Jan and Cora Gordon

Blackwoods Magazine for March 1923 (pages 60-82) has a story by Jan Gordon called "Mr. Brown's Brigand." Gordon makes abundant use of his experiences in Paris and Serbia and alludes to common themes of his - personal freedom and the trials and tribulations of artists. It's a long and laboured tale. It begins with John Brown the painter entering the café Rotonde, famous and popular haunt of artists of the time. Brown's extravagant persona is described as a new phenomenon, "Le Roi Charles." He had a high-pitched drawling super-Oxford accent, in general appearance "a sort of fair-haired, anaemic, modern translation of one of Vandyke's posed portraits." Brown was followed by a "huge companion" met in Serbia and staying with him in Paris. He was dressed in a coarse overcoat and a pointed sheepskin cap. He had a dark face "carved out into muscular shapes, deep-set morose eyes, and a long black moustache." Jan Gordon had first

A century ago, Jan Gordon published an entertaining short story set in a Parisian cafe. It's in Blackwoods, volume 213, pg. 362-387. The story is about a serving maid who had cut her thumb, roughly bandaged it and cheerfully continued with her duties. Gordon paints a vivid word picture of the cafe, its patron and his Madame, the characters of the various customers and contrasts the experience of dining in London and Paris. He also weaves in elements of his experience in Serbia during the First World War. It begins with, “ The girl had hurt her thumb and had it tied up in a piece of rag which had already become soiled and grimy from contact with the dishes. " She carried the plates coiled in her left arm and handed them out with her uninjured left hand. " She ran happily to and fro, now slicing a piece of bread from the metre-long French roll, which stood in its tall basket ; now seizing a chopine of red or white wine from the “zinc” ; now crying an order to the kitchen at

In the July 1920 volume of "The Strand," Jan Gordon published a short story called "Haunted Houses," illustrated by Chas. Crombie.  The story describes an encounter between a musical country vagabond and a hungry London orphan girl in an abandoned house and muses on the meaning of freedom. The tramp concludes that "if you live in brick boxes, you pay for it, that's all. Haunted - all houses are haunted, haunted by what man could a been and wasn't, by dreams left to rot - we're all haunted - every bloomin' one." The vagabond asks the girl about her home ("Brixton") and parents (no father and mother dead, looked after by her aunt when not drunk). He offers to teach her the flute and when she doesn't respond he sets off alone, playing a tune. She makes her decision and runs after him. Jan Gordon later developed this story into a novel, "Piping George," published in 1930. The book starts with the motto " Alterius no

"The Honest Man" is a clever very short story in a 1916 issue of Reedy's Mirror (from the New Witness). It begins with a lengthy sentence to set the scene: " In Montenegro, those high bare mountains between Rica and Grahavo - in the midst of which Cettinje nestles nestles in its fertile cup so ill-supplied are the farms with soil that from one acre a man might carry away on his back all the arable land available in one single journey. " Cetinje, founded in 1482, is indeed situated in an area of limestone mountains on a karst plain at about 650 m elevation. Late 19th C view of Cetinje Gordon continues with, " Hunger and the Montenegrin are sons of the same soil to which liberty has a near cousinship ." Hence the need to seek work in other lands. A protagonist in the story travels across the region, enriching himself by a robbery, eventually marrying and settling in Russian Galicia. The couple prospered, but died without any offspring, leaving an "

Dazzle painting of ships has fascinated many since its first deployment during WW1, spawning numerous articles, books and imitations. The artist and writer Jan Gordon was one of the original protagonists; he designed dazzle patterns, wrote about the principles and practice of the art, and remembered those days fondly when later dedicating one of his books to a dazzle painting colleague,  Steven Spurrier. One of the dazzle designs produced by Jan Gordon was that for HMS Southampton and I discuss below the available information on this design. I also recently bought the book " A Naval Lieutenant 1914-1918," which gives an account of the wartime experiences of the Southampton, with several contemporary comments on camouflage and dazzle. Camouflage of ships in WW1 At the beginning of WW1 in 1914 , Stephen King-Hall (as "Etienne"), serving on HMS Southampton ,  recalled,  " After the big sweep we all went to Loch Ewe to coal, and here I remember noticing the ba

Colour Magazine in February 1921 carried an article by Jan Gordon on "The Colour of Spain." Delightfully for me, the first picture shown in the article, "La Rambla" by Cora Gordon, is of a painting that currently hangs on one of our walls. It successfully evokes the heat and sunlight of southern Spain. The Gordons recorded their impressions of southern Spain in two very enjoyable books, ""Poor Folk in Spain" (1922) and "Misadventures with a Donkey" (1924).  In the article, Jan Gordon considers Spain to be a painter's paradise, though not without its difficulties. He writes, "T o the painter, as human being, Spain has serious defects ." These included  prickly heat, thirst and the effects of drinking " water none too pure " and,  " Old Father Sol drives away the man where the artist would linger ." He adds that, " Dust, flies, vermin, and a courteous but over talkative population, add to the painter