“The Little Match Girl” Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne) is a Danish fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a young girl who dies selling matches during the cold winter. It was first published in 1848 as part of his fifth volume of Nye Eventyr (New Fairy Tales) as “Den Lille Pige Med Svovlstikkerne” (“The Little Girl with the Sulfursticks”).
It was night on New Year’s Eve, and a poor, little match girl was out on the streets selling matches. Although she was cold and hungry, with neither hat nor shoes, she was afraid to go home as her father would surely beat her when he found out she did not sell any matches that day.
In a nook between two buildings, she wanted to warm herself by lighting matches. In the light of the first match she saw a hot iron stove, but the fire was soon blown out by the howling wind. She lit a second match and saw a fully laden dinner table with delicious foods. (Wikipedia)
This story is my most favourite fairy tale of all time and it moves me to tears to read this sad story with such a sad ending. The tale makes me think with empathy and compassion on people less fortunate than we are these days and it makes me help them actively. Here is the rest of the story in this link. Wikipedia article on the fairy tale is this:
“The Little Match Girl” Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne) is a Danish fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a young girl who dies selling matches during the cold winter. It was first published in 1848 as part of his fifth volume of Nye Eventyr (New Fairy Tales) as “Den Lille Pige Med Svovlstikkerne” (“The Little Girl with the Sulfursticks”). It was night on New Year’s Eve, and a poor, little match girl was out on the streets selling matches.
Although she was cold and hungry, with neither hat nor shoes, she was afraid to go home as her father would surely beat her when he found out she did not sell any matches that day. In a nook between two buildings, she wanted to warm herself by lighting matches. In the light of the first match she saw a hot iron stove, but the fire was soon blown out by the howling wind. She lit a second match and saw a fully laden dinner table with delicious foods. (Wikipedia)
And here is a You Tube silent black & white movie on this book:
He was born Pierce Brendan Brosnan on the 16th of May, 1953, in Navan, County Meath. Popularly known as An Uaimh, it’s about 30 miles north-west of Dublin, just inland from Drogheda. His father, Thomas, was a carpenter who left mother, May before Pierce was a year old. Needing a career to support her son, May travelled to London to train as a nurse, leaving young Pierce with her parents. Sadly, when he was 6, both grandparents died, so he was moved on to stay with relatives. He recalls spending lots of time in his aunt’s pub, feeling lonely and abandoned. “But maybe that’s where the acting comes from”, he says “from spending so much time alone with your thoughts”.
Pierce was enrolled at Elliott Comprehensive, and here it was rough.Though six feet tall by the age of 11, he was still bullied for being Irish – Irish was, in fact, his nickname. Painfully aware of his difference, he schooled himself in the London accent, becoming more of a Cockney than a Navan country-boy. Having to study his peers, copy their movements and voices, would stand him in good stead later.
YUP, I am talking about him! The video is an ad he did and it short, sharp and shows his good looks too so swell. Some more recent background on Pierce Brosnan:
He is an Irish actor and producer best known for portraying James Bond in four films from 1995 to 2002: GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day. Since leaving the role, Brosnan has gone on to star in films such as Evelyn and Seraphim Falls. In 1996, he also formed, along with Beau St. Clair, a Los Angeles-based production company named Irish DreamTime. His current projects include Butterfly on a Wheel, Mamma Mia! and The Thomas Crown Affair 2.
On September 23, 2004, Brosnan became a naturalized citizen of the United States, but he has retained his Irish citizenship. Brosnan has said that “my Irishness is in everything I do. It’s the spirit of who I am, as a man, an actor, a father. It’s where I come from.” (Wikipedia)
Brosnan was asked by a fan if it annoyed him when people get his nationality confused. He said: “It amuses me in some respects that they should confuse me with an Englishman when I’m dyed-in-the-wool, born and bred Irishman…I don’t necessarily fly under any flag. But no, it doesn’t bother me.”
