John Burke's a-Musings

Fun in Bed

2012-02-06T17:01:00.000Z

Miss Franny had been upstairs for quite a while and came down with a twinkle in her eye...

"We can have some fun in bed tonight!" she announced, bringing raised eyebrows and a smile to my face.

"Bring your crayons," she continued, "and we can colour in the duvet...!"

"Paradise Reborn" - The Billy Fury Way!

2012-02-05T22:10:00.001Z

From Pierre Petrou, Head of Media, billyfury.com

Northampton moves halfway to paradise for fans of rock legend Billy Fury next month.

The Sunnyside family-friendly pub is to host the annual "biggest Billy Fury Show on Earth" in tribute to the Liverpool-born star who died almost 30 years ago after a history of heart trouble which had dogged his stardom.

Organised by the website, billyfury.com, the event takes place at the scene of Billy Fury's last public appearance in 1982, and it raises money for the Heart Fund at Alder Hey Children's Hospital.

It is expected to attract over 200 Fury fans from all over the country and whilst the main show takes place on Saturday 17th March, many of Billy's fans have taken advantage of snapping up a weekend break.

Now in its seventh successful year, it comes at a time of renewed interest in Billy Fury, after a path was named after the singer, last July, close to where he recorded many of his biggest hits at Decca Studios in London.

An album of lost material was also released at the end of last year by the singer, who is the most successful artist of all time never to have had a UK number one.

Prices for the show are just £10.00 which currently includes over a dozen live acts, including Rob Dee, Dean & Jane Hubert, Creeping Bentgrass and Johnny Red.

Many of those snapping up the weekend break are staying at the accommodation base, The Sunley Management Centre, (which is within walking distance from The Sunnyside).

Pierre Petrou, Head of Media for billyfury.com, said, "Billy still has a very loyal following of fans who like to meet up at this gig for a very special night, remembering the man who's music gave so much pleasure.

It's a night of some very talented singers with some amazing voices, capturing the music of the sixties with passion and fondness."

He added, "Billy is a true rock 'n' roll legend, who proved to the world that British pop stars could be just as exiting as their American counterparts and the weekend brings together fans and friends who can all share their common love of this legendary icon."

Billy Fury, who's hits included, "Halfway To Paradise", "Wondrous Place", "I'd Never Find Another You", "Jealousy", "It's Only Make Believe", and "Maybe Tomorrow" was one of the most successful singer-songwriters of all time, having more hits in the 1960's than the Beatles.

Born Ronald Wycherley, he worked as a tugboat-hand after leaving school in Liverpool and at the age of 18 was signed by music impresario Larry Parnes, (today's Simon Cowell), after giving a live 'audition' at a Marty Wilde concert.

He continued to score minor hits up until his death in 1983, just as he was planning a major comeback. His last public performance at The Sunnyside in 1982 makes this event rather poignant for his fans, who will be rocking the weekend away in Fury style!

For tickets and accommodation details, please email sales@peaksoft.co.uk or call 07941 219207 to check room and ticket availability at the Sunley.

Tickets for the main show on Saturday night are just £10.00.

Currently, the line up of live acts for the main show include;

Creeping Bentgrass
Rob Dee
Russ Dee
Michelle Gibson
Geoff Howlett
Dean & Jane Hubert
Dave Jay, (MC)
Laura & Emily
Dave Michael
Johnny Red
Paul Ritchie
Roger Sea
Snowy
Alan Wilcox
Dave Wilcox

Details of the event can be found by following the link on the front page of billyfury.com

The Sunnyside is in Boughton Green Road, Northampton, NN2 7AG.

Proceeds from this event are donated to the Heart Fund at Alder Hey Children's Hospital.

For further information, please contact Pierre Petrou, Head of Media, billyfury.com, via email billyfury@jealousy.co.uk

Do You Like Surveys? (Yes or No only please)

2012-02-05T11:32:00.001Z

Reading the paper today - shows how lacksadaisical I'm feeling for a start...

Apparently the results of a survey done by a travel-related website "shows" that Britons are "rather confused" about the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Apparently one in eight claim to have seen the Colossus of Rhodes, a statue destroyed around 900 years ago. Perhaps they were thinking of that big chap who tries to entice you into his cafe for a drink after watching you wave away his neighbours who are doing exactly the same...

One in twenty say they have been to the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in Turkey. And I, folks, am one of them.

Admittedly it doesn't look much of a temple these days and the bulk of stone has been nicked from the site to build other things. The one standing column has been cobbled together from lots of bits, probably not all originally from the same pillar.

But it is undeniably there.

Three percent of people claim to have been to the Statue of Zeus at Olympia too. I am not one of those. But I have been to the site where it stood and there are again some rather large chunks left of the building that housed it.

So if I saw a survey question that said "Have you seen..." I would say no, but if I saw "Have you been to..." and it was about a relic where the remains can clearly be seen (in my view this is true of the Temple of Artemis but not of the statue) then I'd struggle to express it in terms of "yes" or "no". Have you been to Stonehenge? But that's a ruin too...

I suspect that a few of the people surveyed may have been less confused about where they had been and what they saw than were confused at the meaning of the questions - though I admit I haven't seen the survey so cannot say with any certaincy in this case.

Every time I receive a survey, almost regardless of where it comes from, there is inevitably at least one - and sometimes every - question that requires a yes/no answer that simply cannot be answered that way. It's a tactic used by some to ensure that survey results meet their own ends. People who are confused will either not answer or will forget the big "if" in their mind and select the most appropriate - which may not be appropriate at all - answer.

I am reminded of a schoolteacher who once told us about a man who had died from drinking water. He had drunk several buckets of it in fact, trying to win a bet.

So... drinking water... is it dangerous? Please answer "Yes" or "no" only...

Flying at Blackpool

2012-01-29T12:31:00.000Z

Blackpool made an early investment into powered flight. As early as 1909 they held an Air Pageant at Squires Gate following a suggestion by Lord Northwick, whose newspaper, the Daily Mail, put up money for a prize for the highest altitude attained. Blackpool Corporation themselves put up a Grand Prize of £2000.

The Grand Prize was won by Henry Farman who had flown 24 circuits of the fledgling airfield, covering over 47 miles, only giving up when the strain of controlling the aircraft in Blackpool's winds became too much physically.

The event would have been Britain's first flying pageant but for Doncaster Corporation at the last minute hastily publicising and staging an event 3 days before Blackpool's event opened on 10 October 2009.

Two years later, however, following another similar event in 1910, the land at Squires Gate was leased and a racecourse was established with the first meeting drawing crowds of 20,000. This early success was not sustained and by 1915 the site was in use as a convalescent home for soldiers from the First World War, the home continuing until 1924.

From the end of the war A.V. Roe operated pleasure flights from the beach immediately in front of the Pleasure Beach, which was itself literally on the beach at that time.

I suspect that the postcard is a fabrication, almost all of the postcards showing the Illuminations were taken in daylight and then darkened and painted with shadows from people and objects and the fact that most of the light bulbs would be the size of footballs giving the game away.

But whilst no aircraft could be lit as is suggested here, there is no doubt that they were a regular sight at Blackpool as many of the Edwardian postcards of Blackpool were obviously taken from aeroplanes flying a good deal lower than any plane would be allowed today!

The Corporation decided to ban flights from the beach after a short while, although the spectacles had also included, for a time, a flying boat called Progress (Blackpool's town motto) which landed on the sea and taxiied onto the beach to load and unload passengers to and from the Isle of Man.

Flying reverted to Squires Gate for a few years until the Corporation, eager to establish a municipal airport, were persuaded to buy land east of Stanley Park for the purpose. This land needed levelling and the Ministy of Labour "trained" unemployed men for two years on the site to develop the airport.

It included a clubhourse with restaurant and bars and an observation tower which still exist and can be seen in the background to this 1983 view of Blackpool Zoo, which was developed on the site in the 1970s.

Despite the success of Disney's Dumbo, elephants do not make good flyers and one here is being attended to by a mate after crashing and rolling on landing...

The site was fairly successful, but could not expand and by the 1930s, aeroplanes were much faster and bigger and required longer runways than could be provided.

Another company re-opened Squires Gate as an airport and won contracts with larger airlines and also to do mail runs to the Isle of Man.

The Corporation eventually sought to take over the site and transfer operations from Stanley Park, the expansion at Squires Gate causing the route to St Annes and Lytham to be suddenly halted at the Halfway House pub but the Second World War saw the site used for military purposes. A huge factory was established to build Wellington Bombers. Parts of it survive as trading and industrial estates. In the 1970s on first moving to Blackpool I worked at Warriners Cash & Carry, housed in one of the units created by the division of the factory space.

After the war there were plans for a ridiculously large airport, including a lagoon for the landing of seaplanes near Southport with road and rail tunnels under the River Ribble providing fast connections to the main Squires Gate site. None of this came to fruition as the Government kept control of airports through the Ministry of Civil Aviation following the departure of the RAF at the end of the war.

The factory turned to making Hawker Hunter jets in 1953 causing yet more Blackpool-Lytham roads to terminate and requiring the building of the current non-coastal route - Queensway - to take traffic around the new long runway required for jet aircraft.

Despite the success of the Isle of Man traffic, international and domestic flights at Blackpool continued to be outshadowed by the successs of the pleasure flight industry.

In the late 1970s and early 80s the airport was quiet enough to allow large Air Displays to be held there. I took the photo of the Flying Fortress making a low pass there during an event in 1978.

Air displays are still a feature of Blackpool's calendar, but although many aircraft use the airport as a base for the event, the displays take place over the sea. These inevitably are against the sun (if it makes an appearance) and are free to spectators as there is no way of charging people to watch over several miles of beach and Promenade. Present displays are flying displays only though, with spectators unable to walk around static displays of historic aircaft apart from very limited displays on the Promende.

Blackpool retains some of the older hangars and buildings and in the 1980s Air Atlantique were still flying DC3 Dakotas, to my mind one of the most beautiful of aircraft on a par with the Spifire. Two of them were used in 1981 to make a TV series called Airline. Starring Roy Marsden, the series was so successful that a second series was made.

Today the airport has been expanded again. For a while Ryanair operated a twice-daily service to London Stansted which was well used, and although many bemoaned the withdrawal of the service, the improvements to the West Coast rail services made the journey to London much faster anyway.

Whether the airport's fortunes will wax or wane in the future remains to be seen. Which can be said of almost any business!

Large versions of the photos: Blackpool Zoo, Halfway House, Flying Fortress, Dakota

A Morning at the British Museum

2012-01-22T13:01:00.000Z

Sunday 15th January 2012. We had to set off for home around lunch time so there wasn't a great deal of time to go wandering.

We decided on a walk down to the British Museum and the Egyptian Galleries in particular.

There are some massive bits of stone in here, though dwarfed by those you can see on a visit to the Aswan Dam I suspect. I've not done that yet though...

Once up on the top floor amongst the mummies (but no daddies...) we found that not all Egyptian statues are on a massive scale. These are grave goods, presumably there to perform tasks for the departed such as dressing and doing their hair etc. You can just imagine them saying, "Can you bend down a bit? A bit more...?"

The Roman mosaic flooring was displayed on the walls of the staircase. As we were climbing two floors both with rather high ceilings these gave an excuse for a welcome breather on the way up! I'm wondering whether to have Burke Towers done with something like this - I'm sure it would last longer than a carpet...!

And that's this little trip to London dealt with. As a group we are currently planning something a little more ambitious for our next trip together. Stay tuned!

Large versions of the photos: Egyptian Gallery, little sculptures, mosaic

Children's History of Lancashire

2012-01-21T15:40:00.000Z

Ooh see! A new Children's History of Lancashire popped through my letterbox from Amazon today.

What am I doing buying children's books you may wonder? No it wasn't particularly for my granddaughter as she's a bit young yet! The book contains three of my photographs, so I thought it would be fun to both have a look at a copy to see how they had used them and to keep it for my own records.Most of my published photos I have as tear sheets, i.e. pages torn from magazines and newsletters or trade sheets etc. I might keep this one intact though!I imagine you'll want to rush out and buy a copy now. Check out pages 9, 10 and 11!

A Morning in the Science Museum

2012-01-21T10:36:00.001Z

14 January 2012. We were in London with friends David and Jeannie and it had been decided that the ladies would go shopping, whilst David and I would have a culturally stimulating morning.

The ladies vetoed Soho however, so we got on a bus and headed for the Science Museum. We waved to them from the top deck of our bus as we went past them at Oxford Circus!

Here are just a few of the many wonderful exhibits we saw, starting with the steam locomotive Puffing Billy which was built in 1814 and pulled carts of coal from Wylam Colliery to the docks on the River Tyne.

A Tucker Sno-Cat used during the 1955-58 Trans-Antarctic Expedition led by explorer Dr (later Sir) Vivian Fuchs. A label carried a quote from one of the team describing how it felt to be inside it as the nose reared up and then it slid back into a hole in the ice. Not for stay-at-home types! Judging from the barriers around it, the museum half expect it to fall over again...

David was chuffed to find a model of the class of ship he served on whilst in the Royal Navy as a young man. I had helpfully shown him a model of HMS Victory but he maintains it was a later ship he was on... I've heard some of his naval stories and, believe me, they would sit well with the days of sailing ships and cutlasses!

We were due to meet the ladies for lunch so we didn't have enough time to do the museum full justice. However, as we retraced our steps back towards the entrance, the massive mill engine was working, with puffs of steam shooting out here and there and looking suitably impressive.

It did away with the need for the treadmill, which must have been a relief to all those who previously had spent their long working day doing the equivalent of climbing a ladder.

Large versions of the photos: Puffing Billy, Sno-Cat, David and ship, mill engine

London Weekend

2012-01-18T18:45:00.001Z

This last weekend we had a couple of nights in London with David and Jeannie.

On the Friday night we ate in the Mermaid's Tale on Leicester Square - I can heartily recommend it - and then went to see Les Miserables at the Queen's Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue.

David and Jeannie had both seen it before but it was a first for us. The woman in the seat next to me (on the other side to Miss Franny obviously) said that made me a "virgin" and she would watch to see how I reacted. It was her 19th time and by the end of the night she had thought it the best...

We thoroughly enjoyed it. My eyes started to leak a little at one point. Maybe more than one point actually... I would have got away with it but for my neighbour nudging me heavily and shrieking "Aha!!!". As she was having to use a squeegee mop on her face I thought that a little unfair...

We visited the Science Museum and British Museums which I'll look at in other posts but the other major sight that we saw hadn't been on our itinery and to be honest I could have done without seeing it...

It's obviously fashionable to wear short waist length jackets over tights without a skirt... Anyone who remembers miniskirts in the 60s as I do will remember that only a minority of girls could do them justice.

The one we saw sporting a pair of leopard print skintight leggings covered by a jacket that hid only the top half of buttock swell should have asked her companion "Does my bum look big in this?"

The correct response, had he been brave enough, would have been to shout "Big? BIG?!? That's nowhere near an adequate word!!!"

David had a camera with him but said his wide angle lens wasn't wide enough... The sketch gives another inadequate impression.

Grace is Christened

2012-01-18T18:25:00.001Z

The weekend before last included a nice family occasion as our granddaughter was christened at the church where her parents were married our and a half years ago.

