I came to my senses, I bought it. It arrived today. Here it is:-

Rowntree's 1902 Edward VII Coronation Commemorative chocolate tin. If you've been following my posts about the Boer War Chocolate tins, this surely looks familiar to you as well.

Now the red background and the blue border are very reminiscent of the Victoria tin. That’s surely deliberate. When there’s nothing to compare it with in the photograph it’s difficult to get a feeling for the tin’s dimensions. To me it looked to be a similar size to the Cadbury’s Boer War Tin. Well, that was wrong. Here it is compared with the Rountree’s Boer War Tin.

Above - Rowntree's Boer War Chocolate tin. Nowhere does it actually say Rowntree's but there are a couple of distinguishing marks.
Bottom - Rowntree's Coronation commemorative chocolate tin - this is actually stamped Rowntree's on the bottom of the tin.

What you can’t see from the picture is that it’s very thin too. Well, it’s a nice thing. I don’t plan to start collecting coronation and other royal commemorative items. But as everyone with a passing acquaintance with the collector’s gene knows, never say never.

Tin Tales - Collection complete

Yes, I have bought a Fry’s 1900 Queen Victoria Boer War chocolate tin. Yes, I paid more for it than I paid for either the Rowntree’s or Cadbury’s tins, but I was comfortable with the price and it completes the set.

Top - Cadbury's
Middle - Rowntree's
Bottom - Fry's

In case you haven’t read any of my previous posts on the subject, I became interested in the gift tins ent by the Royal Family to members of the Armed Forces during both the First World War and the Boer War. Queen Victoria decided in 1899 that she wanted to send a gift to each soldier, NCO and officer serving in South Africa in the Second Boer War. The gift would take the form of ½ lb of finest British chocolate in a presentation tin. She originally commissioned Cadbury’s. They, being a quaker firm, did not want to profit from war, but a commission from Queen Victoria was a difficult one to refuse.In the end, they shared the commission with fellow quaker firms Fry’s and Rowntree’s. The three firms would donate the chocolate, while Victoria would pay for the making of the tins and the shipping to South Africa. The firms refused to put their names or logos on the tins, although Victoria insisted that the firm’s name would be stamped on the chocolate, so that her boys would know she was sending them the best British chocolate.

Each firm used its own manufacturer to make the tins. They all followed the same design, but there are differences to be seen between the tns used by the three manufacturers. And this is why I now have three tins and not just the one. The collector’s gene compels me.

Now, the three tins are in different conditions, so I won’t point out any of the differences in shade of colour because this could just be a matter of condition. But here’s a few of the features of difference between the tins.

The most obvious difference which you can see from the photo of all 3 tins is that the Cadbury’s tin is slightly longer and slightly narrower than the others. The Rowntree’s and Fry’s have almost identical proportions to each other.

The medallions of Queen Victoria in the centre of the tins help us to distinguish.

Rowntree's

Fry's

Cadbury's

Now, try to ignore the fact that each of these as a different amount of gilding remaining. If you look at the top photo of the 3, the Rowntree’s tin, close up, you can see that the beads around the edge are almost square, compared to the beads on the middle photo the Fry’s tin. These are more oval and slightly bigger. I’m not suggesting you should count them, but if you did you’d see there are more beads on the Fry’s. On the bottom photo of the Cadbury’s tin you can see that the beads are small, but there is a prominent raised and bevelled edge around them.

If you look at the black ovals I have drawn on the first two photographs, they highlight that the image of the Queen on the Fry’s tin is much closer to the beading than it is on the Rowntree’s tin. The Cadbury’s is close to the beading too.

Each tin bears a printed message of New Year’s good wishes with Queen Victoria’s signature.

Rowntree's

Fry's

Cadbury's

Comparing the signatures on the Rowntree and Fry tins, the most obvious difference is that the signature on the Rowntree’s slants upwards. As for the Cadbury’s, the signature appears smaller and more compact.

Well, that's it. The collection is now complete and the collector's gene should be satisfied.

