The Diary of Nathaniel Bryceson Revisited

[Jo A]

Well here's the final installment.

'One of the 'Darktown' studies of coloured prints - those lively studies of niggers and trotting horses that represent Art on barbers' walls -caught the old man's eye.

'Don't think that's mine!' he appealed hastily.  'I don't go in for comic nonsense.  That's a relative's!'

He returned to his chair to bury himself in the chaste delights of Sir Walter Scott's 'The Antiquary.'

'He's got a head on him, he has,' said one of his reverent friends.  'Wish I had his head!'

Whenever they talk of the old student in Stepney, they say 'He has a head on him!'  W. McC.

Sorry about the 'n' word. Maybe the reference to the picture belonging to a relative supports the idea that he was living in a room at his daughter's in Stepney.

[alpinecottage]

Sorry about the 'n' word.

Makes the line at the end of your posts particularly apt - the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there   

[Ruskie]

Thanks very much Jo A. That was a great insight into Nathaniel's world over 60 years after the first. Magic.

It is amazing what a few words can tell you. I agree Jo A, in that by Nat saying that the print belongs to a relative, this is probably confirmation that he is living with his daughter at this time.

Looking back, Nathaniel mentions the Duke of Wellington several times in his diary, so I think those who suggested the person Nat refers to as 'the Dook' was him, are correct. He was obviously a person of interest to Nathaniel. The fact that he refers to Granny Sheppard so often at the age of 83 also proves what high regard he held her in. This was evident throughout the diary when he always spoke of her with affection.

Thanks again Jo A. If you find any other mentions in your scrap book of Nathaniel or any of his descendants, could you please let us know.

Have enjoyed this immensely. 

[MaryA]

Sorry for the delay, just catching up after an absence of a few days.

Just wanted to say thank you to Jo for all your posts, it is certainly wonderful to be able to catch up on Nathaniel so much later in life.

[drykid]

Profuse apologies for bumping an old thread, and thereby possibly giving the impression that I have new information to contribute when I sadly don't.

But I only came across this thread just, after about a year's absence (I was thinking about Nathaniel and wondering if any more had been revealed in this thread in the intervening year, so decided to take a look.) Anyway was really pleased to see the newspaper article that Jo A has so kindly transcribed.  Speaking as someone who was captivated by the original diary and was (somewhat unrealistically) hoping that some of the other ones might yet surface, to be able to read Nat's words from later in life was an unexpected treat.  It does sound like he discovered religion as he got older, but the same personality comes across clearly regardless.

Thanks Jo!

[Ruskie]

Hello drykid,

Good to see you again - any contributions to these threads are always welcome.

I really enjoyed 'knowing' Nathaniel in his latter years through this article. Agree with you about his personality coming across in a similar vein to his diary entries so many years earlier.

I still think of Nat regularly and every now and then try a search or two in an attempt to fill in some of our blanks, in case I missed something earlier, or new records have come online.

Sadly, I have found nothing new, but I am still hoping for another of his diaries to surface ... somewhere.

[drykid]

Thanks Ruskie - I'm sure if anyone is able to turn up any further info from the searches then it will be you, given your previous successes

I was just googling the "Talks About Old London" series from the Evening News to see what else it threw up, and it seems it was well enough known at the time for Punch to take a dig at it in 1910.  I'm not sure what Nat would've made of it, but it's quite amusing nonetheless:

TALKS ABOUT OLD LONDON.

(\Yilli ain'orjira to " The Keening \eirx.")

" Ah yes," he said, "I remember 1907. I've always had a good memory."

"I was sitting on a bench in Battersea Park conversing with Mr. Thomas  Binjies, a Londoner born and bred.

'That was a great year," he continued. "It was good to be alive then."

"Let me see ; then you can recollect seeing the sun ? " I said.

"Yes, we had some sun in 1907. Very pretty it was too, shining on the chimney pots and warming the sooty air. We used to get about dry-shod in those days."

"And they tell me that there were hansoms then."

"Oh, yes, that's right. It was before the days of the.-chere taxis. Hai everywhere, there were. Bright young fellows on the box and smart spanking horses in the shafts. There are a few left, I 'in told, but they're ruins. Nothing to what they used to be."

"And omnibuses were drawn by horses, too?"

"That's right. I 've seen them with these eyes."

"How strange it all is!" I said. "Tell me some more."

"Well, there's my father. He ain't what you call an old man, but he remembers the Embankment before they had the trams running along it."

"That was in the days of the penny steamers, wasn't it ?"

" Yes, that's so. And some days, when his head is clear, he has a sort of dim recollection of London before The Daily Mail was started. But he can't be quite sure whether it was in his time or my grandfather's."

This last glimpse into the dark ages was too overwhelming, and hurriedly excusing myself I bade farewell to this wonderful living link with the past the man whose father remembered London without The Daily Mail!

(Article is taken from this link:

http://www.archive.org/stream/punchvol138a139lemouoft/punchvol138a139lemouoft_djvu.txt?referer=www.clickfind.com.au

It's one of those OCR-ed docs that contains a lot of errors, so I corrected them as best I could.)

[Ruskie]

 
Oh yes, very amusing. They could almost be taking the mickey out of Nat himself. (escept for the use of the word "aint" - Nat would never have said that.  )

PS. Actually many others found a lot more valuable information related to this search than I did, but thanks for the comment anyway. 

[drykid]

PS. Actually many others found a lot more valuable information related to this search than I did, but thanks for the comment anyway. 

I wasn't suggesting that you were the only one to find info though; just that you were one of the most determined Actually to be honest I've forgotten largely who discovered what now, anyway.  The only thing I'm fairly sure of is that I haven't discovered anything much.

One thing I did find though was that the actual Evening News edition that Jo A's cutting is from (20th January 1909) is actually online at http://newspaperarchive.com.  Unfortunately this is a pay site so I can't really attach the relevant image here, however if you go there and search for the relevant edition by date and publication then you should be able to view it.  You might even be able to do so for free as I think it allows you a free search or two per person per day