Grace Margaret Statham is now a little more official than she was before! After the service wine was served for anyone in the congregation who might want to help "wet the baby's head".

Grace had been remarkably well behaved at the font, not even murmering when the water went onto her head.

Then it was back to Eddie's parents' house for eats and a celebration. There was food galore, both hot and cold, mains and afters, with more wine flowing and some champers to toast to Grace's health and prosperity.

And whilst Grace took it in her stride, Mum and Dad looked a little proud! Quite right too!

Sunderland Point

2012-01-10T08:49:00.000Z

April 1983. We risked the tidal road over the salt marsh to Sunderland Point. It is a long disused port in Lancashire, at the mouth of the River Lune.

The dockside with its row of mooring posts stands forlornly next to the gravel bed of the edge of the river. Hard to imagine now as a thriving busy port thronged with ocean going ships unloading goods for transport to the mills of Manchester and the rest of Lancashire.

Sunderland Point was where the first cargoes of cotton came to, from America. In 1983 it had two curiosities that reminded us of those times. The "Cotton" Tree, seen above, is actually a kapok - a type of poplar - but it gained its name because it started to grow soon after the first bales of cotton were imported here and the locals thought it had grown from a seed blown from the bales. They didn't know that cotton grows on a bush rather than a tree.

Sadly, a few years after this photo was taken, the tree was damaged in a storm and died, having to be uprooted.

The second curiosity is Sambo's Grave, the grave of a negro slave left here c1736 by his master whilst he went inland on business. The legend is that the negro thought himself abandoned in this wild place amongst strangers and died of a broken heart. Another version is that he died after catching a disease from the locals that he had no immunity to.

However he died, the locals refused to bury a non-Christian in the churchyard and the sailors buried him on the headland according to the Lonsdale Magazine of 1822: "without either coffin or bier, being covered only with the clothes in which he died."

The entire place is a bit of a curiosity. It was Lancaster's first port, but the tidal nature of the road to it meant that goods could only be transported at low tide to and from the port. It was replaced by Glasson Dock in 1787 on the other side of the River Lune.

Large versions of the photos: wharf, cotton tree, sambo's grave

Blackpool Promenade Unveiled

2012-01-09T08:35:00.003Z

Finally we get to see the new Promenade in its entirety this year after all the work on the sea defences. The final section up past the Tower and towards the North Pier has now been completed and the railings removed.

I am impressed. I went down on Saturday morning, just before high tide, hoping for a spectacular sea as I have a particular photograph I need to take for a project. I was to be disappointed in that. One by the sea itself not being quite as high as I'd hoped. Then by the fact that the Central Pier is now closed to walkers from the very front of the pier. At one time in the off season you could walk up the sides and around the back of the arcade building and the pier was closed from that point.

As I crossed the road, the sun came out, leaving me in the shadow of the Golden Mile buildings but lighting up the Tower and the horizon.

There are some new sculpture features on the Central Promenade in the shape of several huge swaying "tulips". Those long stems are flexible enough to allow the heads to sail across the sky, quite a sight if you stand beneath them and look up! You find yourself looking at the slender stalks and wondering about their strength!

And there's grass. I wonder how long it will remain green because if there's one thing the new "Spanish Steps" that replaced the old sea wall will not do, it is stop the sand being blown off the beach onto and over the Promenade. Close to, the grassed areas are sand with grass sticking up through it. Green when viewed from the side, sand coloured when viewed from above. I think the Council's workmen will have their work cut out to keep those areas green, but I hope they do. Grass and a touch of something natural rather than man-made has long been missing from Blackpool's sea front.

In the distance is the new Wedding Chapel with its distinctive shape and single window that, from within, frames the Tower for those witnessing a marriage.

This is one corner of the new Comedy Carpet. A huge expanse of ground set out in columns almost like a newspaper layout except that alternate columns face north or south, allowing people to zig-zag up and down, reading catch-phrases, one-liners, jokes and sketch scripts of comedians from the days of Music Hall and Variety all the way through to the present day. You can find all of Britain's comedy greats here from the Crazy Gang, to The Office with many forgotten snippets of shows, bits of business between double act partners and the words to both Charles Penrose's Laughing Policeman and Morecambe and Wise's Bring Me Sunshine.

It was deserted almost as I walked up and down and I only saw a fraction of it in the time I had. I've been told it is wonderful to look at when there are a lot of people there because all you can hear is the sound of laughter and chuckling. Priceless.

Large versions of the photos: Tower, Wedding Chapel, Comedy Carpet

More Christmas Aftermath

2012-01-04T18:13:00.003Z

"You're going to laugh at me now..." said a cheerful, if slightly dripping, Miss Franny as she stepped in out of the rain on her return from work.

"Why, what have you done?" I asked mildly, noting the shopping bag swinging from her hand.

"They've got long dates but they were selling them off!" she said triumphantly.

The Christmas Aftermath

2012-01-04T13:21:00.000Z

"We're not eating up fast enough!"

"Wha...?" I spluttered, unwrapping my umpteenth choccy of the night.

"We're not eating up fast enough! There's tins all over the place!"

Indeed there are, when I look. Miss Franny has announced her decision to take down the Christmas decorations today when she finishes work. Under the tree, there sit two as yet unopened tins of biscuits. I open one to run a critical eye over the contents.

"I'm not sure if I fancy this one..." I say around the next sweet, trying to defend my lack of progress. "That hasn't even got chocolate on it!" I point accusingly.

"You've not touched those jam tarts I made for the last couple of days - do you not want them?" Whoa - no-win situation arising...

"And what about the mince pies? I bought you some brandy cream to go with them!"

I look down at the space where the carpet should be, but instead see the front of my jumper...

"I'll get round to them..." I trail off miserably.

"Well don't go gorging yourself on sweet stuff all the time - there's loads of special cheeses in the fridge."

"I don't seem to be hungry enough to get round to those yet..." I waver.

"And don't forget the fruit either...it's good for you!"

If I seem to be talking and moving slowly and carefully over the next few weeks...

Village Life

2012-01-01T12:43:00.002Z

More photos from 1983, this time we've moved into the month of May of that year and have taken a trip up the coast to the village of Heysham, near Morecambe.

At that time during the warmer months there was always a little market down the main street and a few old fashioned reminders of a past way of life.

The huge brass beam scale allowed you to be weighed though, as people always tended to watch, it wasn't the most discreet way of finding out if you needed to diet! Worst case scenario was the operator muttering "I'll just have to nip inside for some more weights..."

Perhaps a little more discreet than the automatic talking weighing machine that shrieked "No elephants!" or "One at once!"

A little further down the street was a stall selling nettle beer. I tried some once - the most horrible concoction I've ever drunk... Though I have a friend who swears by it. She was brought up there and probably doesn't know any better... (I'm sure there'll be a comment sooner or later! Ha ha!) Anyway, I just swore at it...

Finally an "awww!" moment from further down the village.

To celebrate the first day of 2012, this is the first entry I've composed using Blogger's new interface. It handles photos and a few html bits slightly differently and there are a couple of extra things I can do that I couldn't before.

Large versions of the photos: scales 1, scales 2, nettle stall, stable door

Reading Matter 2011 Part 4

2011-12-31T09:24:00.017Z

New Year's Eve. I suspect I'm not going to get through many more books this year! So to bring us up to the present, here's the last few books I've read this year.

Whilst I read lots of similar books, Bernard Cornwell is hard to beat.

This tells the true story with imagined greater detail of a drawn out siege and battle for a small fort between British forces and a much larger force of Americans who are as much at war against each other as they are against their common enemy. A surprising addition to my knowledge of the American hero Paul Revere! Might you change your mind?

There was a gap between my reading of the first in C J Sansom's series about the Tudor lawyer, Matthew Shardlake and this, the second in the series. But any reservations I may have had about the pace of the first novel were swept away by this magnificently excellent tale. Working for Chancellor Cromwell to find a terrible weapon, Shardlake gains a new partner in the shape of Jack Barak, a cynical and somewhat dangerous young man, handy with his sword and contemptuous of all that Shardlake respects.

I enjoyed it that much that I almost devoured the next two in the series in quick succession and neither of them disappointed me. Sovereign has Shardlake, now working for Cranmer following Cromwell's demise, attached to the Great Procession of Henry VIII and his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, with much of the action taking place in York. And, believe me, there is plenty of action, treachery, and intruigue set against the devious goings on that we know the Queen's household were involved in that brought some of them, including the young Queen herself, to the headsman's block.

Revelation sees Shardlake and Barak back in London and a tale of obsessive madness and serial killing takes place against the backdrop of the King's wooing of Catherine Parr. Fabulous. There's only one more book as of yet, so I'm going to put it away for a while so I can anticipate it all the more!

My appetite for this one was awakened by the HBO TV series on Sky Atlantic earlier this year. A new and broad setting for a spot of sword and sorcery, but with the emphasis so far on the sword with just a few hints of sorcery (and dragons!) to come in the following books and presumably TV series.

I had this one as a present from Miss Franny a while ago but hadn't got round to it until I heard author Conn Iggulden talking about his latest addition to the series on the radio, driving back home one night from somewhere far away. Wolf of the Plains tells the story of the childhood and early adulthood of the man who becomes Ghengis Khan. Whilst set seven or eight hundred years ago, Khan had dictated his life story to be set down so we can be sure that many of the events if not the detail are factual. In any event, Iggulden makes it an engaging story of the sort of tough conditions that, even without the hand of Man being against him for much of the time, few of us would want to consider for ourselves. The barren conditions of the land of Khan make survival a constant battle for life.

This was a free download for the Kindle, but replaces a book of my Dad's that was lost years ago.

Written following the success of The Kraken Wakes and Day of the Triffids, The Chrysalids tells the story of a post-apocalyptic community in Canada, struggling against genetic mutation brought about by nuclear fallout from the south which they see only as Devine Retribution for Man's wickedness and ungodliness.

Hence a community of religious fanatics makes life precarious for those who may have something a little bit extra... like a sixth toe...

All of which brings us up to date apart from the book I am currently reading. Which is...

The 10th book in the Crowner John series about the 12th century coroner for Devon. This sees ex-Crusader Sir John deWolfe trying to solve the murders of the master and crew of a trading vessel. Moreover, the trading vessel used by his own commercial partnership and the master of the ship was the husband of John's sometime mistress, leaving him in a quandary over whether to be unfaithful to his main mistress... (the way his wife is portrayed in the books I hardly know of a single man who would not be unfaithful with one or more mistresses...)

Not too far into this one yet so it will take me into 2012. I wish all my readers, faithful followers, occasional followers, friends, family and those who got here by accident and thought "What the Hell...?" the very best wishes for a Prosperous, Happy New Year! Come back later to see if it is...

A Small Matter of Sewage

2011-12-31T08:40:00.006Z

Amongst all the revelry of Christmas, which mainly involves wondering what to say to break the awkward silences, I managed to scan a few more photos amongst which were these...

This is a sewage outfall pipe, running treated, but not quite pure, water directly into the sea at Lytham St Annes.

I have no idea whether this is still in use. In fact I suspect not given the current green agenda and our concern for the environment. But it may be. It may not still exist, because I haven't been to see it for years on years. The photos here were taken in 1983 and it's certainly not gushing out in these photos!

The sea perhaps has receded a little since it was built anyway.

There was one near the open air baths just south of Blackpool's South Pier I seem to remember. Visitors (which would include us when I was little) were often ignorant of the purpose or contents of these pipes and certainly I remember playing on them, under them and paddling in the pools near them as a child.

Some pipes ended in a rusty grill rather than with a downturn and children standing against the end would sometimes get a quick impromptu shower...

"Jimmy, don't drink that - you don't know where it's come from...

We don't know how lucky we are these days. My first house had an outside loo in a row of such that served the row of houses they belonged to. But at least it was a loo with a flush and took away the need for storing or moving...

My Great-Aunt had an outdoor privy which was at the bottom of the garden and inside the small shed was a smooth wooden seat with a hole directly over an open sewer - today you might call it a "stream" which was a frightening 40 feet below. As a small child with a small bum I was petrified of falling down that privy...

In rainy times streams took sewage down to the local river. In dry times it piled up. Farmers used their own muck to fertilise fields. I have a friend whose uncle used to do that.

Many towns had a stream known as the Shit Stream or Shit Creek.

Those who lived away from waterways had tubs that were emptied each night onto carts by the Council's nightsoil men. Can't you just see the queues for those jobs if they still existed? I suspect you always knew when one of them entered the pub... Progress.

a-Peeling We Will Go!

2011-12-30T15:02:00.006Z

More domestic strife...

Last night just before tea time, I was sitting in the living room trying to make sensible conversation with my mother (never easy...) when Miss Franny shouted from the kitchen.
"I can't find the potato peeler!"

I gave up trying to make sense of the tale I was struggling with - no my brother hadn't had an accident, Mother was talking about another Frank without considering I might think of one I actually knew...

"When did you have it last? Last night?" I asked unthinkingly.
"No I was working remember? You cooked yourself chicken korma last night!"
"Oh yes... Tuesday then?"
"We went to David and Jeannie's for tea on Tuesday!" Ah, yes... and they definitely didn't ask to borrow it, because we had lasagna...

We came to the sad concusion that it may have inadvertantly been wrapped with its very last peelings on Boxing Day... The bin men came yesterday... So it was a choice of knife and very small chips or fingernails and very long ... time before chips...

The daft part is that this was one of Fran's favourite types - a potato peeler with a detachable plastic handle that when reversed turned the peeler into a knife - gradely for making chips! A flick of the wrist and chop, chop, chop, chips!

That's not daft in itself, the daft part is that, having taken ages to find one the last time we needed to buy one, we bought two so that when it wore out next we would still have one. Yes... but where did we put it...?!?

Anyway I found an old faithful Lancashire peeler hidden in the depths of a kitchen drawer.

"I can't use those!" Fran complained.

I think I'm on peeling duties for a while until I can find a replacement...

The Great Christmas Eve Bulb Blow-Out

2011-12-24T16:11:00.005Z

All is not well. Miss Franny left for work this morning before 8:00am. Her last words to me were: "Do you know what you're doing?"

"Yes," I said confidently, "Put all the gear away after last night's gig, do the hoovering, make a loaf and try to get some spare bulbs to mend the Christmas tree lights."

She paused dramatically and her lips pressed together (something little girls' mothers teach them from an early age...) "You will get some bulbs, not try!" she said. "I'm not having a blacked-out tree on Christmas Day!"

Anyway I hoovered. I stowed all the band gear away. I went out but it's Christmas Eve so no sets of lights to be had. A nice man at B&Q pointed to a small almost empty box and said "These are the only spare bulbs we have - you can help yourself now, compliments of B&Q!" What a nice man! "They're all last years models..." he added.

What?!? They bring out different fittings every year?!? But our set is a good five years old! Maybe the setting has come round again...? Some of them looked a bit like them. I grabbed a small bag of six bulbs and hefted them.

"Alright if I take these?" He nodded, "Sure!" he said, "Merry Christmas".

The bulbs fit!!! The lights still don't work though...

