of larks and skylarks

Chinese violins of the Lark and Skylark brands have a terrible reputation - even though they're probably not all bad. Hence they are going very cheap and I found a pair of Skylarks and a big pile of sheet music all together for £ 30 on gumtree and took the opportunity to find out more about the notorious skylarks.

What I got was a 7/8 violin which I'll present later and a full size one (4/4) which I'll discuss here. It has a lovely label inside with the manufacturing year given as 1991. (I'm not sure what the model number MV--005 means does anybody know? The 7/8 violin that came together with this one has MV--007.)

I'm guessing that the Lark and early Skylark violins that ruined the brand reputation were a lot earlier because this one isn't worse than the cheapest Stentor student model you can buy today. The only thing that needed doing was to replace the bridge which was a bit warped (and also narrower than it should be?!):

but with a new bridge (Stentor from a derelict violin I am plundering for spares) and a bit of cleaning the instrument looks and sounds acceptable. A little bit boxy on the G string but good enough for folk as they say. It still has the strings it came with which may be quite old, so if anybody wanted to play it seriously, they might want to invest in a new set.

I do love the Skylark shoulder rest that came with it, which has a real steampunk vibe:

and it also came in the original Skylark case:

I think the pirate luthier series now needs some navigation aids as I have presented a few different instruments here (and they now have systematic numbers, violin number 9 arrived on the premises this week).

violin 1) is the one my late aunt had since the 1930s, which got me started. I played it almost every day for 14 months, until number 5) showed up.

violin 2) is a Stentor student 1 that I am plundering for spares and accessories as it has a fault that is probably not worth repairing, see the blog entry on number 3) below.

violin 3) came from a folkie friend who moved away. I put the soundpost back in its place and it has now found a new home.

violin 5) is my new favourite and the one I currently play in folk sessions.

violin 7) is the one discussed above.

the Geppert family and associates

Every picture tells a story, season 3, picture 19

Here's a rare group portrait reuniting all three kids from the Dörndorf bakery (Silesia) and their mother as well. But I have no idea who the other people are. Nor where the location is:

So we recognise first from left, young Willi Geppert, then his sisters Hedwig (third from left) and Emma (5th). Their mother Martha Stephan standing between the sisters. The guy on the right occurs in a few photos with Willi (eg here) but I have no idea who he is, could be a cousin? I'm assuming that the woman next to him and the three children are his family but that's just a guess.

As I noted before, Martha in the middle was quite short (147cm) so unless they propped her up, nobody in this photo is taller than 160 cm.

Should anybody have any answers to some of the many questions I am raising in this series, please leave a comment here (I'll need to vet it, so it may take a few days before it goes public) or contact me at michaelgrr [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk

Navigation tools:

Season 3 so far:

1. family holiday
2. play time
3. fashion show
4. bakery to butcher's shop
5. the Hamborn brotherhood
6. all grown up
7. sisters in the snow
8. the last holiday
9. village life
10. family reshuffle
11. push bike
12. mystery trio
13. confirmands at Hamborn
14. streets of Hamborn
15. more grandchildren
16. a Russian winter
17. a confectioner's business
18. a lovely hat
19. the Geppert family and associates

The Mastodon thread for season 3 is here.

You can find Season 2 entries in this thread on Mastodon (complete now!) or via the list at the bottom of the last entry of the season (and also at the bottom of the first entry of this season).

The twitter thread for season 1 is still here. Alternatively, visit the last instalment and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom.

stop plastic pollution

I have written a few features already about the rising tide of plastic waste engulfing our planet. What's new this time is that the microplastics have actually arrived in our bodies and are causing harm to humans not just the environment, and that a global effort is underway to do something about it. So let's hope that this will be a success story like the Montreal protocol, not a 30-year tragedy like the climate summits.

The feature is out now:

Can we end plastic pollution?

Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 8, 22 April 2024, Pages R301-R303

Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(will become open access one year after publication)

Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)

See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.

Last year's thread is here .

Microplastics are now ubiquitous. They have entered the food chain and thus the human body, where they may increase disease risks. (Photo: The 5 Gyres Institute (CC BY 4.0 Deed).)

the art of alchemy

Alchemy is of course a fascinating subject but also a frustrating one, and I always end up dazed and confused when I try to get into the mindset of the old alchemists. The medieval imagery connected with it, showing alchemists at work, their lab glassware, or their allegorical concepts of the world, may be somewhat more accessible, so I took the opportunity to read and review the book

Art of Alchemy: From the Middle Ages to Modern Times (Wunderkammer)
by David Brafman

which contains equal amounts of glorious images and almost comprehensible text. Now I'm still confused, but at least I have another beautiful book on my shelf.