Brosnan also raises money for charitable causes through sales of his paintings. He trained early on as an artist, but later shifted to theatre; during his first wife’s terminal illness, he withdrew from acting to be with her and took up painting again for therapeutic reasons, producing colorful landscapes and family portraits. He has continued painting since then, using spare time on set and at home. Profits from sales of giclée prints of his works are given to a trust to benefit “environmental, children’s and women’s health charities.” Here is the link to the online Gallery of his paintings.
Incident time again as I am reminded of these incidents that have happened to me or around me and of which I do have a vast collection.
The flights to Helsinki from Dublin used be an all-day affair because at that time there were no direct flights so we either went from Dublin via London or Amsterdam on the first plane. Then we had to take another flight to Copenhagen and/or Stockholm* and yet another as in a third/fourth flight on to Helsinki. Also, many a time we would take a fourth/fifth flight straight away to Oulu which is a town in Northern Finland as well.
So it was very handy to see half the Europe in one foul swoop! Then on the way back the same procedure. It required huge amounts of stamina and a happy disposition to be able to stick all these flights and the delays and whatnot.
This incident happened at the Copenhagen airport – so it was our 4th flight to board that day one after the other. The girls and I were waiting at the gate for our flight from Copenhagen to Dublin when I was sitting a bit further away from the girls as there were no free seats near them being totally engrossed in my own thoughts – wrecked so I was
– when Heli suddenly says to me:
“Look Mum, we got Bon-Bons** with nuts from this nice girl!”
“That’s great as you are so nutty yourselves,” says I.
“Oh, don’t say that Mum or I will crack up! ” – says Heli, six-years-old at the time.
It took just a second or two ’til Becki, Heli and I realized the joke in what had been said and we were having a very merry moment laughing when the girl who gave the sweets suddenly bursts into her own merriment when it went ‘Eureka!’ for her, too!
Never a dull moment in me life. Tis for now. Riihele xx.
* A lot of the times we did: Dublin-London-Copenhagen-Stockholm-Helsinki, that is: four flights in one go. Then the same thing vice versa back home to Ireland.
** Bon-Bon is a candy that often has a center of fondant, fruit, or nuts and is coated with chocolate or fondant. (The Free Dictionary) Picture is off the net.
PS. The girls used to thrive travelling – still do – and thought that it was so cool to get all these toys and games that the airlines gave to the youngsters to keep them occupied during the flights. You can see by the sheer number of the flights just how many they would get – a set of games & toys per each flight multiplied by the times we boarded a plane! Bagfuls of them; so much so that they would donate to their friends and cousins on either end.
“Twice a year inCarrickmacross and surrounding towns a fair was held where men and girls rented their labour to well-to-do farmers for six months. It was Ireland’s version of the slave market.”
(Patrick Kavanagh ‘The Hired Boy’) As you know by my blogs, that I do have varied interests in life and the living all the way from fashion, humour, blondes & photos, even frogs et funerals to anything in-between to the more serious matters of current affairs, politics and policies, so here is a more serious one on this Children’s Day in Finland. This is an updated entry of autumn 2006.
A Few Facts on the Child Labour/Slavery:
Child labour is a pervasive problem throughout the world, especially in developing countries. Africa and Asia together account for over 90 percent of total child employment. (World Bank Org.)
Children work the longest hours and are the worst paid of all labourers (The International Labour Office ILO in the World Bank Study Bequele and Boyden 1988).
Just 5 per cent of child labour worldwide is for the export industry. The rest is for local agriculture and domestic work in people’s homes. (The International Labour Organisation estimate)
One in eight children (179 million) around the world are involved in the worst forms of child labour – work which is hazardous to their physical, mental or moral well being. (The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimate. BBC article(old) estimate 246 million (from years ago).
In Africa one in three children have jobs.
There are an estimated 500,000 child soldiers worldwide.