I tried every bulb in the other set and the ones that are in the bottom half of the tree all work in the top half set but the bloody thing is still dark as a squirrel's hidey hole at the bottom.

It could be the fuse in the plug and the set is old enough to allow me to take the plug apart to get at the fuse. Something that you can't do these days because the government have convinced us we're all too stupid to tie our own shoelaces unless qualified... I've got the fuse out but can't find any others to replace it.

Fran finishes work in 25 minutes. [Gulp!] I'm going to have to confess. At least the bread maker has just beeped to say the loaf is done!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggghhhh!!! It's not risen and where it has, it's sunk in the middle and split and all dough-like inside!!!

I followed the instructions carefully! Kept salt and yeast apart! Though with its first jerk it mixes them up anyway! Measured everything minutely! Failed spectacularly...

Christmas dough balls in the dark, anyone?

The Big Wheel Cafe

2011-12-24T09:38:00.005Z

In April 1983 we went out over the River Wyre to have a look for a curiosity I had wanted to find for some time.

On the Out Rawcliffe road from St Michaels was a cafe that had been once connected to a petrol station, though that had since been demolished.

The cafe extension is the last surviving carriage from the Blackpool Ferris Wheel, demolished in 1928.

At the time, the carriages had been sold off to be used as summer houses and greenhouses and this one, which can still be seen by the roadside, was and is the only one left to remind us of that great Big Wheel that is such a feature of early Blackpool postcards.

Large version of the photo: big wheel cafe

A Night in Liverpool

2011-12-24T09:27:00.004Z

Last night we played at Croxteth Hall in Liverpool for a Silver Wedding and Revewal of Vows party. To all extents and purposes it was a wedding party.

It's a while since we've been to Croxteth and with new developments we took a wrong turning somewhere, but got there in good time without too much panic!

David knew the lucky man and he had arranged for a DJ to take over later in the night so that we could join the party as guests. There were a few people there that I knew as well so it was a very pleasant evening for us!

Can You Hear the Drums?

2011-12-22T12:58:00.004Z

So we were just having a rare rehearsal to remind ourselves of a few new songs we had stuffed into the repertoire...

Not the most polished sound - no microphones, no sound system, the keyboard is coming from its own speakers which of course point straight up and the guitar was plugged through the computer into the hi-fi. Recorded on a Flip camera - no expense spared...

Can you hear the drums?

Memories of the Press Gangs

2011-12-20T08:23:00.004Z

Just over the river, north of Lancaster is a road to a couple of small villages. Middleton and Overton are reached by a tidal road, that floods at high tide to an extent that makes them impassable.

Along this risky stretch of road is an old inn called The Golden Ball.

In the days when ships used to dock at Sunderland Point with goods from the cotton fields of southern America, the regulars learned to get out quick and disperse over the fields otherwise they would be caught by gangs of men sent to find crew members for the ships.

Impressment was a long standing tradition. Sanctioned too, as the Royal Navy used the Press to take protesting men forcibly away from families for years at a time. Today we would call it kidnapping. To the Navy it was simply a method of conscription.

The Good Old Days is a bit of a myth really...!

Incidentally, if you visit: once you have parked your car, have a look at the high tide mark painted onto the car park wall. It wil be above the roof of your car! Time your isit carefully!

Large version of the photo: the Golden Ball

Wrea Green and Warton Curiosities

2011-12-19T08:16:00.003Z

Once again going back to 1983 and a couple of curiosities from the Fylde countryside.

This is the old village pump at Wrea Green.

Hard to imagine in England in the present day having to go outside with a bucket or other container to fetch your water from a communal source.

At least water from a pump like this had a chance of being clean and pure in a small village. Pure even so is probably a relative term... From open wells, the chances of polluted water were much higher and in hot weather you had to fish out the tadpoles, frogs and newts and algae!

As far as I can tell, all traces of this have disappeared now apart from the name of the road. Mill Lane in Warton, near the gates of British Aerospace, gives a clue to what this is.

There are three types of windmill. There are lots of examples of brick tower mills left in England and the Fylde and Wyre countryside manages to get into double figures.

Then there are the wooden smock mills, seen mainly in the south of England. The earliest form was the post mill. A wooden building sat on a central post such as this one - for that is what it is. The post acted as a pivot in the days before they worked out how to sit a windmill's cap on a circle of cogs to rotate to keep the sails into the wind.

Around this central post the entire building was rotated by means of a post sticking out of the back of the mill attached to either a horse or the miller's wife...

The mill in question had originally been built at Tarleton between Preston and Liverpool, but was then moved painstakingly to Warton where it eventually rotted away. Developments since 1983 have led to the post's removal.

Large versions of the photos: village pump,windmill post

Blackpool's New Wedding Venue

2011-12-18T14:26:00.006Z

An unexpected treat today. We went down into Blackpool to meet up with David and Jeannie for breakfast at Quilligan's. Sean provided us with the usual excellent breakfast and we took our time over it, interrupting our eating with plenty of chatter.

Then we went down onto the Promenade. The fencing and scaffolding and machinery has now disappeared from the final part of the new Promenade in front of the Tower and up to the North Pier.

On this part of the Promenade is a new rather weirdly shaped building. This is the new Register Office for weddings. The tall narrow window of the upper floor has a wonderful view of the Tower.

We hadn't realised but the building was open this weekend for the public to have a look around it. Someone came out to invite us to look round and we took them up on their offer.

Despite the rather odd appearance from outside, the interior is really well thought out. Wood panelling makes it look modern and won't require redecoration every two minutes and the wedding spaces are excellent.

Thanks go to David for the photos - he had his camera on him and I didn't! We couldn't get one with the Tower view as the sun was right behind it and extremely bright!

One room looks out over the beach and sea and from the staircase there are views up the Promenade and over the sea to Cumbria and Barrow where we could see plenty of snow on the Lakeland hills!

Reading Matter 2011 Part 3

2011-12-17T17:20:00.017Z

More books going through my hands. I seem to have spent a lot of nights in hotels and have even spent the odd night at home with my nose buried in a book rather than pressed to the computer screen!

I had read Harry Harrison's Deathworld 1 and this tale - The Ethical Engineer - was renamed Deathworld 2 but they charge for that and you can get this for free for your e-book reader! It is a shortened version though - I remember another bit before the end!

Three more Tarzans have been read, though I made a mistake in reading Tarzan the Untamed when I should have read Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar first! Old enough to be free for your e-reader they are belting books if you switch your mind off - they didn't have David Attenborough to tell them which animals lived in the jungle and which on the plains in those days...

The second and third of the Famous Five books by Enid Blyton. Five Run Away Together was the first FF book - maybe the very first "long" book I read. I read it without question the first time. Now I think those kids would have been slapped much more for the time the stories were set! But good stuff, the kids are moving into teenage years and not a single hormone between the lot of them!

I got the order of this series a bit wrong too, though apart from being confused slightly at the name of Crowner John's horse for a bit I'm back on track now. In fact I'd read all I had and have gone and bought the rest of the series so these will take me well into 2012! He's a coroner in Exeter in the 12th Century and the County of Devon gives him plenty to get involved in and a few chances to swing his sword about at times too.

Cor this took me back too. My brother Frank had this book as a teenager about a trail scout called Catsfoot in the Wild West. Only short but brill and he doesn't swear as much as adult book Western heroes do!

I've got to say this was glued to my hands for days until I'd read it. Every spare minute I had - I couldn't put it down. I don't care if he makes half of it up or if the bits about the Masons and Rosicrucians and geography and buildings are true, it's just an absolutely belting story!

I'm going to finish with this one, but there are a few more books to make another entry at the end of the year.

I saw this in a cheapie bookshop. It's a cut-down version of one that Maryam D'Abo wrote a while ago but this ignores the actresses and just mentions the characters and Maryam isn't credited at all.

However it is a much smaller book in size than the original at only around 9 x 7.5 inches (24 x 18.5 cm) so I took it down to Memorabilia and got a couple of acquaintances to sign it for me! Must try to get a few others! Martine Beswick was in From Russia With Love and Thunderball whilst Caroline Munro outshone Barbara Bach in The Spy Who Loved Me.

Devil's Bridge, Kirby Lonsdale

2011-12-17T16:45:00.006Z

More black and whites from 1983.

This is the Devil's Bridge at Kirby Lonsdale.

The 14th century bridge has a legend that the Devil built it and spilled the stones he was carrying in his apron. They can still be seen in and around the river below.

Kirby Lonsdale is a favourite stop for bikers after a ride through narrow twisting moorland roads close to the borders of North Yorkshire, Lancashire and its own country, Cumbria.

Large versions of the photos: the Devil's Bridge, River Lune.

Barton Swing Aqueduct

2011-12-09T18:43:00.007Z

The Bridgewater canal was a marvel of engineering. Canals made it possible to transport people and goods long distances in an unheard of short time. People could take on a barge drawn by a single horse goods that would have required many carts and horses over land.

Where the Bridgewater needed to cross the River Irwell a bridge was constructed in 1761 to take the canal overhead as an aqueduct. All went well until the 1890s when the River Irwell was to become the Manchester Ship Canal. Those ships destined for Manchester and Salford docks would crash spectacularly into the canal bridge.

The answer was a swing bridge to carry the aqueduct.

The photos show it in the open position. In this position the aqueduct is aligned along the island that was constructed to take the brick tower that contains the control system.

The aqueduct is an iron trough 330 feet long and containing around 800 tons of water held by gates at each end. Other gates hold back the water in the canal itself.

Amazingly there is a similar swinging bridge on the island on the other side of the brick tower to take the road over the Manchester Ship Canal! I was standing on it to take the top photo.

Large versions of the photos: photo 1, photo 2, photo 3,

Around and About

2011-12-09T13:06:00.008Z

The week started with a train up to Glasgow. A few minor hiccups due to signal failures but once on the mainline everything was fine. The ground turned a bit white once up in the Lake District and then ccloser to Glasgow it got a bit more pronounced!

I had my meeting with the staff at the JISC Regional Support Centre for Scotland and met a couple of new staff and exchanged ideas with them over ways to engage the Scottish colleges.

Then it was back to the station as I had to get back down to Birmingham for the night ready for an event the following day.

It soon went dark, but I got a chance to snap a couple more photos on my phone from the warmth of the train.

It was getting on by the time I got to Birmingham but on the way from the station to the hotel I found myself in a Christmas market with German steins of beer, all kinds of sausages and frying potato and onions adding to the smells.

Whilst I ate in the hotel rather than in the street, I couldn't resist wandering back out to walk up the market and back.

There may have been no snow down here but it was certainly cool and crisp!!!

There were all sorts of stalls, from the food and drink, to jewellery, wooden toys and reindeer skins. Failing to spot one with a red nose, I breathed a sigh of relief and headed back to the hotel...

Large versions of the photos: motorway, farm, Birmingham, market stalls, waiting to buy

3/4 Million Views

2011-12-07T10:10:00.004Z

Today the counter at my Flickr account topped the 3/4 million views milestone.

This is by way of saying thank you to all of my readers here and viewers at Flickr and to those who download both my own and the band's music to the tune of 1000 downloads a month.

A particular thank you to all who have taken the trouble to follow this and any of my other blogs, or make me a contact at Flickr - the numbers creep up every now and then. Welcome to those who have joined recently and I hope you continue to enjoy these articles.

The scanning of the black and white negatives is entering an interesting phase with lots of articles to come for those who enjoy the curiosities topic - glimpses of England's past and tales of ghosts, old hillforts and Victoriana etc. At around the time I've reached in my scanning - 1983 - I was starting to freelance regularly to magazines such as Country Life, This England and even gained my own regular series, John Burke's Curious Lancashire in the Lancashire Magazine.

So more to come whenever my dashing around the country for work allows. Though even that can be very interesting sometimes - both for good and bad reasons!

Stretford Great Stone

2011-12-04T10:07:00.005Z

Back in March 1983 I'd come across a reference to this curiosity whilst researching for a book I was writing on the King Arthur legend. The book was written but has remained unpublished until I get some real time to revise it and sort out a few unrealistic time frames! Probably a retirement project, but seeing as it has waited almost 30 years a few more won't make too much difference!

Let me introduce you to the Stretford Great Stone.

Probably dropped here by mischance by some ice age glacier, it's a sizeable chunk of millstone grit.

For ages it rested alongside Great Stone Road - wonder where they got that name from... but it was moved in 1925 to a small park nearby. I must go again someday but from photos I've seen it is almost hidden by undergrowth now.

It may have been the base of a cross shaft at some time, but there are two indentations, not one. Perhaps someone made a has of the first one?

There is a strong tradition that it was used as a plague stone in the 14th century, the holes being filled with either holy water or (far more effective) vinegar to disinfect coins passing in and out of the village during time of plague.

So what is the link to King Arthur?

In the later Arthurian tales Lancelot fights a giant, Tarquin, at Castlefield in Manchester. There is a legend that he threw the stone from there, several miles away. The holes are the marks made by his thumb and finger!

Lancelot was invented in Norman times, 700 years after Arthur - if he existed - would have lived. I suspect this tale may have been similarly invented...!

Large versions of the photos: photo 1, photo 2

Family Memories

2011-12-03T12:02:00.007Z

The other day I got a message from a distant relative attached as a comment to this photograph at Flickr.

The photo shows my grandparents, John and Annie Burke, getting married. From the left is Percy Alston, with his soon to be wife, Elsie, the bride's sister.

On the right is Jim Ivory, who I never knew and the groom's sister, Mary who was always known as Cissie.

The message was from someone descended from the sister of my Great-Grandma, who we called Grandma Brierley.

Here she is on the left of the photo taken Boxing Day 1966, my Great-Great-Auntie Florrie with her sister, Great-Grandma Brierley in the centre and my Great-Auntie-Cissie on the right. Percy Alston, by then my Great-Uncle, is in the rear of the photo, not quite getting enough illumination from the Instamatic camera's flash-cube!

Auntie Elsie and Uncle Percy retired to a lovely bungalow on the banks of the River Lune at Overton, which is where we see Elsie and Florrie on this photo, scanned from a rather washed out snapshot from 1972.

The bungalow had a 1/3 of an acre of garden, mostly lawn and I remember regular visits up there to mow the lawn using Uncle Percy's motor lawn mower.

And finally, here's my Dad with Great-Grandma Brierley sitting on that very same lawn in 1968.

Hobnobbing November 2011 Part 2

2011-11-26T21:15:00.006Z

I meant to publish this one last Sunday... It was last Saturday when we went with David and Jeannie down to Birmingham to meet up with Caroline Munro, who was at the Memorabilia Show.

When we got there she had a massive queue of people in front of her. I recognised a couple of mates sitting with celebs as minders and they were waving to indicate the size of the queue and raising eyebrows and thumbs at me.

We stayed to say "Hello" and exchange hugs and then left her to get on with talking to fans who were now queued up behind us. We promised to come round again and she pointed us towards where Martine Beswick was sitting so we went off to boast again about being grandparents to her!

Martine has had two featured Bond roles and a walk-on part to make the hat trick and was the dark-haired counterpart to Raquel Welch's blonde in Hammer's One Million Years BC, going on to play a memorable part in the same company's Dr Jeckyll and Sister Hyde.