More about my struggles with alchemy in my long essay review now out:

Alchemy in pictures

Chemistry & Industry Volume 88, Issue 4, April 2024, Page 35

access via:

Wiley Online Library (paywalled PDF of the whole review section)

SCI (premium content, ie members only)

As always, I'm happy to send a PDF on request.

Blackwells

a lovely hat

Every picture tells a story, season 3, picture 18

I love the hat that Richard the young chemist is wearing in some photos from his student days (or possibly teacher in training, but we're definitely looking at his 20s here), so here comes the official hat appreciation post, first Richard on his own with the hat in question:

I'm getting the impression this is his first adult hat and he chose it half a size too large hoping he'd grow into it? Next we have a photo with his parents (Heinrich the cellist and Maria), also suitably covered:

And then a family gathering that is slightly remote. Maria's mother had died very young and when her father (Heinrich Pfersching) remarried, the new wife also brought a daughter called Maria into the family. That Maria from the other side married a man called Anton Fritz and had two daughters called Maria (again) and Ilse, both born before 1926. All of these "Fritzes" appear in this photo:

Next to Richard and his hat we have the younger Maria and Ilse in front of them. Then to the left Anton and then Maria senior and, I presume, Anna who is a half-sister to both Marias in the older generation.

Note that in 1918/19, after being evicted from Lorraine, 9-year-old Richard and his mother moved in with Heinrich Pfersching's patchwork family for half a year or so, before moving on to Elberfeld. This may explain why he remained close with his relatives in Bruchsal, even though the generations are misaligned - his aunt and uncles are not much older than him and his cousins a lot younger.

Should anybody have any answers to some of the many questions I am raising in this series, please leave a comment here (I'll need to vet it, so it may take a few days before it goes public) or contact me at michaelgrr [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk

Navigation tools:

Season 3 so far:

1. family holiday
2. play time
3. fashion show
4. bakery to butcher's shop
5. the Hamborn brotherhood
6. all grown up
7. sisters in the snow
8. the last holiday
9. village life
10. family reshuffle
11. push bike
12. mystery trio
13. confirmands at Hamborn
14. streets of Hamborn
15. more grandchildren
16. a Russian winter
17. a confectioner's business
18. a lovely hat

The Mastodon thread for season 3 is here.

You can find Season 2 entries in this thread on Mastodon (complete now!) or via the list at the bottom of the last entry of the season (and also at the bottom of the first entry of this season).

The twitter thread for season 1 is still here. Alternatively, visit the last instalment and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom.

gaudeamus igitur

In last week's Every picture story I mentioned the songbook that I inherited from my great aunt Esther. I am not sure whether the Hermann Bender who signed it was the confectioner or some eponymous stranger. The confectioner's wife, Henriette Düselmann was Esther's great aunt. (Is there a technical term for my great aunt's great aunt?)

I took photos years ago and must have shared them on my tumblr book blog (deleted by the Inquisition) but forgot to put them here. So here goes (with a fresh photo of the outside of the book):

Note the biernagels (beer nails) - the book is made to be used on drunken nights in unruly taverns, so these metal bumps are there to keep it safe from drink spills. The text on the cover is from a student song and translates as "Let's have fun while we are young." The song is called De brevitate vitae (on the shortness of life) and is entirely in Latin. (Video with text). I thought it was just a quaint old German thing, but Wikipedia tells me it is today widely used as an anthem of educational institutions of all sorts.

It is the 43rd edition of Schauenburgs allgemeines Deutsches Kommersbuch. The excellent Wikipedia entry seems to suggest that it must be from 1891-1893, as these years are documented for the 42nd and the 44th edition, respectively. Wikipedia also lists the multiple subtle changes made to the frontispiece over the years, so here's my version:

the inscription on the left says somebody used it as a guest of the Tueskonia on May 2nd 1896. The closest match I can find is the Tuiskonia in Munich. I'm not clear about the signature, will have another think on that. In any case it could be a nickname. Below it says "Pension Grenzland" - today there is a B&B of that name in Bad Brambach, on the Czech border, near Hof, Bavaria. Not very close to Munich though.

And here we have the beautiful signature of Hermann Bender, who may or may not be the confectioner. He also signed in pencil on the dark paper facing the inside of the cover, but that one is hard to see and not as beautiful.

From the Wikipedia entry I also learned just now that these two mostly illegible handwritten pages shown below are not specific to my copy. (It had always confused me that this seems to be dated 1858 while the book was printed much later, it contains references to events in the 1880s.) Turns out the original authors dedicated the first edition to the poet Ernst Moritz Arndt (see the printed text above right and below left), and it's his reply that was included in later editions as a facsimile. So, phew, I don't have to decipher that.

menopausal mammals

I knew about orca females enjoying a post-reproductive lifespan (ie going through menopause), but in recent years the number of non-human mammalian species doing this has grown to five, and all of them are toothed whales, which is intriguing. So I took a new paper on the evolution of this trait in whales as an occasion to write about the menopause of whales an women. (I recently had Of elephants and men, so I'd better give poor old John Steinbeck a rest now.)