CHILD LABOR: ISSUES, CAUSES AND INTERVENTION (World Bank Org.)
I did some research into the matter, so I decided to compile a few thoughts and facts on the same. First of all, it is not a new phenomenon but has been since time immemorial in almost every country in the world. We in the Western Europe do not have it blatantly into our face presently, but nevertheless it is there, as more and more of these children are smuggled into our towns and even into our neighbourhoods.
Secondly, as we see from the Facts above that I listed: only 5 per cent of the child labour is involved with the export business in the countries, the rest being in the domestic trades in their respective nations. This piece of news is most certainly ‘news’ to me for I have thought that the children would have been the main slave labour for producing export goods.
Anybody who has read/seen the films about the Dickens’ books like ‘Oliver Twist’is acutely aware that the west has had their share of the children being treated as ‘nothing, nobody’ until the compulsory education, the child allowance and the general benevolence towards children became more of the norm. I am using that expression because as we know the child abuse is still rather widespread – but just in another way. The opening quote on this entry by Patrick Kavanagh was true to many other nations’ children in the times past, including Finland. Even more facts:
The International Labour Organization in 2005 estimated at least 2.4 million people have been trafficked.
The United Nations estimates that 1.5 million children under 16 are trafficked worldwide each year. (Daily Telegraph article online 4.6.2006)
With the LEADERS of these nations who have the power to change the circumstances of these children through the legislation via education to empower them. Also, the children’s allowance et cetera to make it worthwhile, so that the parents need not ‘sell’ or be forced to ‘hand over’ their children to this slavery. (It is the relatives in many cases who are forced to hand in the children as pawns for life because of debts accumulated.) There is no excuse to say that there are no funds; I will not buy into that as other nations have done it with the means that they had at the time e.g. Finland from 1948 started to pay children’s allowance even though it was only three years after the wars while at the same time still paying both to Russia (reparation) and USA (loan) huge amounts of money and after losing tens of thousands of men in their best working age at the WWII. 2.)
The International Community at large through e.g. organizations* to implement pressure on the leadership in these nations to stop treating their young worse than cattle and give them life as a human beings fully participating in their own life and living.
( aka *ILO, World Bank, UNICEF et cetera)
I have already quoted articles by The World Bank, ILO – The International Labor Organisation et cetera – meaning: they know the problem and it is the high time to do something about it all instead just compiling more figures of the same!!
There are other things as the international business and manufacturing industry that many mentioned in the comments previously: yes shame and name them.
This will solve the other 5 per cent of the actual problem.
NOTICE:
Only 5 per cent of the children are made to work in the export trade. That means that the 95 per cent are not. (These figures by ILO = The International Labour Organisation).
Child Matters pun in the name is this that a CHILD DOES MATTER; and also ‘matters’ as in subjects, issues, items, topics, questions and things concerning children.
This beautiful manor, Lövstabruk, in Upper Uppland in Sweden was built from the 1600´s to the 1800´s in the likeness to Versailles in Paris. It lies just over 100 km north of Stockholm and 45 km north of Uppsala. Lövstabruk Manor House was plundered and burned in 1719 but was rebuilt building by building during the following decades. (Unfortunately, all those lovely photos and texts in the links highlighted are only in Swedish, for in English there is a totally different page that comes up!) Did you notice that there is even a variation to my photo on these Pelargoniums on the page?
This manor has the honour of being very much in the fore-front of the industry of melting first class iron that laid the foundation on the wealth of Sweden. Walloonbruk in Uppland is a region of unique, historic, industrial sites. Beautiful environments, excellent cuisine and lodgings at the inns and manors, the site tells about this fabulous place.
