amazing day 22.1.11

AMAZING BIRTHDAY

Saturday January 22 2011: My Birthday

On Friday 21st I was at work, feeling very pleased but a little jumpy because I knew Charlie was planning a surprise that evening. I had to be ready to drive about 30 miles. When I got home he asked if I'd like to know the plans and I said I would, so he told me: We were going to stay the night at the Wrea Head Country House Hotel, the best on Tripadvisor in Scarborough, then go to a Scarborough auction on my birthday and I would have money to spend there (this worked beautifully on an earlier birthday). Then we would have fish and chips in Bridlington from the shop which had just won 'best in Britain'. Then home, and he had booked tickets for 'The King's Speech', which I had been busting to see after we failed to get seats last week.

This was a very good programme indeed.

We left home after 'Malcolm in the Middle' which we couldn't miss, and we stopped and had dinner beyond Malton at the Ganton Greyhound. It was a bit pricey and we didn't want to eat a lot so we had starters. He had fried brie, and I had a duck leg. The place was rich in engraved signs - Do Not Walk your Dog in the Car Park; Do Not Park in Front of This Window; and my favourite, over the hearth:

The Wrea Head is a beautiful arts-and-crafts country house of 1881, in large grounds. Our room was large and very handsome with a four-poster bed, and a bathroom.  We went down for a drink. Lots of oak panelling and carving, and stained glass, and a large painting  of the Pilgrims at the Tabard Inn.  Dozens of Annigoni sketches of faces, and old portraits and two Russell Flints in the dining room. The bar looks as if it was originally the drawing room, and has heavy bands of pargetting covering almost all of the top half of the walls. I had wine, and Charlie had beers, and we talked for a long time. We took our third drinks upstairs and we'd brought ultra-treats like smoked nuts and olives, and a Deadwood disk, and we watched the next episode before we went to bed.

Breakfast was very good indeed, and then we checked out and went to the auction viewing. We only had about half an hour before it started. Pictures were on show in the entrance hall and as soon as we got in, C noticed a sketch by John Minton, and recognised the name: Soho artist. It was in a lot of three pictures. We made some quick notes on what was interesting: a bowler hat, some little lots of silver and beady boxes of jewellery, a stuffed stoat, and a mixed lot with an umbrella stand that I wanted. Not very crowded.

We sat at the back at a dining table, and fetched coffees, and watched. Our lots began coming up after half an hour or so. They were displayed on screens, which made the process much slicker. C got the hat; we didn't get the stoat or any jewellery; then he was surprised to get the three pictures for £25. They appeared on the screen as a small yellow sofa, and the artists' names weren't in the catalogue, so we thought later that this would have meant dealers wouldn't have noticed them. I got my lot with the umbrella stand for £20, and we went to settle up.

When my lot was being handed through the hatch I found there was an old fireman's helmet in it, and while I was being delighted about that, one of the auction men said he had someone who would buy my broken stick barometer for £30. I hadn't known I owned it and it looked like it needed more mending than it was worth, so I said yes, and was thus in profit before leaving the building. Which was nice.

It was now a bright and happy day as to weather as well as our smug mood. We drove along the south beach, and then out to Bridlington, which is always a beautiful drive. The fish shop is inland on an estate to the north of the town, and looks very small and ordinary, except for the balloons and signs because of their triumph in the fish and chip awards. It was shut until 4pm. We had to go and find a pub in the old town, and read the paper. This was satisfactory. At 3.55 we were back at the shop and there were a dozen people queuing outside. But service was very brisk, and cheery, and the fish and the chips were truly excellent, and they asked you if you wanted scraps.

We ate in the car, and started home. (The drive back was the only downer of the day, as the road is twisty and poorly marked, not good in the dark with lots of oncoming cars.) Back in good time, though and settled down to investigate the pictures.

C was right about John Minton. It was titled 'Anne smoking' and we decided she was Anne Chamberlain, writer and illustrator. Might be worth a bit.

I was allowed to work on the second picture, a drawing dated 1937 of a woman sewing, with a tiny, complex, illegible signature in a foreign hand. This was very good fun. I googled every possiblity I could see, and it took a good half hour, but I found him: Paul Wieghardt. He and his wife Nelli Bar fled Germany in the 30s and were in Oslo when war broke out, and got to Sweden, and then travelled overland through Siberia and Japan and made it to the States, where they both taught art in Chicago: Paul was a professor at the Institute of Art. There were just two photos of Nelli, and one was taken in 1937 and she looked exactly like the picture - hair, angle of shot. (This coincidence would have been very unconvincing if in a film.) Finally I found a signature of Paul's from his later years and proved the picture was his. So - also might be worth a bit. 

That was so thrilling. And then we went to the City Screen, and we both enjoyed 'The King's Speech' but I LOVED it; I was really high when we came out. C said the Trembling Madness would be bound to be packed out on a Saturday night, but I was serenely confident of all my ways being smooth that day: and so it was, we got a seat and a drink and then a taxi home.