Nassau v. W.H.Smith own brand - comparison

Yesterday I used the 40^th page in my Crawford and Black sketchbook. This means there are only 120 pages left in it which I think is reasonable if I decide to use it as the next sketchbook in the sketchbook challenge. I’ve got 39 pages left in the Nassau now which means we should be finished with it in a fortnight. I decided to put the Crawford and Black to one side for the time being and to switch to the WH Smith I bought last week as secondary sketchbook.

I thought I’d do some testing on the WH Smith. It already had the old bus sketch that I made last week. I decided to make a picture using coloured fineliner. Then it occurred to me this morning to make a comparison picture n the Nassau – same coloured fineliner, similar subject. Here they are.

Top - W.H.Smith own brand
Bottom - Nassau 

In terms of quality it’s not easy to say that either one is much better than the other. Maybe it’s because of the paper colour but the lines on the Nassau do seem to merge together more making the picture a little less distinct than the picture in the WH Smiths. I found this happened when I used coloured fine liner in the Royal Talens which also had off white paper. I made the point that the paper in the WH Smiths book reminds a lot of the paper in the Derwent Academy and again, when I made this sketch I really enjoyed the feel of the pen on the paper. With the W.H. Smith you can only see a few dots where the ink has gone through to the other side of the page. With the Nassau it’s far worse.

In the same spirit of investigation I took today’s photo prompt on Faacebook’s Daily Drawing challenge and did it in watercolour in both books. I used the same photo promt, the same set of paints and even the same brush. Here they are:-

Top - WH Smith own brand
Bottom - NAssau

Again, I would not say that there is really a great deal in it. The colours in the Nassau book look a little warmer than in the Smiths. That’s probably the effect of the off white paper on the tonal values. It was the Nassau version that I posted in the Facebook group because I think it’s slightly better.

Where the WH Smith book is clearly superior you can see when you turn the page over. With the Smith book there’s just a tiny bit of buckling but the other side of the page is perfectly usable. In the Nassau book, where I painted the peppers the other side of the page and to an extent the page underneath it has waffled and cockled very badly, so much so that the page looks as if it will be extremely unpleasant to draw upon.

Tin Tales Update

On 8^th March I posted about my collection of Mary tins, real, replicas and fakes, and I described how I had branched out and bought the tin that maybe inspired the Mary tin, the chocolate tin that Queen Victoria sent as a New Year gift in 1900 for the soldiers in the British and Empire armies in South Africa. I explained how I found out that the tins were made by three firms, Cadbury’s, Rowntree’s and Fry’s and that each firm had their own manufacturer. Although none of the firms put their own names on the box and although they all used the same design it is possible to tell which tins were made by which company.

So I bought a tin and was able to identify it as having been made by Rowntree’s. I did say in the post that I wasn’t planning to add to my collection, although the Cadbury’s and Fry’s tins were still out there. . .

Famous last words. I bought a Cadbury’s tin that arrived today. How can I tell it’s Cadbury’s though? Well, have a look at the tin on its own first.

The Queen Victoria Boer War chocolate tin from Cadbury

Okay. Now let’s compare it with my Rowntree’s tin. 

Top - Rowntree tin - Bottom - Cadbury Tin

You can see that they’re very similar at first glance but you can’t help noticing that the dimensions of the tins are different. Cadbury’s tin, on the bottom of the picture is noticeably narrower than Rowntree’s and slightly longer. When you pick them up, the Cadbury’s tin feels ever so slightly heavier but there’s really not a lot in it.

For reference here’s the two tins with the genuine Princess Mary tin.

Of course, it now means that I’ll have to try and get hold of a Fry’s tin. My collector gene demands it.

When is a W.H.Smith store not a W.H.Smith store?

In 1792, Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna established a business as news vendors in London. The same year, their son William Henry Smith was born. If you’ve reached adulthood in the UK, then even though the full name might not mean a lot to you, I’m sure that you’ll recognise the shortened version – W.H. Smith. William Henry took over the business following his parent’s deaths, and his son, young William Henry, joined, upon which the business was renamed W.H.Smith and Sons. It was the second William Henry who hit upon the idea of selling newspapers and books in the great train termini that were springing up in London by the 1840s, an idea which led to W.H.Smith becoming one of the great British retail names in the 20^th century.