Lindsay was acting as her minder and I nudged him to get some of his wonderful celebrity sketches out. He's a talented lad!

Then I spotted another acquaintance. I sat next to Fenella Fielding at one of Ingrid Pitt's birthday-party-cum-fan-club-nights. She remembered us and we spent a while chatting.

There was a large number of other famous people here and there at the show. So much so that I found a young lady sitting all on her own on a row of seats with no one taking any notice of her. Always a sucker for a pretty face I said hello and then noticed her photos showed slightly more than her face - but those bits were quite pretty too...

Busy Busy Busy!

2011-11-26T20:57:00.003Z

Hi folks, remember me? I seem to have spent this week on the road. On the road, on the rails and in the air to be precise. I spent the first half of the week up in Musselburgh which is just outside Edinburgh.

Then on Wednesday night I had a dash to the airport to go to Belfast where I had a really good day with a great collection of participants as I delivered a Project Management workshop.

I flew back to Manchester on Friday morning. There seemed to be a gamekeeper's trip as a number of young men in 1950s tweeds, caps, trilbys and even a deerstalker invaded the cafeteria.

Then a short delay caused by a stewardess breaking the aircraft's fold-away steps as she dragged them up into the aircraft... We had to wait for engineers to come and get them into the plane so we could take off and then we all had to use the steps at the front of the plane to get off again.

I got to the station in time to wave goodbye to the disappearing Blackpool train, but got home safe and sound.

There was a very important person to see on Friday night. Our lovely little Grace!

Welcome Grace

2011-11-20T19:59:00.004Z

On Thursday evening we heard the exciting news that we had become grandparents!

Grace Margaret Statham weighed in at a mere 4lb 12oz, being a few weeks before schedule. She was just so excited at meeting us all she just couldn't wait!

Above she poses with poud Mum and Dad, Gill and Eddie.

And here Miss Franny comes over all lovey with her. I did myself... She's gorgeous!

Hobnobbing November 2011 Part One

2011-11-20T19:39:00.005Z

Last week saw me in Birmingham for much of the week for the Association of Colleges annual conference.

It's an event populated by the movers and shakers of the Further Education sector and a chance to sit in front of Government ministers, Lords of the Realm (and a Baroness) and some great inspirational speakers.

Add in a huge exhibition and a number of workshops debating all sorts of things from use of technology to literacy and numeracy.

Plus as an added bonus for me, the chance to catch up with friends who I tend only to see here once a year these days and you can see why I look on it as a chance to recharge enthusiasm and chip in with my pennyworth every now and then to remind people that my organisation (JISC infoNet) has something to offer.

The venue is Birmingham's International Convention Centre which backs onto Brindley Place with its canals and restaurants.

I was however keeping a close ear on what was going on at home as my daughter was being whisked into hospital with a baby arrival imminent! More of that in another entry!

Wish You Were Here

2011-11-13T10:33:00.009Z

I've been struggling to find time to update the blog recently. Work is taking me around the country and I have a book project to work on at home that has had me searching for old postcards of Blackpool.

I'm indebted to Chris Wynne of Shrewsbury, a Blackpool enthusiast who I met on the excellent Live in Blackpool forum. Coming to Blackpool for a week's holiday he took the time to bring me 90 old postcards to scan and get back to him during the week and it was good to meet up and chat.

Having a deadline for the scanning I hadn't really time to read the backs of those cards that had gone through the post, but last weekend Miss Franny and I went to a postcard fair where I spent far too much money and came back with a few that have made me chuckle as I read the hot topics of Edwardian England. I have far more postcards now than I need for the project - though not necessarily enough to cover all the bits of Blackpool I'd like to cover... (This hopefully justifies to Miss Franny why I might need to buy more...)

Anyway, here's a few to savour!

Here's one of the Pleasure Beach, posted in 1943. Of course the photo may have been taken before World War II, as I expect some Air Raid Precaution officer may well have been doing his nut at the display of lights. To be fair, from above they may well have spelled out "Dresden Illuminations" to confuse the Luftwaffe... Message reads:

Blackpool. Dear Aunty, I am here for a week with three friends. The weather is not too good but we are hoping it will improve. It is not nearly so crowded as the papers say and we are having a lovely time. Love Jean

Weather may well be a recurring theme here... Though not necessarily so on every postcard, as witness the next!

When Blackpool was growing, what we now call Central Pier was labelled the South Pier. Until they were renamed, the building of a third pier further south meant that a less geographical name had to be thought of so this view from around 1905 shows the Victoria Pier. The viewpoint looks too far west to include the Tower, so it's been thoughtfully drawn in on the right hand edge where at best it's sitting on top of the Metropole Hotel or at worst in the sea... The card has been written but not sent through the post unless in an envelope with a few others. Message reads:

Dear Dada, Nearly finished hay. If you come on Saturday bring my white shirt, if you don't come send it. All write (sic) at present. xxxxxxx

No signature, but at least we know that either the farming isn't being neglected, or the writer was very very hungry...

Again this one has been written but presumably sent in an envelope to save money sending several cards. It has meant the entire back of the card could be (and has been) used for a message in which we find a certain amount of scandalous gossip...

I'd date this to the 1920s, the Big Wheel towards the left occupied the plot currently taken by Olympia at the Winter Gardens and it was demolished in 1928. I suspect that this is a daytime shot printed so as to appear night but it has been done quite well apart from the reflections in the sea where the wheel has been painted rather larger than the actual thing above it... Message reads:

Dear Elsie, Just a P.C. to wish you many happy returns of your Birthday. It is taking me all my time to keep Edith good. We went in the Winter Gardens Saturday evening. She got talking to a young man while I was tired, so I got up and left them. Of course she soon followed. He was telling her about a holiday he had in America, so I expect she will be going with him next year. This is perfectly true Elsie. I know Edith is telling you not to believe me. Love from M.

Edith, if you are reading this and can remember back - you must be about 110 by now - please let us know how you got on...

This card must have been taken home unused as it was posted sometime around World War One to the local butcher from Burslem which is near Stoke on Trent.

It was taken just north of the Metropole Hotel, the only hotel to be built on the seaward side of the Promenade roadway, just north of the North Pier. The gardens no longer exist, though it was one of a pair flanking the Metropole. Its southern counterpart now houses the town's war memorial. Message reads:

Dear Sir, Please send (?) neck - mutton 2lbs - mutt chops small roast of beef. V obliged. Your truly, S Spraston.

If any readers from Stoke on Trent know Thomas Shufflebottom's butcher's shop on North Road, Cobridge, perhaps they could call in to make sure he received the order?

And finally...

Taken from a viewpoint from the other side of the gardens to a view that now is occupied by the Lower and Middle Walks. This postcard was posted in April 1904 and, to amuse a niece, makes light of an event that was probably a little frightening for all concerned at the time...

What do you think? Kathleen and Maysie got lost this afternoon. Weren't they duffers? Aunty Kittie

T'was a Dark and Stormy Night...

2011-11-05T20:24:00.008Z

...and the following morning I ventured out with the camera to take photos of the aftermath. This was early February 1983 and Blackpool had been treated to a combination of high winds and a high tide. Whilst lots of people think this is fun to walk up to the railings to see if they can dodge the waves, these photos show what power there really is in the sea...

The old Open Air Baths were still down at South Shore Promenade where the Sandcastle is now. The car park below Promenade level had filled with seawater overnight.

To give this some meaning, here's another view looking back to where I was standing to take the first shot. The entrance to the Baths was reached from a footbridge over the car park. There was 15 feet of clearance beneath the bridge...

A little further north, the ice cream, fancy hat and rock stalls that flanked the South Pier had not fared all that well. One lies on its front to the left of the photo and another has been knocked over by a combination of wind and sea and left stranded on the tram tracks.

Just next to where it used to be the sea has torn huge chunks out of the sea wall and Promenade and collapsed the iron railings.

Closer to the Central Pier and there is more damage. The cast iron bench has been tossed about from its place at the side of the Promenade shelter as though by a giant, the cast iron legs and feet in broken pieces over the pavement. For company the sea has left it a cast iron manhole cover, lifted from its place and swept here by the weight of water swirling about on the Promenade. The shelter's own seating and internal structure has been broken and swept into the sea.

Respect the sea. When it is rough and backed by high tides and wind the sea has no respect for you. At all...

Large versions of the photos: baths landscape, baths portrait, broken stalls, promenade damage, shelters

Cat in the Dog House

2011-11-04T21:45:00.005Z

I've been away in Newcastle since yesterday afternoon and tonight came back to find Jess had been giving Fran a somewhat "interesting" time.

Apparently this morning whilst she was in the shower she heard the merry crash of things falling...

A strange cat had had the temerity to jump onto the window sill outside the kitchen and look through the window into the room.

Jess, who had been sitting minding his own business in the plastic drainer on the sinktop was incensed at this wanton behaviour and showed his displeasure by leaping onto the window sill on the inside and doing a shadow boxing routine with the other cat, separated by the window glass, which stopped any injuries from being inflicted.

However, he did manage to fling every single item off the window sill bar one. The kitchen roll with its wooden holder, a couple of ornaments - all were rolling about either on the work surface or the floor.

The only one that remained on the window sill was a battery-powered liquid soap dispenser. Unfortunately, every time Jess flounced up and down the length of the window sill he passed close enough for it to register him and it faithfully dispensed each time a glob of soap... Fran was not amused...

Jubilee Gardens, The Gynn, Blackpool

2011-10-31T19:25:00.005Z

Late on Sunday afternoon the storm clouds broke for a moment and the sun actually came out. I pushed my way through the throngs of people staring and pointing at it, wondering what it was...

I went down to the Gynn on the seafront to think about some photos I need to take for a project. The Jubilee Gardens just to the north of the Gynn have been there for a long time, but have only been called the Jubilee Gardens since the Queen's Jubilee a few years ago. It previously was known as the Sunken Gardens.

There's a new toilet block and sub station that does just that - blocks the view of the garden's entrance.

I fancied a shot with the iron name plate in it but with my back to the building I was still far too close. I could only get this shot by putting the camera on a tripod, setting the self-timer and then hoisting the tripod up in the air so the camera was around 15 feet off the ground. I knew it would take more than one shot before I got it right but was quite gratified to be able to report that this is shot No.2!

Large version of the photo: from Flickr

Glasson Dock

2011-10-22T06:33:00.015+01:00

Back in 1982 a regular ride out was to the tiny port of Glasson Dock.

Getting up the River Lune to the docks at Lancaster was extremely difficult due to the low water in the river. A dock had been built at Sunderland Point on the north side of the river in the early 1700s, but it was decided that a dock should be built on the opposite bank at Glasson.

A pier was built in 1782, but the wall bulged so badly that it had to be rebuilt a year later at which time a second wall was built so that gates could be fitted to retain enough water at high tide to float up to 25 ships within the sea dock.

The sea lock was only opened for 45 minutes up to high tide and from that point ships had only about an hour to clear the river before the water drained so low by the tide that they would be in danger of bottoming.

When the Lancaster canal was built a branch was constructed to join with the sea dock via another set of locks. These were wide enough to let small ships through from the sea onto the canal to transport goods north or south along the canal.

The tiny watchman's building with its lookout tower was built in 1836. A large marina - the canal basin - is large enough to moor over 200 boats.

In the 1980s there was almost always at least one large ship in the sea dock. Coal is exported from here and incoming goods include fertilizer and animal feed.

A swing bridge over the canal between the sea dock and canal basin opens at set times for ships or boats to pass into the lock between the two, allowing mainly small masted pleasure craft to reach the sea from the marina. At these times cars have to take a circuitous route through the village to reach the road bridge on the landward side of the marina.

A closer look at the watchman's hut and the capstan linked to the "sea lock" gates - they actually lead onto the River Lune as has previously been mentioned.

There used to be a floating cafe-cum-restaurant moored on the seaward side of the marina. Named the Ba-Ba-Gee, you could eat with your feet at, or just below, water level and look out the windows at swans who would peck the glass, looking for titbits.

Large versions of the photos: buildings behind the canal lock, capstan, pier, ship, watchman's hut

A Little Lights Relief

2011-10-19T18:20:00.009+01:00

Whilst Blackpool Illuminations are shining out a mile and a bit away from my house, I'm also being reminded of the display from 1982 which has been going through the scanner recently.

Blackpool changes so rapidly that 30 years is enough for some of the photos to be totally unrecogniseable to visitors and residents of today.

This first shot was taken just south of the Star Inn at the bottom end of the Pleasure Beach. No Ocean Boulevard with its string of shops and kiosks blocking the view of the Pleasure Beach's Log Flume.

And if there were no Ocean Boulevard today the Log Flume is no longer there to be seen... Also no longer to be found are some large tableaux which used to be found at South Shore as well as the Bispham cliffs. Some can be glimpsed in the distance on the far left hand side of the photo.

This one is from a little further north. We are just south of Watson Road for this one.

The familiar blue and red structure of the Big One roller coaster is many years off yet. On the corner of Watson Road the Space Tower takes riders up and around as it spirals up to the top, spins for a couple of revolutions and comes back down again.

Below it is a camera obscura. The bright archway welcomes visitors to Blackpool and the Pleasure Beach. From this point on a busy night cars will take a couple of hours at least to reach the end of the illuminations at Bispham!

By putting the camera on a tripod and leaving the shutter open whilst the Space Tower went up and came down, the lights on the outside of the ride's disc corkscrew up and then cross their own path as the ride comes down.

This must have been a very calm night without any wind as the shutter had to stay open for around three minutes to take this!

And I finish for this time with a much-loved display of clowns. Alternate displays juggled balls and tossed them over the roadway or squirted each other with water pistols - with rows of light representing the water.

There's just another two and a half weeks to go before this year's display turns off until the end of next August.

Large versions of the photos: Star Inn, welcome, Space Tower, clowns

Still Reading...

2011-10-10T18:32:00.013+01:00

I see it was August, the last time I updated you with my reading habits. Another 12 books have been read since then.

I've now got through all of the Wheel of Time books that I can, until the final one comes out sometime late in 2012. I've now read two of the ones Brandon Sanderson wrote from the late Robert Jordan's notes and he has done a good job with them. Even the female sniffing has been toned down - I'm sure it must have got on everyone's nerves the amount of time he had characters doing this to denote their displeasure. I'm sure they all feel a lot healthier now...

I absolutely rushed through the WOT series but am taking my time with the Tarzan books, interspacing other books between them. In this, the second of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan books, the ape becomes a man, then goes back to Africa and becomes an ape again and then plumps for being king of a tribe of African warriors. Throw in a lost city where gold appears to be so plentiful no one wants it, an added complication of a high priestess who wants his muscly body for herself, and the second shipwrecking in his bit of Africa of the lovely Jane Foster and her family - once is bad enough, but twice is sheer carelessness! All in a book that you can read in almost a single sitting!

Yes I know... But you know what? I just don't care! These books are horribly politically incorrect by today's standards but they were written to make people laugh and they are so OTT that they succeed in that every time for me. I love them. They are far removed from the Robin Askwith films.

Aha! Start of a new series and an author new to me. C.J. Ransom's novel introduces us to Matthew Shardlake, a lawyer in the time of King Henry VIII, sent to a monastery to investigate a murder against the backdrop of the closing of the great religious houses. A bit slow in places but I enjoyed it enough to go and buy the next in the series.

My Dad introduced me to the Science Fiction books of Isaac Asimov but his huge collection disappeared in a Mum-induced tidy-up at some point. I've been steadily searching replacements out at second hand stalls up and down the place! This, as the title suggests, is a collection of early short stories written as a teenager, well before the Space Race started between America and Russia.

I have shelves groaning under the weight of unread books, but I have to confess I've done something I thought I'd do well after most other people... I've bought a Kindle...

There's loads of books available free to download - it helps if you are seriously into the classics, but there are a few Sci-Fi books by relatively modern (i.e. last century) authors. Another parental book recovery! I got the follow-up too!

And so was this a book I remember from Dad's collection. Perhaps easy to see why this might appeal to a 14 year old lad, but the story fails to live upto the erotic promise of the cover. Well worth reading for all that.

Nostalgia time with heaps of tomatoes and lashings of ginger beer. Starts with three of the children's parents simply getting rid of their kids for a fortnight so they can go on holiday without them... And you thought it was kids' stuff...

Another free download to the Kindle. I have devoured Marvel's Conan comics in the past but have never until recently read the original stories by Robert E. Howard. Many of them were featured in the comics, but the short stories are brutally, nay, barbarianly excellent! It's a large collection too - well worth the price of nothing!

The first eight Tarzan books are available for free download too - not all that long since I bought a handfull at a second hand book shop, but hey...

The only thing about the Kindle as yet is the fact that whilst many of the books are now available at a couple of quid on market stalls, the e-books retain quite a high price. Once e-book readers (the Kindle being just one example) become more common perhaps this might change. My other problem is that whilst almost all old music is being made available there are many many authors who have been out of print for years and years and I wonder what the chance of their books being made available is.

Whilst copyright rules are being looked at this market remains a bit weird where long-dead authors' work still commands modern day prices because their families or, in many cases, big business have snapped up copyrights. I totally agree with protection for the author whilst they are living, but after that...?

Blue Postcards

2011-10-09T16:50:00.005+01:00

Miss Franny and I had a ride out to GB Antiques at Lancaster this afternoon and wandered round in search of old postcards.

I was really in search of old Blackpool postcards and whilst there were a few they were not as old as I was looking for and I came home without any.

But I wasn't totally empty handed. I found a couple of old cards that took my fancy and there was a distinct colour bias about them!

This is The Chine at Seaton in Devon. The black and white photograph has been coloured with a touch of the old blue. But not the old red, green, yellow or brown that might have added a certain something... Rather strange!

Even the artist seemed to have been somewhat frustrated and has decided arbitrarily (writing that seemed a good idea until I realised I had no idea how to spell it...) to colour a lady's dress the same colour as the sky and sea. Hope she doesn't fall in - she'd be instantly lost!

The other postcard I bought has a humourous nature and again the black and white photograph has been given a spot of colour from the same tin as the Seaton postcard.

Unlike the other, this postcard has been through the post. Sent by "S.H." on 25 September 1905, the message reads:

Dear Minnie don't they look happy by the moonlight your Aunt keeps a bit better. Love to all S.H.

Not Enough Time In Kent

2011-10-09T16:13:00.010+01:00

This week I've been travelling about for work. Nothing particularly new in that but I've been to a couple of places I've not been before.

The first one was Rochester in Kent.

This was actually taken in Strood which sits across the River Medway from Rochester and is where my hotel was.

The river was just across from the hotel, with a safe crossing provided - had I had time for a closer look. At the point where I took the photo though I was waiting for a taxi to take me to the University for Creative Arts where I was due to deliver a workshop on Process Review techniques for JISC infoNet.

It was a week of train journeys. Blackpool to Preston, Preston to London Euston, on foot to St Pancras and then St Pancras to Rochester. By the time I got down there is was getting dark but as the taxi took me from the station to my hotel I was pleasantly surprised at the sights of Rochester. A castle, a cathedral, town walls and lots of half-timbered buildings. Unfortunately the taxi kept going and by the time I'd had something to eat, I was too knackered to go back into Rochester for a proper look.

The University the following day had a really nice room that I was using and it led onto a patio area which had this wonderful view. Someone described this area of water as the sea... The other delegates didn't think much of that idea...

Looking another way from the patio was as close as I got to seeing the castle and cathedral!

Having finished the day I got a taxi back to the station, the train coming to the platform just as the taxi drew up. I was gob-smacked that I managed to get on it!

This took me back into London to Waterloo East - a station I never even knew existed! From there I walked to Waterloo which it unsurprisingly joined onto and from there took a train out to Aldershot for the following day's workshop. To anyone from the Provinces it is staggering to think about the number of trains that leave London at the end of the working day. You can hardly walk two paces in a straight line and then you fight your way onto a train which is 12 carriages long and just hope to get a seat.

Then you gleefully play at making people acknowledge you for a while until that gets boring. It is a challenge anyway. And then you watch in amazement as they start to blow their cheeks out and shake their heads the very moment the clock ticks past the moment of departure without the train moving immediately.

Aldershot had another Premier Inn. Same standard, same comfort. I love them but you do wake up, stare at the same painting on the same coloured wall and wonder where on earth you are...

Large versions of the photos: the sea..., castle, train station

Caption Competition

2011-10-04T08:25:00.007+01:00

Massive prizes (any prizes at all) - have been dispensed with for this competition... Add a comment with the picture number and your caption - keep it clean! I reserve the rights to moderate and withold any captions I feel are not in keeping with the nature of the blog. Children read this! No correspondence will be entered into. It's my blog, what I say goes! Apart from all that - have fun!

Pic 1:

Pic 2:

Pic 3:

Pic 4:

Captions will not appear until I have had chance to vet them (see what I did...?) groan...

All photos taken at Blackpool Zoo during September 1982.

Staining Charity Night

2011-10-02T16:43:00.008+01:00

Last night saw Creeping Bentgrass on stage at Staining Village Hall.

This was a night we had arranged ourselves and we had invited family, friends and people we have worked with year after year until they too can be classed as friends.

We do one of these every two years or so and they are informal, punctuated by guest appearances and a chance for us to try out new stuff to people we can trust to tell us if they don't work.

After years of having "Abba!" thrown at us we have capitulated and now "Fernando" and "Waterloo" (seen above being road-tested with The Creepettes - or is that the Bentettes?) are added to the repertoire.

We road tested a few last night in fact. The Single Girl, I Can Hear Music, You've Lost That Loving Feeling - the latter after we busked it in response to a request in Chapeltown a few weeks ago!

Then again, Jack who books us every year for his steam fair at Heskin Hall at the beginning of June has been asking for House of the Rising Sun for years. It is a bit of a voice-breaker but we have now come up with a bluesy version which went down a storm last night!

And talking of going down a storm - here was a bit of fun!

I walked off stage to leave David singing a West-End musical song - Love Changes Everything. It raised a few eyebrows but then I walked back on to join him in harmony from the second verse on and if we surprised the audience with a new style of song, then in turn we were blown away by the reception the song got at the end.

Thanks have to go to Miss Franny and Miss Jeannie for arranging raffles, hot pots and to willing helpers, Gill, Chrissie, David and Elaine, Claire, Shelagh, Janet and Doreen who dished out grub, sold raffle tickets, managed to separate people from money for the charities, to Marcus and his friend for arranging and manning the bar, to Shelagh and Peter Cooney for the guest spot, to the Bentettes: Louise, Marion, Janet and Shelagh, and to all of you who came from far and wide. A special mention to Harry and Maureen Whitehouse who had come over from Scarborough for the night. Harry is the head of the Peaksoft recording label and was responsible for convincing us to contribute to a CD of Protest Songs (see here) and he donated a copy for the raffle. Harry is also the man behind billyfury.com and so absolutely a VIP member of the audience!

A quick aside to Billy Fury New Zealand Fan Club Manager Moya Gleave here - Harry did stop a little short of giving me a "big sloppy kiss on the top of my head" but thanks for the thought...!

A huge thank you to all who came to see us - we didn't have much time to talk to anyone but it was great to see you there and we appreciate it so much!

After paying the expenses for the hall, bar and food we made £200 profit which will go to the two charities - a Cat Rescue Centre and Diabetic UK

Fireworks and Street Lights

2011-09-25T12:14:00.006+01:00

We'd been saying for weeks that we'd like to go to see the fireworks on a Friday night in Blackpool.

For three weeks they have been holding heats of a World Championship. This weekend saw the last of the the heats and the fireworks were created and displayed by an Australian team.

The North Pier was usd as a base which meant that you could watch from anywhere between the Central Pier and North Promenade stretching off towards Gynn Square. We found a spot between the North Pier and the Metropole Hotel and, along with a few thousand others enjoyed a spectacular display.

The finale was absolutely brilliant. A section of sky above the pier was just totally criss-crossed with white streaks as a score of bursting lights overlaid each other.

We had parked the car behind the old Post Office and set off to walk back up Birley Street with its new light and sound system.

Now why would a street need a sound and light system, I hear you say. Indeed I do know someone who lives in a flat above one of the many shops and he absolutely hates it...

But the effect of these massive archway gantries with their projection systems floating circular designs of colour up and down the street is spectacular.

Birley Street comes out onto Abingdon Street, opposite the Yorkshire Bank on the corner of St John's Square.

Which open space we see in this view, looking back down towards the coast. Blackpool Tower's new light show is currently confined to the tower top but is very good, ever-changing colours and swirling designs. The legs of the Tower are still being painted but apparently the light show will extend up and down them once the work is complete. I suspect it will be worth waiting for.

Also we can see the dome of the Winter Gardens. This hasn't been seen at night for many years, but the recent refurbishment opened up the ceiling of the foyer so you can look up to the dome and it means that at night the light escapes that way and it looks wonderful!

A new Pizza Express has opened on the site of the Next shop on the corner - we had our tea there at the beginning of the night and weren't disappointed.

Now, though, we have to cope with several thousand people returning to cars and dealing with Blackpool's one-way system, which funnels everywhere in the town centre to a very limited number of exit routes! An hour after setting off, we managed to escape the town centre to drop David and Miss Jeannie off at home!

Large versions of the photos can be found with many more in the Blackpool at Night set at my Flickr account.

Tigger R.I.P.

2011-09-24T10:56:00.007+01:00

A sad week. On Monday after a period of looking and acting a bit off Tigger, our female cat seemed to be having problems standing up.

We took her into the vet and they kept her overnight on a drip and for blood tests.

I had to go to Newcastle for 3 days but in one of those did it happen for a reason things I started off with a cold on the first night and shrugged it off for a day but then was feeling absolutely wretched on the second night and when I woke up on Thursday morning. So I came home on an early train and Fran said the vet wanted to see us that night.

Tigger still hadn't eaten and although she had fluids from the drip she was very poorly. The blood tests showed her liver was the problem and if she wouldn't eat she was not going to improve.

The vet felt she may eat at home, but wanted her back in the morning for more medication. We took her home but she was in a state. Normally after a trip to the vets she can't wait to get out of the travel cage, but she would not budge out of it, nor would she eat or drink or do anything other than a faint acknowledgement that she was back with us.

Jess, her brother, took one look and sniff and ran.

Taking her out of the cage was a shock. Her feet folded under her and she struggled to rise, only to crawl straight back into the cage.

In the morning the options were to try a feeding tube for a couple of days but then if she didn't eat after that, there would be nothing else to try and it sounded intrusive and we felt after so long that we didn't want to put her through forced feeding.

So yesterday was a very sad day and we are worried about Jess who, unlike Tigger, has never since a kitten particularly sought out our company except for food and a bedtime stroke, but who loved to cuddle up with her for hours. He's now trying to find hiding places where she hasn't been and we just need to give him time and hope he grieves and then comes round.

We'll miss our Tiggie-poos, she was a beautiful and loving cat right from being a kitten in 2002.

Sand Yacht Racing at St Annes

2011-09-18T10:30:00.007+01:00

I've got up to September 1982 in my scanning of my old black and white negatives.

This week I came across a number of photos that I took for an article for Lancashire Magazine in 1982 of the sand yachts on the beach at St Annes on Sea.

This is a huge expanse of sand, open to the Irish Sea although the tide here never comes close to the edge of the beach.

As such this is a very windy place! There are huge sand hills here, dunes that are held back by star grass - at one time there was a local law that families had to plant so much star grass every year to keep the sand from swamping the villages along the coast. Even now you regularly find huge piles of sand as far back from the "front" as the main road from Lytham towards Blackpool and Starr Gate.

This wind is what makes the sport of sand yachting possible.

In the September of 1982, there was a brand spanking new Coastguard Station on the front at St Annes and it's from around here that the sand yachts congregated and went off on their zig-zag courses out on the flat sands.

The Fylde International Sand Yacht Club was formed in 1951 and hosted several large national and international competitions at St Annes.

In 1953 Richard Denning and a number of friends broke the British and World speed records here on the beach in their yacht Coronation Mk II. Unconfirmed speeds of over 70mph had been achieved - and here I'm looking back at my notes of 1982.

However thare has been no sand yachting at St Annes since a blanket ban in 2002 after a racing yacht struck a member of the public, killing her as she walked with her two sons in 1982. The pilot of the sand yacht was cleared of manslaughter but the ban has been in place ever since.

Currently a three month trial of sand yachting is coming to a close with close scrutiny on public safety and the effects on local and visiting wild life, particularly the various bird populations.

Large verions of the photos: racing yachts, coastguard station, lone yacht, stationary yachts

The Legend of the Dun Cow's Rib

2011-09-12T13:45:00.006+01:00

In Whittingham near Preston is an old farmhouse with a rather strange object over the door.

It is the decaying remains of a cow's rib bone.

The legend that goes with it states that in the 17th century there was a great drought. So that neighbours would not die from lack of water, a farmer sent his great dun cow to roam about so that villagers could milk her at will.

However the local witch milked her into a sieve, which never filled up and so the cow was milked to death. It's likely isn't it? You can see just how it must have happened...!

Anyway, the cow's rib was taken and mounted over the door of the farm and if ever owners were tempted to throw it away, they were plagued by poltergeist activity until the rib was reinstated over the doorway.

Here's a photo from 1982, there was a bit more rib still in existence then, but still far less than the the brackets were made for!

Strangely the legend doesn't name the witch. The famous witch around the villages in this part of Lancashire was Meg Shelton, whose grave can be seen to this day, covered by an enormous stone to stop her rising from the grave.

That... will be for another day!

Club and Pub Weekend

2011-09-11T19:59:00.001+01:00

Creeping Bentgrass were out and about this weekend.

We started on Friday night at the Longshaw Sports & Social Club in Blackburn. This was a charity night in aid of the Mayor's charities.

An upstairs function room, a stage and some rather hot stage lights! The crowd set the standard for the weekend, crowding onto the dance floor early on in the proceedings!

Then on Saturday night we played for a 70th birthday party (that's two of those in a week!) out at the Chetham Arms, Chapeltown. Again the guests made a beeline for the dance floor early in the night and a good time was had by all.

Our appreciation and thanks to those who booked us, particularly for the very kind compliments and feedback and today has been a nice, relaxing day which didn't start until long after normal get-up time...!

Photography in the Lakes

2011-09-07T18:18:00.014+01:00

Now I can't remember the exact date, but this is the tale of a day in the Lake District in August 1982.

This particular day started up at Penrith where we visited the castle. I was freelancing photos to magazines at the time.

This was before the days of expensive colour appearing in magazines and freelancing meant shooting black and white film then printing up 10x8 inch prints and sending them off in batches after very very careful analysis of the type of shots magazines used - eg mainly portrait or landscape, with or without people, what was the main content topic etc. No good trying to be different and expecting editors to say "Blimey - why haven't we tried this before?!?"

Anyway this was published a few times, mainly in a magazine called Lakescene - What to do in Lakeland who published it twice with a couple of years in between. Wandering around the castle in the photo and very chuffed at being published in a magazine are Miss Franny and Gill, our daughter and my Mum and Dad.

From Penrith we drove to Eamont Bridge where there are a couple of large henge earthworks and then down Ullswater, stopping wherever I saw a chance for a saleable photo.

We doubled back up to Keswick after Ullswater to have a look at Derwent Water, arriving at the same time as two coach-loads the vast majority of whom, to my relief, boarded a couple of waiting boats and got out of our way! Lakescene liked to show photos of people enjoying the Lakes in traditional ways which meant I had a better chance of a sale if they were dressed for hiking not riding round in luxury coaches!

Ah... that's better! This is the Friar's Crag walk. It gives some lovely views of the lake and was a favourite walk of poet, artist and social reformer, John Ruskin, to whom there is a chunk of Lakeland stone set upright and carved with a few details.

My photo of the memorial has been published a few times also - nothing remarkable about it other than it's relevance for any article about Ruskin or this bit of Cumbria!

From Keswick we set off towards home, but stopped for a short diversion to Elterwater, a peaceful somewhat quieter and less visited lake than some of the others so that I could take photos, not only of the lake, but of the waterfall that can be found a few minutes walk away.

This is Skelwith Force, the word "force" being the local term for a waterfall. It's not a huge drop but a fair amount of water pours over the edge and it's well worth a visit. The amount of water makes it very noisy and some people when they hear it on the approach assume it's going to be much bigger than it really is. Wear some good shoes, this isn't the place to go in flip-flops...

The day yielded a good crop of photos that got published at one time or another, though it took some of them several years to achieve it! Once I started working in Education it didn't leave me much time for blacking out the bathroom and getting the photo enlarger out so my freelancing came to a stop at that point. However a cheque for one photo came through the post one day in the 1990s - some ten years after I had sent it off to a magazine! I'd never even seen it published as payment always followed a couple of months after the publication!

Large versions of the photos: Penrith Castle, coaches, hikers, Elterwater, Skelwith Force

Also here's a link to the set of all my Lake District photos so you can see others from the day and other visits if you so desire!

A Fabulous Time at the Party

2011-09-04T08:50:00.004+01:00

What a wonderful fabulous time we had last night!

We were out at Garstang Golf Club for a 70th birthday party, playing a country and western set before the guests had a meal and then playing for dancing later on.

The lady wife of the birthday boy had done a lot of preparation for the event - there were games, competitions and a lot of fun and once the meal was over the dance floor filled up and we had a ball.

It's always very nice when bar staff tell us we are the best band they've ever heard and I have to say, the bar staff last night showed some excellent taste...

Huge thank yous to all concerned!

Check out the Creeping Bentgrass YouTube channel for samples of our work!

Last Day of the Adriatic Explorer

2011-08-31T20:51:00.010+01:00

18 August 2011. The Thomson Spirit arrives into Gruz, the port for the Croatian city of Dubrovnik.

As it's our last day we'll have a last look at the ship itself!

Once again we have decided not to go on an arranged excursion. This means for the first time ever we have done an entire cruise without paying for excursions! Dubrovnik is an hour's walk apparently. We'll set off and see where we get to!

The last time we were in this port, there was a lot of building work going on to extend the wharf. We are docked on a bit that didn't exist the last time and we have to walk the length of the harbour.

Halfway down we come to this excellent replica galleon, the Karaka. Well, it's not a galleon apparently, but a replica of a 16th century carrack. I suspect they weren't fitted with the same sort of luxuries in the 1500s somehow, but it certainly looked wonderful and you can find out more on the Karaka website complete with some beautiful photos of her under sail.

We walked all the way to the end of the harbour and there found that the street signs for Dubrovnik were a little open to interpretation... Our map that we had picked up didn't help as the harbour was too far away from Dubrovnik to be shown.

There was a peninsular heading back on the other side of the harbour for as far as we had walked already and more and I suspected Dubrovnik was probably on the other side of it. Taking the short cut over the peninsular instead of round it looked as though it involved one hell of a climb! Besides... it was very nice on the harbourside! We sat on a bench and watched what there was to watch for half an hour and then ambled back up to the ship.

That's twice I've been to Gruz and not been into Dubrovnik... Ah well! Third time may prove to be lucky!

We sail out at 5:00pm, heading out through the channels and islands and past the suspension bridge over the river.

The large ferries were nowhere to be seen here. Just an older small steamer heading across to one of the islands.

We ate once more in the Compass Rose restaurant where Thomas and Fred were watching out for us, to wave us into our chairs.

Then we headed for the Horizons Bar where the harmony group New Dimension were playing their usual ballads.

"Is it rock and roll night tonight?" I asked as I walked in. I'd asked this about three nights running and it had become a standing joke. However tonight they went into a conflab for a while and then - Blue Suede Shoes!!! Who would have guessed! They all laughed as I got up and salaamed them.

Large versions of the photos: all the photos from this holiday can be found in this set at Flickr.

Rain Stops Play at Garstang

2011-08-30T08:20:00.004+01:00

Such a shame. We had played around an hour or an hour and a half and then the heavens opened at Garstang's Music and Arts Festival yesterday.

Unlike Saturday when we covered up for a bit and then played again, Monday turned into a steady non-stop downpour and we had to move the equipment to a dry place and then try to dry it all off. Definitely not the place to be using electricity out in the open!

Thanks to the people who came to see us - especially those who had come some way especially. A couple came and he introduced himself as Hughie - they had seen us on the Internet and come all the way from Manchester. Another family had come from Blackburn after seeing us at other events and some had come down from Lancaster.

It was lovely to meet and talk with you all and we were as disappointed as anyone at not being able to carry on. We hope to see you at future events. Our dates can be found in the left hand column of the band's blog.

Split the Night!

2011-08-29T09:08:00.009+01:00

17 August 2011. Once again we are given time and opportunity to view our port of call at night.

Once again it makes a beautiful scene. We are in Split, Croatia. The last entry dealt with our day in this rapidly recognised tourist destination and we are now standing on the Promenade Deck (Deck 6) of our cruise ship, the Thomson Spirit.

To our left there is still a litle colour in the sky although the sun, a while since, dipped beneath the horizon.

As we stand looking over the peaceful scene, a number of ferries enter and leave the port.

This doesn't detract from the peace or the aesthetic beauty of the place - the ferries are quiet and at the first or final few metres of their journey and so are gliding slowly past.

They all bear their company name Jadrolinija in bold letters on their side. There are lots of islands around this area and many are tourist destinations.

We stood out on deck until the pangs of hunger assailed us - that doesn't normally take too long with me to be honest, but I heed them off tonight. This was, after all, the last port that we would be in at night on the cruise. In fact we only have one port of call left! Dubrovnik will be our port tomorrow.

Tonight in the Compass Rose restaurant it is the night for a traditional event on cruise ships - the Parade of the Baked Alaska!

It is a feature of every cruise and, seeing as this will be the twelfth time we have clapped along and enjoyed the beaming faces of a line of waiters holding aloft a flaming pudding, I thought it was time to research what it was all about...

The pudding is ice cream on a cake bed and then encased in a baked meringue. A frozen middle that has to remain frozen whilst the meringue is cooked. Still a feat now, but imagine when there were no refridgerators!

Apparently Baked Alaska was first created by Delmonico's restaurant in New York following the acquisition of Alaska by America from Russia on March 30, 1867. How they baked the meringue without the ice cream melting and without the aid of little gas aerosol flame throwers I don't know. They must have called in all the local plumbers with their paraffin burners...

Anyway whether you like the dessert or not makes no difference. This is an event that livens up the waiters' week. That much is obvious from their faces. And these guys and girls work some serious hours on your behalf.

And it's a bit of fun and you've got to be a cynical old meanie not to enjoy it!

Large versions of the photos: all the photos from this holiday are now uploaded to this set at Flick.

Split, Croatia

2011-08-28T12:58:00.008+01:00

Thursday 18 August 2011. The Thomson Spirit sails into dock in Split, Croatia.

Again, just by walking a few yards from the ship, we find ourselves standing outside the old city walls. The walk along the waterfront is beautiful and there are benches every few yards. (Blackpool are you paying attention?)

Quite a bit of the city wall and some of the older buildings have been lost here during one spell of fighting or another.

This is the gate that we entered the old part of the city through.

It enters next to the Cathedral of St Duje in the left hand photo above.

The old city of Split is built over a Roman Palace, built for the retirement home of Emperor Diocletian in AD 305 (actually the first Roman Emperor to retire rather than die or be overthrown).

The city is typical of medieval towns with a number of narrow streets leading to squares or piazzas.

This one was particularly beautiful, mainly for the decorated building facing us. Behind us though was an extremely early clock tower and clock. It was a popular stop on guided tours as several were jostling for position and I even got stepped on by one woman, camera glued to her eye instead of looking where she was going. She was in her twenties and very pretty and apologised profusely in French which shocked me so much (normally the French would just glare at you for getting in the way) that I smiled at her and offered the other foot...

Once again it was somewhat warmer than it gets in Blackpool! We made our way out of the old city and down to one of the benches on the seafront before strolling back to the ship for our last afternoon. Why does time go so much faster when you are on holiday?!?

Large versions of the photos: all the photos from the holiday can be found in this set at Flickr.

Dodging the Weather at Garstang

2011-08-28T09:10:00.003+01:00

We wondered how we would get on yesterday, but apart from one very short period where we had to cover up, the rain skirted round us and the sun tried its best to make an appearance!

Even the wooden kingfisher had its warm clothing on!

Anyway, although quieter than the previous Saturday there were a number of people out and about and we had a sizeable crowd during the last hour of our set.

Creeping Bentgrass will be back in Garstang on Bank Holiday Monday for the third of our three appearances at Garstang Music and Arts Festival.

One More Time in Venice

2011-08-26T09:40:00.021+01:00

We have, I must admit, been here before. So, as I don't want to repeat myself and bore my readers (Heaven forbid!) I decided we would stay away from St Mark's Basilica, the Bridge of Sighs and the Rialto Bridge and look at some things I haven't shown before.

However, just to keep everyone happy and so as not to disappoint, here is a shot from the deck of Thomson Spirit of St Mark's with the bell tower, basilica and Doges' Palace. The Bridge of Sighs is just off to the immediate right but was surrounded by screens and scaffolding.

Having been before, we decided to forsake the ship's offer of an excursion and even the special boat solely for Thomson passengers and instead saved around sixteen pounds by buying return tickets for a water bus that picked us up right next to the ship. The excursion boat would have cost us forty pounds for the two of us and we would have been stuck to the allotted return time. The water bus cost us twenty six Euros.

Having said this, we knew we had to come back fairly early so as not to arrive for the final returning boat only for it to be full! Everyone who misses sailing time has gone ashore independantly! It is an expensive thing to do, missing a ship...

So this time we had a walk around the arcade which surrounds three sides of St Mark's Square. Florian's Restaurant had a small combo doing their refined thing outside, seen here as I walked behind them in the arcade. Usually they play classical or opera pieces. For some reason we got there in time to hear the final bars of Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da... Just the thing to bring medieval Italy to mind!

The arcade shops include several narrow booths, part of the restaurant where customers can sip their champagne or espresso. Of the actual shops, jewellers are the most represented traders.

Miss Franny was paying close attention to these and I curried a bit of favour by purchasing a matching necklace and earring set of Murano glass.

Now, whether I've shown gondolas before or not, you can't visit Venice without doing a spot of gondola gazing. They are everywhere, from the lagoon shore at St Marks to piazzas where canals meet, to the Rialto Bridge. And at all points inbetween, gliding down narrow canals and under tourist-filled bridges.

"James behave! We're being filmed!"
"Oh, not again...!"

We just gave up on direction and wandered down the side of canals and along shopping streets until we were hopelessly lost. I knew where we were roughly but we couldn't find ourselves on the map. The map had all the street names. The streets have all the names of the piazzas... It gave us a fresh perspective.

Bits of street furniture brightened up the sometimes quite dingy alleyways. Such as this wonderful apartment building collection of doorbells.

Then we found ourselves back at St Marks Square and headed down the lagoon front to a pavement cafe where we could enjoy a cool drink and a spell of people watching. I've always found that knowing how to count up to five and say please and thank you will get you a long way. I know only a very little Italian beyond that, but have never had a problem. They all speak excellent English anyway, but appreciate you making the effort.

Then we made our way back to the water bus station and waited for a boat back to the Thomson Spirit.

Sailing out of Venice on a cruise ship is one of the great cruising experiences. It also brings home to you how big these huge ships are. The Thomson Spirit is tiny next to some of them but even on that - we were up on the highest deck which is Deck 10 - we could look over the rooftops of Venice and pick out a few decidedly wonky-looking church towers!

Two days in Croatia still to come!

Large versions of the photos: all the photos from this holiday can be found in a special set at Flickr.

A Day in Koper, Slovenia

2011-08-25T15:06:00.015+01:00

15 August 2011. After a day at sea the Thomson Spirit arrives at a country that we've never been to before. We dock at Koper in Slovenia and find ourselves with an easy walk from the ship's gangplank into the heart of the medieval city.

Koper sits on the opposite corner at the top of the Adriatic Sea, across from Venice.

The Venetians in Medieval times were the dominant naval force in the Mediterranean and many ancient cities along the coasts of the Adriatic show significant Venetian influence.

The photograph shows the Loggia Palace on the left, parts of which date back to 1462 with an upper storey added two hundred years later. Facing us is the Praetorian Palace, on the site of two earlier municipal halls. One was here from 1254 but was destroyed during a revolt in 1348. Its replacement hadn't been finished by 1380 when a raid from Genoa destroyed it and the rest of the city. The present palace was started in 1452.

The old part of Koper isn't that big, but has plenty of interesting sights. We came across this railed off drinking fountain with two entrances governed by turnstiles to stop children rushing in and out. It works as the child who tried it whist we were there banged his head on the turnstile and stopped running quite abruptly!

We came out of the old town a different way than we had gone in and found ourselves faced by a very attractive view of the Adriatic and a marina.

We sat for a while on a bench and applied a bit more sun lotion in order to fry rather than roast... It was H-O-T!

So we were tickled to find this framework blasting out jets of frosty mist! By the time you had walked through the heat dried off any moisture that you may have picked up!

Behind it was a shopping centre and this delightful fountain, ringed by more benches. We sat on one and Fran packed me off to buy ice creams from a stall on the marina. Another couple from the ship came out of the shopping centre and sat staring at the air conditioning jets. "Don't you get wet?" the woman asked suspiciously, whilst moaning about how hot it was.

We walked back to the ship and came to this resort area. It was absolutely crowded with people of all ages, sunbathing, sitting, swimming in the cordoned part of the sea whilst a massive container ship nudged its way past only a few yards away.

We walked through to get to the ship. Fran pointed me the way past a couple of girls sitting on the grass with their backs to us. They had bikini bottoms on but nothing else. I sighed... Now to show my mature character by not turning round as I walked past. I strong-heartedly strode past them.

"Can we get that way?" asked Fran. Oh... damn... I had to turn to answer her... Gorgeous that woman...

We spent the afternoon lazing about the ship. Koper is so close to Venice - our destination for tomorrow - that we again had a chance to take photos as darkness fell.

On one side of the ship, the large container ship had docked and already was lighter by about a third of its cargo of containers.

On the other side a lone excursion coach stood on the dockside in front of Koper's city wall.

Large versions of the photos: all the photos from this holiday can be found in this set at Flickr. There are still some to upload at time of writing.

Playing Like High-Speed Gas!

2011-08-25T08:18:00.006+01:00

Yesterday we played for the British Gas Pensioners following an excellent meal at the Elgin Hotel, Blackpool.

Both David and Jeannie used to work for British Gas so we were invited to dine with them and the Elgin put on a superb meal. I have to praise their staff and manager too, who were so pleasant and accomodating it was a pleasure to be there.

We played two sets and David had devised a little extra involvement for the audience. As we played our country and folk set, he had distributed a list of all the pop and rock songs we do from the late 50s upwards and audience members were able to vote for their favourites for us to play in the second set.

It worked very well and some brave souls ventured out of the 60s voting enough to include both Westlife and Take That songs that we included.

All in all we enjoyed ourselves every bit as much as the audience and the Committee were full of praise for us afterwards which was very nice too!

Night Time in Kotor

2011-08-23T21:42:00.011+01:00

13 August 2011. We are still in Kotor, Montenegro, 28 kilometres from the Adriatic Sea up the deepest fjord in southern Europe.

We are standing on the Promenade Deck of the Thomson Spirit cruise ship, waiting to sail out of Montenegro and back down the fjord to the sea.

As darkness falls the ancient city of Kotor comes alive - so much so that the full car park below us on the wharf has a long stream of cars queueing to get in. They each must wait until another car leaves.

The city walls that earlier had blended in with the mountainside which they climb, now stand out in floodlighting, showing just how high above the main city they reach.

A crowd is gathering, waiting to see the ship leave the port. Young couples, older couples, entire families... they all stand or sit looking expectantly upwards. Then the startlingly loud blast on the ship's hooter. No wonder they are all out here with their kids - no one would have slept through that!

The crowd of people start to wave at the few of us who have come out to watch our own departure.

"Goodbye! Don't forget to write!" Actually I don't speak Montenegrin... It could have been "You bastards! You woke the baby!" One chap looked slightly apologetic at the rail. Hmmm - maybe it had been "You bastard! You left me with a baby!!!"

The ship moves away from the dock and turns slowly, then starts off down the fjord. We pass a few ferries, lots of small boats and a yacht, swinging slowly to its mooring.

As we move away from Kotor the lights dwindle until there are just a few houses here and there along the fjord's bank. Not enought light to take photographs by and we move into the Horizons Bar for a drink and to listen to the vocal harmony group, New Dimensions. We'll meet them properly later in the week.

It would be easy to drink yourself into stupification on a cruise ship - plenty actually do. Others set foot on the boat already pretty stupid... I'm not a good drunk. I have a short spell of feeling merry but, let's face it, most people wouldn't tell the difference anyway and then I just feel ill and fall over... Not good. I don't do it. People tell me they'd love to see me drunk but I'd just aim for them if they got me that way...

So after a giddy pint, we finish our evening on the Lido Deck with a sedate coffee.

The next day is our day at sea so in our next entry we will have travelled all the way up the Adriatic to call in at the top right hand corner into Koper in Slovenia.

Large versions of the photos: all the photos will end up in this set of photos at Flickr.

The Wrong Song in Kotor, Montenegro

2011-08-22T15:30:00.013+01:00

13 August 2011. Normally the first day of a cruise would be a day at sea. This allows passengers to get accustomed to any motion that there may be and also provides time for the lifeboat drill which is required by law within 24 hours of boarding a ship. All passengers are required to attend.

On the Adriatic Explorer however we have a port visit - Kotor in Montenegro - to look forward to. To accomodate the lifeboat drill we will arrive at lunchtime and sail away a bit later at 11:00pm. So a second day where we have a chance to see somewhere after dark!

To approach Kotor we have to sail along what they call the deepest fjord in southern Europe. It is some 28 kilometres long and as I hadn't realised we weren't sailing until after dark, I stuck my nose in a book on the sun deck and ignored it entirely... Duh...

The bits I did see - and we were in it a long time - were spectacular! It is our first visit to Montenegro. All day long the song Montego Bay is going through my head even though it's about a totally different country on the other side of the world and the word "Montenegro" does not fit into the same space as "Montego"...

Kotor is a medieval walled city with earlier roots. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Best of all the ship docks so close that we can just walk down the gangway and into the heart of the city in a couple of minutes.

Kotor is a delight of narrow alleyways, very worn marble paving and cobbled squares, surrounded by ancient palaces and churches. Scrawny cats stalk the alleyways that were made so that even two donkeys would have to be skinny to pass each other!

We come out at one side to the city wall and pond seen in the second photo. Walking away from the old city we come to a more ancient ruin but with nothing to tell us what we are looking at.

We re-enter the city and walk through a different route to the far side, passing again under the wall to a river and what looks like a leat, running from a building that must have had a mill as its predecessor.

The walls run up an almost sheer mountainside to a fortress far above us. The walls meld into the mountainside. Come dark we will see them far more easily so we'll have a look at them in the next entry.

Instead we'll take a look at the mysterious yellow floating umbrellas that suddenly confront us round a corner from the main square. As we pass into this small piazza people, looking upwards, walk into each other with tiny muttered apologies in a multitude of languages...

We head back out through the main entrance arch under the walls and are immediately faced by the bulk of the Thomson Spirit standing just the other side of the road.

Back on the ship we head up to the Horizons Bar where the irrepressible Aiza is practicing the phrases taught to her by some Geordies last week: "Why-aye man! Cheeky booger...." Priceless!

Large versions of the photos: all of the photos from this holiday will appear in this set at Flickr.

Cruising the Adriatic Explorer

2011-08-20T09:39:00.008+01:00

Did you miss me? Sorry about that, but I've been re-stocking with new experiences to bring you. I have to research every now and then - life cannot be just a steady stream of fun.

So whilst everyone else was thinking about the start of their holiday, Miss Franny and I boarded the Thomson Spirit after flying to Corfu last Friday (12 August) ready to log our experiences to brighten these pages of academic learning. A hard life, but someone's got to do it...

The Spirit is the sister ship to the Thomson Celebration and is identical in layout and names of bars, restaurants etc. so that we knew our way about immediately. "Where are we now? Fran asked, halfway up a flight of stairs. Well... almost immediately, then...

We arrived in the afternoon so there wasn't any time to explore Corfu. By the time we had unpacked, settled in and ensured the Horizons Bar matched the Celebration, dined and lounged about some more in the Horizons, the sun was going down. Quite spectacularly as it happened. So if you are looking for info about Corfu, then search for it at the top of the page. You'll find it!

Here, we'll just take a turn around the Promenade Deck which on this ship is Deck 6.

It's warm. I've never known Corfu to be anything else really. But this is our first day and even 20 degrees, never mind thirty-odd would have felt warm to us shivery Brits!

It was a beautiful night and a near-as-full-as-makes-no-difference moon had risen to throw a cascade of pearly white along the water as straight as the flight of Cupid's arrow.

"Are you done?" asked Miss Franny, "We've been up since two o'clock this morning and I want to go to sleep!" Sigh...

Well then, here we are. Corfu, Greece, about to set off for Kotor on Montenegro also in Greece. Then will come a day at sea, a day in Slovenia, one in Venice, Italy and two in Split then Dubrovnik in Croatia. Most of those so close to the place where we'll dock that this is the first holiday (whoops! I mean "academic research trip"!) that we'll do without taking a single paid excursion. We're such meanies! More to come...

Large versions of the photos: Not many there yet (as at 20 August) but they will gather here at Flickr!

Reading My Way Through 2011

2011-08-10T12:54:00.014+01:00

Time for an update on reading matter I think... In the last book-related entry I hinted at having started a long series of fantasy books.

This was Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. This is the original American book cover which I've used here as the UK covers are unbelievably boring with a single graphic illustration - the same except for colour on all the books - and only a vertical sliver of the illustration on the rear cover which are mostly meaningless without seeing the whole thing.

Jordan set out to write a long series and did so, but unfortunately died before finishing the series. However Brandon Sanderson stepped in to write the final novel from Jordan's notes and found so much material he turned the final book into a trilogy, the final instalment of which (book 14 of 12...) is still to be published.

This is a gripping if slightly confusing story - the number of characters grows throughout the series and as it is a fantasy book they do have rather unusual sounding names that you have to keep track of and remember for the next time they appear. They are huge books too. Perhaps because he did like his descriptive text did our Robert... Sometimes I got so bored I'd skip read a couple of pages only then finding myself confused because I'd missed a bit that was actually relevant to the story.

There's a lot of repetition too. The number of times female characters sniff disdainfully must make this the snottiest collection of books in history... But in the end you can't take away from the fact that this is a brilliant story. Since May I've read my way through 10 of the books. That's 18 inches (46cm) of shelf space! So far it's been a re-reading effort for me - I read the first 11 books in 2007-8. Fran bought me book 12 for Christmas last year and I realised I would have to go through the others before even hoping to remember what each of the scores of characters was up to! Book 13 comes out in paperback early next year. For the final one I fear I might have to go through them all over again!

I couldn't read through this huge, huge (told you there was a lot of repetition) series without some relief at times and I came across my old Adrian Mole books by Sue Townsend.

How can any grown man can read this and not squirm with embarrassed memories...? Adrian Mole is wonderful. It's like going through awkward adolescence all over again reading these books. I love the part where one of his schoolmates says a girl will do "it" for a bag of grapes and in Adrian's next diary entry he has been to the greengrocers to look at the price of grapes!

Every man carries some memory that would make him squirm if it came out but all of Adrian's are here in print for us to chortle over!

I needed a few short books to refresh myself for the hurdle back into the Wheel of Time and this was a re-read of a book that my Dad used to have. The Stainless Steel Rat is a comedy science fiction caper wherein criminal poacher turns gamekeeper, boy meets girl, girl does her best to kill boy, boy falls in love. As you do... Anyway, very short, very enjoyable and it spawned a few sequels. There were others of Harry Harrison's books that I'd like to read again too - the Deathworld series being notables, especially the first two.

So what the heck... I've had a taste of it and now I'm into Sci-Fi again! Robert Heinlein was always one of my favourites and this time I hadn't read this one before. A bunch of students get sent on a survival test through a portal to a distant planet and somehow miss being picked up after their allotted ten days. Reading science fiction 60 years on makes you think how hard it is to predict the future. If we had to predict what life will be like 60 years from now chances are we would get it totally wrong because in particular we miss thinking of one thing that will alter things drastically.

In most science fiction the thing they didn't think of that actually happened is miniturisation. Asimov had his giant computers stored in hyperspace, or they took up several blocks of a city. We now carry the sort of capability they envisaged in our pocket and the fact it can be used as a telephone is almost incidental. You could read Frederick Pohl's The Age of The Pussyfoot. Written in 1965 it nearly gets mobile phones and their additional functionality right!

I've been reading this series for over two years. Heart of Oak - book 28!!! - would have finished it, but no, he's published a new one this year. Not out in paperback yet though.

A visit to the second hand book stalls found me this one. Again my Dad and Grandad introduced me to Tarzan as a boy and I loved them. This again is an American cover, but it is actually the copy that I finished a couple of days ago. Someone must have bought it on holiday and brought it back here. Altogether: "Aaaaaa-i-aaaaa-i-aaaahhhhh!"

That's all for now - I knew I'd done a fair bit of travelling this year - hotel bedrooms are a good place to read. I've got through 33 books so far this year and there's some new series lined up, all of which are promising many sequels to come. Duh - which do I start with?

Walking the Waterloo Road

2011-08-09T14:48:00.011+01:00

Well not quite. I've not been on my way to the famous battle ground in Belgium but to a namesake a little closer to home. Quite a lot closer to home in fact...

Waterloo Road in Blackpool was one of the major routes to the Promenade until the development of the old railway route to Blackpool's Central Station was turned into an extension of the M55 motorway, feeding straight into the massive central car park.

So yesterday I went down to have a look at the road which used to be the family's main shopping destination when we lived in South Shore during the 1980s.

The main difference to the road itself is that the portion near its joining to the Promenade road is now one-way. The road has been narrowed considerably and car parking on the slant has been created.

The road name has been set into the pavement near the Promenade, which whilst it looks very attractive, wouldn't help anyone in a car wondering how far down the Prom they were... Street name signs are fast becoming a rarity - I suspect owners, particularly of modern buildings, are reluctant to have them "spoil" the sides of their costly architects' clean designs. Read the last sentence with as much sarcasm as you please! It is with relief and approval that I note the street name on the side of the Dutton Arms.

Woolworths have gone alas, but their building, with a bold blue colour scheme is still in use as Hartes. The building, in common with many of its former owner's premises, has these wonderfully huge windows, designed to tempt people to peer into the shop and be drawn inside and incorporates some large bowed pieces of glass.

Woolworths sold cheap and cheerful copies of more expensive stuff and yet their designers managed to do it so well that many of their designs from the 1950s and 60s are now fondly called classics and swap hands on the collectors' market for many times their original cost.

Diagonally opposite is The Ice Cream Shop - does what it says on the tin... Further up the road is the old Post Office building. Waterloo Road was the shopping centre for the South Shore community and boasted a large Post Office which, of course, is a Post Office no longer...

The Ice Cream Shop itself is an attractive clean white design with a large cornet of ice cream and a stick of rock, both in gigantic proportions, hanging from the upper storey of the building. It is the English version of the Italian Gelaterie, though there are a couple of examples of Italian ice cream parlours in the town - a tasty subject for a future posting perhaps!

The Victoria Centre, I remember as the Victoria Market. It was a crowded narrow-aisled place in the 1980s of the "up one side to the back, across and down the other" variety of market stall collection.

Presumably it dropped the "market" portion of its name to distinguish itself from the New Market which opened just next door, again back in the 1980s on the closure of the shop that had previously occupied the rather grand building with its 1930s cream tiles, which were a feature of 1930s Blackpool and can still be seen here and there all over the town. We've wracked our brains but can't say with certainty what the shop was before the market. Perhaps the Electricity Showrooms? I'm certain some Blackpool reader might know and leave a comment?

And so to Waterloo Road's first intersection with a major road. This shot looks south along Lytham Road to the rather decorative roundabout that now stands in replacement of the 1980s traffic lights.

