Boarding @ Home: Day 44/84: Tapestry Tapes - their secrets revealed & National Sandwich Day

CDs really not tapes; but they holds musical secrets alright. Ian Green, retired police officer with a fascination for Scottish traditional music has devoted his second career to building the country's top name - Greentrax. He just happened to have his workshops one floor below Andrew Crummy at Cockenzie School now a suite of studios. Knowing what we've been about he suggested CDs to accompany each tapestry would be welcomed and set to the task. The 1745 CD contains all the songs you'd expect including Davvy Steele's Johnnie Cope, Coreen Scott singing Lady Frances Gardiner's Lament and our own embroiderers Pibroch - the Panel Beaters! These two great collections are readily available from our own Boutique.

National Sandwich Day … 4th Earl of Sandwich staked his claim. Avril and I forever chrestomathic, devoted to learning useful matters. Here goes …. even though there had seemingly been food served in a similar manner long before the 4th Earl his claim appears to be probably true. The sandwich was indeed named after him and he hailed from an eponymous town in Kent. The Earl was ordering his food in this form as he was very busy gambling and didn’t want to interrupt it just to go for lunch. The press report read: “A Minister of State passed four and twenty hours at a public gaming-table, so absorpt in play that, during the whole time, he had no subsistence but a bit of beef, between two slices of toasted bread, which he eat without ever quitting the game. This new dish grew highly in vogue, and was called by the name of the Minister who invented it.” So, what were sandwiches called before the 4th Earl of Sandwich since they have been around since the 1st century B.C.? Certainly not hoagies - see more below! Today's 11th Earl of Sandwich has worked successfully with US partners to develop a chain of stores there of which the most successful is at Disney. Its merchandise is pictured below. The Earl lives today in Dorset, of course, at Mapperton House, near Bearminster. Viscountess Hinchingbrooke, Julie Montagu, whose husband Luke is heir to the Earldom, hails from Sugar Grove, Illinois and works in tv with Studio 10. She is pictured below next to the 4th Earl and today leads Guided Tours at Mapperton.


Sir Sidney Montagu was created 1st Earl by King Charles II at his Restoration in 1660 because Montagu had made early contact and commanded the fleet that had brought the King back in May from exile. He had been a consistent supporter of Oliver Cromwell but the disastrous rule of his son Richard convinced him the Stuarts must return. He had the distinction of being elected MP for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in 1660 - the latter a Crown Borough from King Edward I since 1280.
It's also National Hoagie Day. You must eat a sandwich …. In 1992 Ed Rendell, then Mayor of Philadelphia, later Governor of Pennsylvania, declared the hoagie the Official Sandwich of Philadelphia. A hoagie is a sandwich that the Earl of Sandwich might countenance although seldom beef. This particularly named nourishing delight seems to have its origins in the late 19th/ early 20th century among the Italian community in South Philadelphia. The phrase “on the hoke” was used as slang to describe a destitute person to whom Deli owners gave away scraps of meat and cheese on an Italian roll known as a “hokie” which Italian immigrants pronounced as “hoagie.” Alternately it could have originated with early 20th-century street vendors called “hokey-pokey-men”. So how to celebrate? Time for Corned Beef fritters it seems to me …..we have the beef from last week's Click & Collect from Tesco's. Deck of cards in hand, like that 4th Earl, and is that the joker I see?