I still remember the excitement at getting a WH Smiths gift voucher for Christmas. When I was growing up in suburban West London in the 1970s there were two places most of us went to buy records, or books, or stationery and those were W.H. Smith in Ealing Broadway and Woolworth in West Ealing (and Ealing Broadway.) W.H. Smith was generally more expensive and a bit posher. While Woolworth’s nickname was the chummy, down to earth ‘Woolies’ , W.H. Smith’s was the rather staid and formal ‘Smith’s’ The building in Ealing Broadway was built upon the foundations of the Ealing Hippodrome music hall and theatre, and the basement was incorporated into the pit which housed the stage machinery. Woolworth was cheaper and a bit more downmarket, although it had the advantage of being closer to home.

Woolworth in the Uk closed its doors for the last time in 2009 – although I was delighted to discover a Woolworths just around the corner from where I was staying in East Berlin in 2017. But good old W.H. Smith just kept on keeping on.

Yesterday, then I happened to be in the nearest city to home, Swansea. I had a brainwave – having acquired and started to use a variety of ‘cheap’ own brand sketchbooks, why not pop into Smiths and buy one of theirs? So when I arrived in the Quadrant shopping centre in Swansea, I was quite dismayed to see that W.H. Smith was no longer there. Instead, a new shop called T.G.Jones. Yeah, okay, I probably should have put two and two together, but it wasn’t until I entered the store and saw that almost everything was just as it had been before that I worked it out. T.G.Jones IS W.H.Smith. Sort of.

I was able to buy this sketchbook. 

All I can give you now is my first impression since I only bought it yesterday and I have only made one drawing in it so far. Here it is:-

It’s a true A5 and it consists of 100 pages (50 sheets) of 135gsm paper. It does feel thinner and less substantial than many of the books I’ve used. I bought it for £7, which means that the price per page is 7p. That’s not exorbitant, but it means it is quite a bit more expensive than some other own brands which are cheaper and have considerably more pages.

The pages in the W.H.Smith book are a very bright white and they have a smooth surface. In fact, it reminds me of the paper in the Derwent Academy book. I have to say that after confining myself to the quite scratchy surface in the Nassau book and the very scratchy surface in the Crawford and Black book, making a drawing in this sketchbook was just a pure pleasure. There’s absolutely no show through of the black fineliner on the other side of the page and I have to say that I’m really rather pleased with the result. I do wish that the pages would lie flatter when you open the book though.

In terms of construction, its covers are a fairly generic cloth backed arrangement. It has no integral bookmark, no document pocket and no elastic fastening. The covers could be a little more appealing but these things aren’t that important to me and I can live without them. The important thing is the quality of the paper.

Of course it will be a while before I’m going to be using it on a daily basis and we’ve yet to see how it can handle coloured fineliner or watercolour. But my first impressions are that you can do a lot worse for your money. Mind you, I don’t know how long you’re going to be able to still buy yourself one of these. I’ll try to explain.

W.H.Smith sold all of their stores and their non-travel business to Modella Capital in 2025. They had rationalised that up to 80% of their proft was coming from the travel business, so they retained their travel stores and also retained the W.H.Smith name. So Modella needed to rebrand their old WH Smith stores. So – W.H. becomes T.G. Smith becomes Jones. Okay. So you can see how they would be selling off old W.H.Smith stock. But does that mean they will then rebrand all their own brand stuff as T.G.Jones? Maybe. But on the other hand, Modella Capital already own Hobbycraft. I’m no business guru but I can see some crossover here. Will we see for example T.G.Jones using the Hobbycraft own brand, Shore and Marsh, as it’s own house brand too? I don’t know, but it has to be a possibility.

Well, time will tell about that. But what I’m thinking is that when I finish the Nassau, being as there are only 100 pages to fill – well, 99 now, I may well bump the Smiths sketchbook up the order and keep piggybacking the Crawford and Black until the Smiths is finished. It’s brains for thinking and feet for dancing.