Wandering Around Haarlem
It was cold in Holland at the weekend, as you can see from these pictures of Haarlem.
The interesting picture is that of the statue of Laurens Janszoon Coster.
It is claimed that he invented printing with movable type a few years before Guttenberg. So that is why I am interested, as that was my father’s profession!
Exclamation Marks
If anybody has read much of this blog, you will notice that I use a lot of exclamation marks.
Why? I just like them!
My father was a fan too. But as someone who has set letterpress type, I can appreciate how some letters are favourites and others you just hate. Try spotting the difference between full-stops and commas in something like 6 or 8 point type. It’s not easy.
But the exclamation mark is always instantly recognisable. So do I use it, as I have this hatred of full-stops?
Simon Mayo asked a question on his radio show, as to whether there were any places other than Westward Ho!, that contained exclamation marks. This prompted a search of Wikipedia and the answer was duly e-mailed in and read out. (Simon must have read out upwards of a dozen of my e-mails, but then his father taught me geography at school.)
Hence this post.
Here’s the e-mail.
The English town of Westward Ho!, named after the novel by Charles Kingsley, is the only place-name in the United Kingdom that officially contains an exclamation mark. There is a town in Quebec called Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, which is spelled with two exclamation marks. The city of Hamilton, Ohio changed its name to Hamilton! in 1986.
Now reading Wikipedia about exclamation marks, observes that computer programmers like me call them shrieks. I do but not because of that.
My father did too! As a printer he was supposed to call them bangs.
Perhaps I Should Get a Sewing Machine
They’ve just announced that the “Make Do and Mend” culture is returning, with John Lewis reporting an increase in the sale of sewing machines. The department store has also brought out a guide with the same name.
You may ask, why a sixty-two year old man would buy a sewing machine. I probably won’t, but I used to be very handy with one, having been taught how to sew by my mother.
When we were first married, I used to make some of my wife’s clothes. I can remember making several dresses and a long brown coat. In fact, somewhere in this house is a short maternity dress, that I made in 1969 out of some red Dorcas fabric.
My father also taught me how to do proper carpentry, service cars, hang wallpaper and of course everything there is to know about real letterpress printing.
I don’t think we taught our children such a wide range of skills. And I think that these days kids learn even less from their parents.
Diphthongs
My father was a printer and he was a great believer in dipthongs. In letterpress type they are actually double characters, so they have a nice heavy feel.
So in the last post on Coventry Cathedral, I have spelt mediaeval with an extra “a”.
Museum Plantin-Moretus
I said in my post, Letterpress Rules OK, that there weren’t that many printing museums in the world.
But in Antwerp, there is the Museum Plantin-Moretus.
Museum Plantin-Moretus
The actual museum and contents are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
They have a large collection of machines, type and all the other things that proper printing entails. For example, they explain how printers in the 16th and 17th centuries actually made the movable type.
Museum Plantin-Moretus - Printing Machine
Note the virtually all wooden construction.
Museum Plantin-Moretus - More Printing Machines
There were six machines in the room. They were displayed down one wall with desks for the compositors on the other side of the room.
The building itself is immaculate with a vast collection of old books, maps and paintings, including a Gutenburg Bible and several portraits by Rubens.
Museum Plantin-Moretus - The Garden
It is a museum that is well worth a visit. Allow more time than we did, as the staff were rather hasty in chucking us out.
The Anonymous Widower 