Jane Wickenden / Jane Stemp

@janevsw.bsky.social

435 Followers 147 Following

Retired rare books librarian, formerly Institute of Naval Medicine civvy, thwarted medievalist, enthusiast of history, cooking, words and singing, writer, occasional poet, permanently on wheels; married to retired PO (Comms) RNR, signal engineer, bass.

Holnest church, solitary in a flowery graveyard with trees behind. Tents are awnings for the providers of tea.
Green hillside, blue sky, grass heads,.fence post and Cerne Abbas giant white on the hillside.
HMS Eclair 1840s. Two masted paddle steamer with mostly fore and aft sails. Contemporary engraving.
Creamy English musk rose, a single blooming opening from a spray of buds, among green leaves
A single pale pink wild rose among green leaves under a blue sky
Monochrome photo of words in question, dreadful handwriting.
Small girl with short dark hair, sitting on the ground facing left and stroking a black kitten facing right.
Pink may blossom and green leaves against a blue sky.
View of fields & distant mountains & cloudy sky & branches seen through 16-paned sash window
'Burning the Books' on a bookshelf, front cover upwards.
Eight chocolate cornflake nests, each in a paper case in an old-fashioned patty pan and topped with 3 coloured mini eggs (except top right, where the 2 eggs are obscured by a fluffy yellow chick ornament)
The 9-lancet east window of the Abbey, filled with stained glass and set in sandstone under a ceiling of fan vaulting. The paler section beneath it is the reredos. A bare wooden cross has been propped, slanted leftward, on the altar table, which has been stripped bare of cloth and candles. Projecting towards the viewer on left and right are the double-banked wooden choir-stalls.
My mum, in the doorway of the house where I grew up.
Left: Chiming. Lady in big blouse, big hair, big skirt,.with foot in loop of rope attached to sally of bell-rope (*not* best practice!) Right: An accident. Same lady? Off the ground, arms flung up, legs flung back, rope wrapped round her and loop loose (demonstrating why the previous was not best practice!).
Ink scrawl on paper, text as in post.
Feby 14 Chased a schooner found to be English from Liverpool 34 days out Rumour of wars in England about the ^new^ Scotch banking system introduced by the Government and ^of^ a Change of Ministry the former probably exaggerated – the latter unfounded, as the ???? is most flourishing and not a word in any papers against the government – even Ireland is quiet.
Fiery sunset with cloud over black trees.
South choir aisle looking east
Dark cloud above a gap of orange sunset, cement factory silhouetted left, pine trees right, foreground dark.
Tabby cat curled up on an air vent: labelled HMS KENT CAT SAUSAGE.
Mouse in a humane trap, facing right, trying to hide behind a piece of Weetabix
"Married at midnight - a widow at dawn - then heiress to a house of secrets." Blonde with unlikely hairdo and nightdress slipping off one shoulder has her right hand across the chest of a man shot in the left shoulder, left arm drooping and right arm across his crossed knees but still holding a pistol in that hand.
Charlotte Bronte's sketch of Anne Bronte.
European Robin, Erithacus rubecula, redbreast; seen face to face but looking slightly to the viewer's right.
Modern warship silhouette in black on blue
The West window with the sacrificial Lamb & Flag, over the west door.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone in low raking sunlight with trees in the background and other stones visible. Picture taken by me 100 years to the day after Clive's death when we visited Tournai.
Peanuts cartoon by Schulz. 1. Snoopy, on right, typing on kennel roof. Charlie Brown, on left, speaks: I hear you're writing a book on theology. 2. Charlie Brown, facing left, speaks: I hope you have a good title. 3. Snoopy, head lifted, eyes closed, thought bubble: I have the perfect title... 4. Snoopy, typing, "Has It Ever Occurred to You That You Might Be Wrong?"
1 cup brown sugar, ½ cup butter or other shortening, melted, 2 cups rolled oats, 1 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp salt. Add sugar to melted butter & stir until sugar dissolved. Add remaining ingredients & mix well. Pour into a well-greased shallow pan & bake in moderate oven (350°F) for 30 minutes. When cool cut into squares.
Writing in ink on grey paper as transcribed above.
Letter on blue paper as transcribed in post
Three young men in Royal Navy junior rates' rig, navy jumper with square collar and white lanyard.
3 pm, Sunday 21 September, St Stephen's Church, Winsham, Chard: the Stanchester Quire singing songs of love & courtship. Refreshments in the interval, collection at the end.
A screen "Learning in the job? Medical officers in naval hospital ships during World War One." / Edward Wawrzynczak [portrait above] & Jane Wickenden [ditto] / BSHM Congress, University of Leeds / 10-13 September 2025. Edward Wawrzynczak is standing at the lectern, lower right.
Monochrome: the Seven Sisters beyond the clifftop and the coastguard cottages, with sun-rays bursting through the clouds above and making a trail of light on the rippled water of the bay.
In the diamond tracery of a window lancet, a three-masted sailing ship with high fore- and after-castles.
Naval officer facing right, arms down holding telescope. Cat couchant regardant, showing its left side, on his head. Evidently on the upper deck, near a line of davits. An arm is reaching from the left – trying to attract the cat's attention?
Monochrome - A tabby cat in comfort on the top of a ventilation shaft.
Small glass of dark rum on a darker table.
Quotation including "under his tarred Brab hat."
Head and shoulders of my mum in bright sunshine aboard STS Tenacious in front of the ship's lifebuoy. She has short grey hair and is wearing a white tee-shirt, sunglasses and a cheery smile. It is 2006 and she was 68.
Screenshot of online map instructing right turn from Pilgrims Way to Ovenden Rd (Kent).
Slantwise view of limestone memorial on grassy clifftop with sea and information board in background. Sidon Memorial in capitals at top with ship's badge flanked by list of names and explanation of accident below.
Blue shirt, white beard, smiling 😀
Baby Dad, probably 1936
Peregrine falcon on my gloved wrist against a background of dry grass.
Verbal garbage
A three-quarter view of a clean-shaven young man, against a dark and cloudy background.
Twelve golden-brown biscuits on a cooling rack, somewhat cracked, with pale dots of porridge oats.
Low sunlight strikes across a bunch of scented narcissi (orange centres, yellow outer petals, long green stems) in a dim room.
Unicorn atop a pillar and clutching St Andrew's saltire.
Golden sunset over Hive Beach, Dorset, with sandstone cliff looming on the right.
A cluster of tiny white blossoms back-lit by low sunlight among shadows and green leaves, their filaments and anthers showing like fine thread with knots of pollen at the end.
"Torture Chamber Unsuitable For Wheelchair Users"
Green grass, brown wall, yellow primroses.
Pancake flat out on Portmeirion Botanic Garden plate.
10 welshcakes, slightly singed, on a bakestone. Pice ar y maen = cake on the stone.
A pair of feet (toenails varnished) in dark slippers held on by a single strip of ridiculously fluffy fabric. For some reason a necklace is lying to the right.
A bearded white-haired man in a blue shirt cutting an iced cake with two candles, 9+0, lit.
Single snowdrop blooming in gravel.