An industrial village where natural resources are processed is called a ”bruk” in Swedish. Within the Uppland region all the necessary raw materials for iron production were available: ore from the Dannemora mines, forests for charcoal, and water for powering blast furnaces and forges. More than thirty ironworks were established in the region. These ”vallonbruk” derive their name from the skilled workers who came to Sweden from Liege region in Walloonia of present day Belgium. The craftsmen were brought here by far-seeing industrial entrepreneurs, among them Louis De Geer, who recognized the value of their professional skills. Walloon forging was the principal iron working method here from the early 17th century until the early 20th century. The vallonbruks bar iron was for many years the finest quality available in the world, and much of the production was exported with the greater part going to England.
The bruks were much more than factories. They were complete miniature societies where many people worked and spent their entire lives. Working conditions were hard, but the management also took responsibility for the workers social welfare. Today most of the vallonbruks are well-preserved, unique tourist attractions and a few still maintain world-leading metal industries.
This the photo that I took of the Main House in Lövstabruk Manor which is located near Uppsala – the Athens of Sweden.
The large photo is my entry on thePICTURE PERFECTtheme ‘REPETITION’ – the photo does bear repetition, methinks!
Those of you who have been following my blogs know that I was/am rather lively of myself like jumping off moving trains, jumping off a ski jump and such things; in other words not so ladylike, eh?!! Well, let me tell you that, when I was in my early to mid-teens I started to collect pictures off the magazines with styles of fashions, clothes and so on for many years. Then in my late teens I went through my vast collection of pictures and put aside the ones which still appealed to me at that stage. And guess what, my preferred style in fashion was LADYLIKE!! I remember saying to my Mum: “Ooh if I only was older so that I could wear it!” Mum’s reaction: rolling her eyes, actually!
Audrey Hepburn has been one my trendsetters that I did an entry some while back and now I’m going to write a few things on Jackie O, who has been on my list of fashion trendsetters for a very long time, and I still think that her style is elegance and chic personified. Here is a link to Jackie O-style jacket that is high fashion even this season.
Some background on JACKIE O (1929-1994): She was born Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, daughter of John Vernon Bouvier III and his wife, Janet Lee. Her early years were divided between New York City and East Hampton, Long Island, where she learned to ride almost as soon as she could walk. She was educated at the best of private schools; she wrote poems and stories, drew illustrations for them, and studied ballet.
To the role of First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy brought beauty, intelligence, and cultivated taste. Her interest in the arts, publicized by press and television, inspired an attention to culture never before evident at a national level. She devoted much time and study to making the White House a museum of American history and decorative artsas well as a family residence of elegance and charm. But she defined her major role as “to take care of the President” and added that “if you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.” A quote of hers that I have used a lot on my entries, for I think that it sums it all up so very well, actually. Source: The White House: First Ladies
She was First Lady for only a thousand days, but Jackie Kennedy will always hold a special place in our hearts. It all began with her 1953 marriage to the dashing senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy. As a couple they epitomized the arrival of a new generation of American leadership; their years in the White House have been immortalized as “Camelot.”
As First Lady, Jackie organized receptions and dinners notable for their elegance. Her streamlined gowns and suits sent fashion spinning. She created a Fine Arts Committee to assist her in documenting and renovating the décor of the White House. Her television tour introduced 80 million Americans to the White House and won her an Emmy Award. Source: Womenshistory.about.com.
From the moment she set off on the campaign trail in 1960 as a young senator’s wife, Jacqueline Kennedy had a rapt audience in American women. The pillbox, worn despite the fact that she abhorred hats, was only the beginning: Plastic surgeons reported that many women were visiting them in search of the Jackie “nose bob”; college girls everywhere affected Jackie’s breathy voice and patrician accent: There was something about Jackie. Source: Style.com
Jackie was a beautiful and elegant young woman, and when she made her social debut the Hearst newspaper gossip columnist named her Debutante of 1947. Jackie Kennedy was only 31 years old when she became First Lady . She was a popular First Lady, known for her elegant sophistication and her historical interest in the White House. Source: Answers.com
Jackie Owas so very young when she became the First Lady for only a thousand days that is until her husband was assassinated in Dallas thatfateful day in November 22, 1963. I remember reading about her and how she was cast into the mould of widow for life – like a German magazine put it, translated into English: ‘The Widow of the World’ (Das Witwe Der Welt) When she married Aristotle Onassis in 1968, the goodwill that she had gained over the years was nigh lost for good, and I think that she never quite managed to regain it ever again.
Here is a You Tube tribute to Jackie O with the most haunting Celtic tune sung by Enya in ‘May It Be’:
“I am a woman above everything else.”
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
And why she had to underline this fact, I think is, that she first and foremost was a real person and not an icon above any other title or status she had ever had in life.
What thoughts come to your mind reading this entry today?
Tis for now. Riihele xx
I read several extracts on the life of Jackie O online of the book that is called ’America’s Queen: A Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis,’ by Sarah Bradford, published by Viking (The Times online)
And I came to understand the ‘what was what’ in her life so much better. I will be getting this book for I want to read it all; it is that excellent. I have also read other books on Jackie O over the years but this one seems to sum them all up in a beautiful way, methinks.
Although there are many trial marriages… there is no such thing as a trial child. (Gail Sheehy)
Giving birth is compared to running a full marathon. Maybe, as I have never heard this before by anybody, but could it not be said that, the baby who is trying to be born also is running her/his own mini-marathon! I really do think that it is so. It does require so very much energy and stamina to bring it about for both the mother and the child. It was in the antenatal classes in Ireland that this fact about the marathon for the mother was told to us by our trainer, who was a midwife and a mother of six. Here is a link to the Baby University.com. Yes, there is such a thing! The baby with the mortar board on his head looks absolutely cute & clever.
The one thing that the newly-baked mama herself is in great need of more than nearly anything else is one’s own mum in fact. This is the time that she needs the most assurance and advice – that she is doing the right thing with this little totally helpless creature. Things like: what to do in times of crisis – yes, one needs one’s own mama more than any other time in one’s life! My Mum died very young, just three months before my first daughter was born, actually. My paternal Granny had died ten days before my mum, so there was a double funeral for them in Finland which I could not make because I had had the risk of miscarriage for the entire nine months and was not allowed to fly. Then the obstetrician gave me permission a week later after the funeral had been to fly over to Finland. The year after my Mom and Granny had died while I was expecting my second daughter, my younger brother was killed in a traffic accident in Finland which made it all so much tougher. I associate giving new life with death, in fact because of this.
I do not take having the girls in any way for granted because the ‘road’ to have them was paved with unbelievable obstacles all the way; even at the delivery there were never the guarantee that they and I would come out of it all in tact and alive! Not once. I gave birth to a dead baby and that ranks as the saddest of the saddest things that have happened to me, ever. I would have loved to have sons as well, but them I lost in miscarriages.
It is a funny as odd thing that one gets these repeated false labour alarms and then they reverse in the last minute and stop completely, but then when the real thing comes, it comes with a bang and there is no turning back. So when the birth got really going, I had to make my way to the Rotunda Hospital because the waters had broken – the oldest maternity hospital in the world for it was founded in 1745. Such an apt name for a maternity hospital, methinks. One goes in rather rotund and comes out lean. The delivery itself would not get going the right way so I was put into an annex in the hospital where there was a whole bunch of all the social classes in a jumbled mix and I was attached to a drip with hormone Oxytocin* – that is supposed to speed up the delivery. Sounds snobbish to talk about the ‘classes’ but it is so. Yes indeed, the class division system in Ireland is very well and alive, in every way: hospitals, housing, education – you name it!!
The mixture was a colourful circus as anything: the one mum that I do remember very clearly is this one who was just about to give birth – finally – and to be rolled into the delivery room, when her sister and mother came in with the ‘glinkety-glinkety’ sounding bags into the ward at the non-visiting hours of the day and said to the poor thing while giving a hefty slap on the back of her, even though she was already doubled-up with the sheer agony and pain:
“Have you produced anything yet? We came to celebrate!!”
She could not reply them at all. Don’t remember what the nurses said to them but out they eventually were ushered out by the staff.
When my agony finally came to an end after a day and a half – I said to himself straight after the delivery that:
‘Funny, that the music has just been put on?!’
‘Oh no’, said he, ‘it has been on the whole time!’
I had not heard a thing until the very end of the end! So – the music is not there to soothe the nerves of the mamas but the papas & the staff!
“Now the thing about having a baby –
and I can’t be the first person to have noticed this –
is that thereafter you have it.”
(Jean Kerr)
Tis for now. Riihele – in the reminiscing mode. xx
* the word ‘oxytocin’ is from the Greek word ‘oxutokia’ meaning ‘sudden delivery’ (as oxy- =sharpness and tokos = ‘childbirth’) Well, it sure caused the birthing to be sharp, don’t know so much about the ‘sudden’ as it was an age before the Baby finally popped out!!
‘A House without an Animal is Not a Home’.
(My own guote.)
This Beautiful Madame in the photo above is Becki’s cat, the 20-year-old, Suzie Q, who is posing and sitting pretty as a pro model. Even the known cat-haters have admitted that Suzie is the prettiest pussy they ever saw!! She takes all this admiration with an admirable coolness of a renowned and recognized beauty.
Suzie is a mighty mixture of the cat personalities that The Purina, in their online site, describes as The Boss and The Diva. She holds the command in many ways: the goings and comings of hers are totally in her own control, she will NOT be bunged out. Nope – no way Jose!!
When Suzie gets a bit peckish at any hour day or night – one just has to oblige her Ladyship. Otherwise, she will bang the doors off their hinges. At least, she will try, and nobody but no body will get any sleep or peace until she is attended to. At least, she will try, and nobody but no body will get any sleep or peace until she is attended to. Suzie was adopted by Becki seventeen years ago, when the Pud would have been about two years of age. The neighbours, whose cat Suzie was originally, totally neglected her, and she was in a terrible state when we took her on. The vets bills were enormous at the time just to get her sorted so that she could be an indoor cat.
Ever since then Suzie Q has been an one woman cat – Becki’s. She will hardly take any notice of me once the food is served on her dish and she will give me a polite nod for ‘Thank you’ if she feels like giving me some attention! At present, I do not take care of her as she still lives in Ireland and I am not. Becki has even taught her to sit down at command to get her dinner, and Suzie is only too happy to obey her favourite person on earth.
A snippet ofof what Becki wrote about Suzie Q – The Diva:
I have loved all the cats that we have had. Each one has their own personality but there is one special lady that I am the closest with: Suzie. In the words of Tigger “we’re closer than teeth and gums.”
She came into my life when I was about eight years old and I knew straight away she was going to be my girl but my parents didn’t agree. They thought that we don’t have room, money or time to take on another cat. I used to sneak Suzie in, feed her and if I couldn’t bring her in I would go out and stand in the rain as a protest that if Suzie couldn’t come in then I’ll stay out with her. My stubbornness eventually worked and I got my way. My dad and I went to the owners and asked if we could have her. They agreed and 16 years later she’s still my girl.
My mum always says that Suzie knows I fought for her and that she remains loyal to me. In the early days she would scare my little sister and her friends and be very demanding (i.e. food, food, food) to my mum and dad. Now it’s funny to see the change in her from a feisty young lady to a big softy. Her newest demand now is cuddles ALL the time. I had a friend visit lately and she was puzzled to see that I and Suzie have the same “looks”. She asked, “Who taught who”, meaning some of our expressions that I and Suzie have are alike. I don’t actually know. I guess I learnt them from her. Funny that.”
”Yep, you and Suzie are ‘like 2 peas-in- a pod’ – you always were, hey.”
Me Newsy - Letters 