The feature is out now:

Of whales and women

Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 7, 8 April 2024, Pages R261-R263

Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(will become open access one year after publication)

Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)

See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.

Last year's thread is here .

Killer whales (Orcinus orca) typically spend their lifetime in family groups led by a matriarch. (Photo: Courtesy of Dr Brandon Southall, NMFS/OPR (CC BY 2.0 Deed).)

a confectioner's business

Every picture tells a story, season 3, picture 17

last update: 11.4.2024

Let's go back to the Krefeld Clan - the 13 children of silk weaver Wilhelm Düselmann and Elisabetha de la Strada who married in 1826 and agreed to bring up the boys protestants (like their father) and the girls catholics (like their mother).

Of the 13 children, we have seen child number 7 Karl the foreman (and father of enterprising Julius) and child number 10 August the fireman (and father of adventurous Walter).

I don't think I have any photos of any of the other 11, so if any of the hundreds of descendants out there would like to share some I'd be very grateful.

What I do have though is the husband and three children of child number 9, Henriette Düselmann, who was born in 1843.

In 1863 she married confectioner (Conditor und Zuckerbäcker) Joseph Hermann Bender (born 1840). He has a database entry here, where funnily enough only the sons are listed, whereas all the info on descendants I have concerns two of the three daughters of the couple. Anyhow, here's the confectioner in around 1895 with his son Nicolas, left, both daughters, and an employee called Nik (or possibly Josef Hermann's brother Nicolaus - I have contradictory infos on this?!):

Firstborn child Gertrud married Wilhelm Heinrich Habrich; Josefine married Wilhelm Max Holler (brother of the painter Alfred Holler), shown here:

Each had four children, so the complete set of eight born between 1902 and 1912 is here (maybe around 1915 judging by the size of the youngest standing on the bench?):

And this is a wider family gathering for Pentecost (Whitsun) 1926

Here we have the confectioner's daughters Gertrud (2nd from left) and Josefine (3rd). Far left is Gertrud's husband, Wilhelm Heinrich Habrich. Josefine's husband, Wilhelm Max Holler, is the 6th from left. On either side of him two Holler children, and on the right of the picture four Habrich children lined up.

Open questions: The woman fourth from left is unidentified according to my source, but given the symmetry of the picture with three sisters ligned up on the right, I am tempted to speculate it could be the third daughter of the confectioner, Klara Bender, see below? Trouble is we don't know much about Klara. The 8th person is named as Adolf Peters. We don't know anything about him but note that the grandmother of Gertrud and Josefine, Elisabetha de la Strada, had a brother who married a Gertraud Peters, so there could be a remote family link.

In the ancient Krefeld Clan blog entry I had two other children of Henriette and the confectioner (in addition to Gertrud and Josephine):

9.3. Nicolas Joseph Bender * 22.4.1864 Krefeld

9.4. Klara Bender * Krefeld

Digging up some old correspondence I find that Nicolas moved to Berlin and Klara was severely injured in an accident with a horse carriage.

The database entry reveals a second son I didn't know of:

Heinrich Bender * 30.10.1871

But it shows no marriage or offspring for either of the sons.

So I had the sibling order all wrong,it should be:

1. Nicolas Joseph Bender * 1864
2. Gertrud * 1870
3. Heinrich Bender * 1871
4. Josefine * 1881

And we still don't know where Klara fits in - the biggest gap to accommodate her would be before Josefine.

Another mystery that's possibly related: I have a 19th century student song book signed Hermann Bender, inherited from Esther the travelling saleswoman who came from the Krefeld clan, so it could be an heirloom linked to the old confectioner, but then again she also bought antiquarian books, so it could be a coincidence. Will have to do a separate entry on that at some point (UPDATE: done now).

Should anybody have any answers to some of the many questions I am raising in this series, please leave a comment here (I'll need to vet it, so it may take a few days before it goes public) or contact me at michaelgrr [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk

Navigation tools:

Season 3 so far:

1. family holiday
2. play time
3. fashion show
4. bakery to butcher's shop
5. the Hamborn brotherhood
6. all grown up
7. sisters in the snow
8. the last holiday
9. village life
10. family reshuffle
11. push bike
12. mystery trio
13. confirmands at Hamborn
14. streets of Hamborn
15. more grandchildren
16. a Russian winter
17. a confectioner's business

The Mastodon thread for season 3 is here.

You can find Season 2 entries in this thread on Mastodon (complete now!) or via the list at the bottom of the last entry of the season (and also at the bottom of the first entry of this season).

The twitter thread for season 1 is still here. Alternatively, visit the last instalment and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom.