Cherry Potts, Writer

Author: Cherry Potts

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 15th January

    Today we are lighting the candles on the cake for author Mazo de la Roche, born Louise Roche in 1879 in Canada. Mazo was the author of the Jalna novels, and said that the (male) character Finch was based on herself. She lived with Caroline Clement for 75 years. Caroline was an orphaned cousin adopted…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 14th January

    Today’s birthday belongs to Jane Welsh Carlyle, 1801-1869. The only thing that makes one place more attractive to me than another is the quantity of heart I find in it. So, if you look Jane up on the web, you might wonder what she’s doing here, one of those archetypal good wives, you might think,…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 13th January

    Today’s birthday girl is the ‘Last of the Red Hot Mamas’ – Sophie Tucker 1884-1966 A Vaudeville and Broadway star of her time, who started out (not her idea) blacked up, Sophie ‘came out’ as a nice jewish girl when her makeup box was stolen on the way to a gig. The audience was delighted…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 12th January

    No famous birthday today, but three for tomorrow so let’s celebrate Carolyn Gold Heilbrun (aka Amanda Cross) January 13, 1926 – October 9, 2003 a day early. She’d probably quite like getting in early, she never was one for conventions. Described as the Mother of feminist academia (personally not sure I’d want to be described as…

  • Orpheus and Eurydice at the Platform

    Come and watch/listen to English Pocket Opera Company‘s production of Gluck’s masterpiece, Orpheus & Eurydice. 21st – 26th January, at the Platform Theatre, Central St Martin’s, Handyside Street King’s Cross London N1C 4AA Short sharp and sweet, we’ll take you to hell and back, with the eccentric story of Orpheus I don’t think I will…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 11th January

    Another date with no dame. So here is Jane Anger. Possibly a pseudonym, possibly her real name, but whoever she was she had a way with words once she got a head of steam on, and went into print in 1589 in  defence of women, in response to a scurrilous pamphlet, defiantly entitling her broadsheet…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 10th January

    That enchantress, Abigail Hill Masham. Here’s a nice obscure lesbian for you – no birthdate, (best guess 1670’s) but sufficiently influential because of her relationship with Queen Anne to have caused quite a furore in her lifetime. If you know anything about Queen Anne and her female friends, then it is probably Sarah Churchill you…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 9th January

    January 9th – Simone de Beauvoir‘s birthday, but she’s not invited to the party. Sometimes you know too much about a person to find them appealing. Instead, let’s have Aisha bint Ahmed al-Qurtubiyya I’ve no idea when her birthday is, as she was born in Córdoba, Spain in 965 and died in either 999 or…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 8th January

    Sound the Trumpets for Bathsua Reginald Makin, another woman of unknown birthdate, some time around 1608. A child prodigy who spoke mulitple languages and published at the age of sixteen. (You’d think that would make it easier to guess her birthday wouldn’t you). A very clever woman and an excellent self publicist, she became tutor…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 7th January

    No-one is owning up to being born on 7th January, so another ‘who knows?’ And because it’s wild weather I thought we’d go for a pirate. Mary Read. Cross-dressing lover of Anne Bonny, and several men, a proper swashbuckler, served in the King’s army, ran a pub and later became a pirate, but no one…