Waterloo Road continues up to Oxford Corner, but this article ends here - for now!

Large versions of the photos: from the Promenade, Waterloo name, Hartes, Ice cream and post office, Ice Cream Shop, Victoria Centre, New Market, Lytham Rd roundabout

Songs to Change the World

2011-08-08T12:43:00.007+01:00

Let no one say we don't mix in the right circles! This new release, Songs to Change the World has just been released by the Peaksoft label. It is an album of protest songs from the beginnings of recorded sound through to songs that were Internet download hits without troubling the official Charts.

We are featured on the opening track, having been asked by the man behind Peaksoft, Mr Harry Whitehouse, if we could record a song made famous in the early 1960s on the many CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) marches.

"The words of H Bomb's Thunder" (writes Harry in the sleeve notes) "were written by the best-selling novelist John Brunner and set to the traditional tune Miner's Lifeguard in 1958. Its haunting melody has helped it to live on in the memories of those who marched 50 years ago."

It was recorded by a youth choir on an early LP record, long since deleted and unavailable and Harry asked us if we could contribute an arrangement for this album.

This is not the first Peaksoft compilation we have contributed to, but never before have we found ourselves in such exalted company as Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Paul Robeson, Billie Holliday, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Ewan MacColl and others. But nice to be in the company of our fellow artiste from Harry's Billy Fury website; the Gentleman from the Isle of Wight, Johnny Storme!

The CD is available through the merchandise page of the Billy Fury website, from the Peaksoft website, or from Amazon and some independant retailers.

On the Beach

2011-08-08T10:03:00.007+01:00

A few days ago I showed the folks of 1982 Blackpool sitting it out in deckchairs on the Promenade whilst the tide was in. The very minute the tide turned and a strip of sand appeared, people were up and laying claim to their patch for the rest of the afternoon.

The traders were not far behind. Here the donkey ride has reached it's halfway point - the young lad is pushing to turn the lead donkeys around for the run back to their starting point. They are reluctant because the sand is still wet from the tide in the foreground.

Even before the majority of people have left the safety of the sloping sea wall, the caravans selling shrimps, whelks, cockles, crisps and ice cream are jostling for a position on the narrow strip of sand.

In the background are the Funland and Mr B's (later Mr Bee's) arcades as we are on Central Beach here on the Golden Mile. The Royal Mail tram trundles past. It had a counter for selling stamps - one of the more innovative or barmy of Blackpool ideas depending on your viewpoint!

The closeness of the sea to the sea wall is never an irritation for those whose idea of fun is to play in the sea anyway. However a retreating tide has to be treated with respect and caution even on as shallow a sloping beach as Blackpool's! Nobody came to any harm at least on this sunny July day in 1982.

Blackpool has always been the place for fun and good-natured humour and it is written large across the faces of this pair here, who I spotted for the first time yesterday as I scanned the original negative, 29 years after taking it! They were right in the very bottom corner of the photo and I've enlarged this enormously to zoom in on this happy couple enjoying the fun of a Blackpool day out.

Large versions of the photos: well the last one certainly won't be able to be enlarged any more, but all of my Blackpool photos can be seen here at Flickr.

The Blackpool Experience

2011-08-07T11:59:00.013+01:00

The following is adapted from an article that I wrote for the Photographic Press in 1982. Regardless of who I wrote it for - they didn't publish it. So this - dear reader, just for you, is a piece that the magazines of 1982 wouldn't touch with a barge pole...

At the time I lamented how long it had been since I got my slide projector out to give a slide show. Remember those? All that setting a screen up, setting the projector on a table or stepladder.

My slide projector was rather ancient. No push button remote to change slides. No magazine to hold them all. You dropped a slide in a slot on the top and pushed a lever at the side which moved the new slide in front of the lens and in turn pushed the current slide out of the side of the projector where it fell in the dark on the floor and you found it by hearing the noise of the plastic frame snapping when you trod on it...

So I was quite impressed when a friend took me to an exhibition show at the local photographic society. There were two projectors the slides fading into one another very professionally. Not only that but instead of the photographer describing the photos in person, a taped soundtrack with music did the job.

Then one day I was taking photos of a young lady and wanting to get her talking, asked where she worked.
"The Blackpool Experience" she said, "it's a slide show with 18 projectors and special effects!".

The next day saw me down at the Coral Island amusement arcade where around the back I underwent The Blackpool Experience.

The size of the screen was bigger than in many studio cinemas. To fill the screen with a single photo took three of the projectors projecting left, centre and right with softened overlaps. It worked very well.

The special effects included an old train with fiery boiler and smoke belching from the funnel. When Jayne Mansfield appeared on the screen, switching on the Illuminations, flashguns appeared to go off behind the audience from a strobe unit.

The show was the brainchild of Alan Murgatroyd who had been one of four photographers who had gone out in all weathers to take shots of the current day Blackpool. There were lots of photos of holidaymakers and others on the streets, the beach, the fairground. I asked Alan what their reaction had been.

"Normally you get the odd reaction - people asking what the photos are for - but nobody in Blackpool took the slightest notice of us! Blackpool's such a friendly place anyway, but it was really amazing. For instance, I was doing the sequence in the tattooist's parlour and we're in this tiny room, about eight feet by five. I had a camera on a tripod and loads of lights because I was using close-up lenses and this girl came in wanting a rose tattooed on her thigh. She just dropped her trousers and the tattooist got on with it. I was clicking away and she never even asked me what I was doing!" (Note: this might almost be the norm in 2011 but members of the public were not usually keen to bare flesh for cameras in public or otherwise in 1982!)

The photographs were taken over a period of two to three years. Somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 were taken and whittled down to around 1,400 for the show. They were mostly taken on Ektachrome 64 slide film on Nikon 35mm cameras for the candids with a Pentax 6x7 camera used for the views and a rostrum camera for the big panoramas.

The same company's The Jersey Experience won a silver medal at the New York Film Festival and the Blackpool show was also being submitted for awards. Meanwhile Alan and his team were planning to start photographing in York. As for me... my slide projector never seemed adequate after that...

Mass Photography: Blackpool through the Camera

2011-08-06T08:32:00.005+01:00

A very enjoyable early evening outing yesterday to the preview of a new exhibition at Blackpool's Grundy Art Gallery. The exhibition: Mass Photography: Blackpool through the Camera contains over 100 photographs of Blackpool and people enjoying Blackpool through the ages, with a number of photographs having been taken during the Mass Observation social recording project of hte 1930s.

Curator Nina Koennemann from Germany (seen with me above) put the exhibition together, selecting from a wide variety of sources of photographs.

We are standing in front of a group of my own photographs, some 9 of which are to be found in the exhibition.

The exhibition has excited a lot of interest. It was featured in The Observer last weekend and after the preview last night, Grundy Art Gallery Drirector, Stuart Tulloch (seen above talking to Nina) was travelling down to London to be interviewed on Radio 2, talking about the exhibition.

It runs from today Saturday 6 August for a 3-month run to 5 November 2011.

Link: Grundy Art Gallery

Flickr Viewings

2011-08-04T08:30:00.009+01:00

For the last few days I've been keeping a record on Facebook of the top scoring photographs from my Flickr collection.

Inevitably on a daily basis this leads to some repetition as my most viewed photos come top on a regular basis. But on those days I choose the No.2 or No.3 photo to feature.

The celebrity photos understandably come high up on the list of most-viewed photos with this one of actresses Carol Hawkins and Sally Geeson being all time top scorer by far. Currently (and this will change in 10 minutes or so) it has been viewed 13,452 times. Carol played Sharon in Please Sir having taken over the role from Penny Spencer. Sally was Sid James' daughter in Bless This House. Both appeared in Carry On films also, notably Carry On Abroad.

All time No.2 currently with 7,319 views is this one of me with Helene Hunt and Carole Ashby, who were both member's of Octopussy's all-girl team in the James Bond film of that name.

I'm actually sitting on Carole's knee here - at her insistance I hasten to add! We'd met a couple of times previously and she has a great sense of humour. She played Communist Resistance girl Louise in TV's 'Allo 'Allo.

Both of these photos were taken at the Memorabilia events at Birmingham's NEC. There's always a number of film and TV people there signing autographs and willing to pose for photos. Just don't expect treatment like this until you've got to know them though! And even then don't expect it!

Here's some of the quirkier photos to crop up in the top 3 ratings this week. The Citroen was found in St Tropez in 2008 and at first I thought it was a surviving 1960s Mini Moke. As seen in TV's The Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan. Even the gear stick coming out of the dashboard or the chevrons logo didn't make me twig it was a Citroen based on a 2CV chassis from the 1980s until some kind soul commented on the photo!

Yesterday for some reason the focus was on this shot of Manchester Cathedral from 1998. It was Fran's birthday and we'd gone to Manchester for the day and the shopping got a little much for me so I left Fran and daughter, Gill, to the shopping and wandered round with the camera!

The black granite stone used inside is slightly oppressive I thought. A bit of limestone would have lightened the place up a bit.

Large versions of the photos: Carol and Sally, Helene and Carole, Citroen fun car, Manchester cathedral

High Tide at Blackpool, 1982

2011-08-01T08:39:00.007+01:00

Old negatives are still going through the scanner, although there's been a few more personal ones and others that don't hold a lot of interest for anyone other than me.

However, I'm coming to another lot of Blackpool photos just at the moment so I'll start off with a couple of them here.

I'm now up to July 1982 and the two scenes today were taken on the 11th of July of that year.

This one was taken from the end of the Central Pier at high tide and includes Lewis's and Woolworth's stores flanking the Tower. Lewis's was destined for closure and demolition and Woolworths vacated their building and moved into a brand new building on the Lewis's site. The old Woolworth building was turned into an indoor market - probably the only sure-fire way to make money for the building's owners as the stallholders have to pay rent whether or not they make any profit...

The Promenade footbridge crosses the road a little further south. I used to like that as a viewpoint for taking photos of trams and the illuminations, but that too was demolished in 2010 in preparation for the new Promenade and sea defence works.

The 1980s also saw the last of the pleasure trip boats operating from the slade. Passengers were taken out to them on the backs of a couple of ancient World War II vintage lorries which by this time I suspect were getting hard to keep in running order. Not only were they old, but they were used exclusively within a few yards of the sea and the salt damage to the engines alone must have caused problems for the operators!

At high tide thousands of deck chairs had to come off the beach. Around the slade, up to a hundred chairs were set up and holidaymakers relaxed there, looking out to sea or reading or simply going to sleep.

Here a helicopter is hovering over the sea on the horizon, yet virtually no one is even aware of the possible drama being enacted out to sea. Instead people are concentrating on their newspapers, which report the concluding chapters to the Falklands War of that year. That day the requisitioned P&O cruise ship Canberra would arrive back at Southampton, carrying Commandos back from the conflict.

To My Followers

2011-08-01T08:23:00.003+01:00

Just a quick entry to say a sincere thank you to my followers on the blog.

I know many of you but there are a number that I have never met and know nothing about. I may not have as many followers as some others, but I like to think I have the quality readers here at John Burke's a-Musings!

And I must not forget those who follow me through Networked Blogs either. This allows me to feature a new entry on my Facebook page as soon as it is published, but again there are one or two people who have linked to the blog who haven't come via my own FB page.

You are all very much appreciated!

Holidays on Blackpool Beach

2011-07-30T18:24:00.008+01:00

I've delved into the big plastic box that contains Miss Franny's life secrets from before she met me... I've selected a couple from the late 1950s or early 60s, that show her on holiday with her parents and brother, Bob. Sorry about this Bob... I'm sure Mary might possibly have a good laugh though...

Fran thinks both of the photos may be of Blackpool. It was a regular holiday destination from Rochdale - I know because my parents did the same thing with my brother and I.

Even if we had a week in Great Yarmouth, we nearly always had a few days in Blackpool aswell.

We think this is Blackpool because you wouldn't be able to make sand pies like that in Great Yarmouth!

Bob and Peggy (on the right), Fran's parents, would go with an extended family group to Blackpool and would choose the same spot on the beach so that if any children wandered off or any adults wanted to spend some time doing their own thing, it was easy even well before mobile phones were thought of, to find the family again. Well... relatively easy. The beach, as you can see, used to be pretty tightly packed with deck chairs! Mobile phones! Ha! At the time of this photo you were "posh" if you had a telephone in the house!

The preferred spot was just south of the Central Pier. Here I presume Bob is taking the photo and young Bob, then known as "Rob" has joined his mother and sister. Ice cream has been secured by the looks of things!

Ibiza - Sun, Sea and Sadly Nothing Else...

2011-07-25T08:20:00.010+01:00

11 August 2006. Our last day on the cruise! We visit Ibiza, island of sun, sea and Sky TV crews trying to catch people being mucky!

We hadn't booked a tour this day so again got off the ship and made our own way around.

Another very hot day, meant that I was soon looking for something to drink. Luckily bars and pavement cafes are not that uncommon in Ibiza!

However this is very early morning. Ibiza seemed almost deserted! Those holidaymakers who come for the night life are not going to be up and about at 9 o'clock in the morning!

We found a series of small shopping pedestrian streets and wound our way up and down them. As expected there were lots of music shops selling CDs of club music. Clothes shops too with some stunning linen skirts and dresses but the prices were quite stunning too!

As an ex-leatherworker, Fran's nose always seeks out the leather shops! I was almost tempted to buy a suede waistcoat, but the UK, or perhaps all of the aviation world, was in the crisis of a new type of terrorist threat and all hand luggage had been banned on flights so our suitcase space was at a premium as cameras would have to go in!

We had a wander through some deserted back streets, full of character and populated only by a few thin cats.

The morning approached the afternoon and the streets were still deserted.

It felt a bit eerie somehow and we made our way back to the port area and the ship.

As it was our last night we treated ourselves to silver service treatment in the Island Star's Steak House restaurant. Then the packing was interesting with my camera and lenses, Fran's handbag and all our books, stereos and phones having to go in the suitcases.

It was an absolute joy to get on the aeroplane though. No one standing for ages blocking the aisle whilst looking for that last minute thing they desperately needed from their hand luggage that had already been placed in an overhead locker... I was pleased to see everything undamaged once we got home. At Manchester airport a girl had opened her case immmediately to find her phone had melted in her case!

That was the first of four cruises we took on the Island Star. You can find the others on this blog.

Large versions of the photos: all the photos from this holiday are in a special set at my Flickr account.

Barcelona by Bike

2011-07-24T12:52:00.010+01:00

10 August 2006. The Island Star has brought us to Barcelona on our first ever visit to mainland Spain.

The port is a mixture of industrial and cruise terminal with several office blocks and a cable car overhead that comes from the top of a nearby hill, and over to a tower built on a man-made island wharf. Presumably no one gets off there but stay on as the car turns round for the return journey.

We were being incredibly active that day... The ship carried a compliment of mountain bikes and today we were going to join the two Austrian bike guides - Ollie and Alex and spend half a day riding round Barcelona.

27 of us went out to tour Barcelona by bike. Our group of 15 was led by Alex, who was far too fit. If I do a tour again I want it to be led by someone as knackered as me!

There wasn't much chance to take photos as you can imagine. When I wasn't pedalling and needing to keep hands on handlebars, I was panting and needing to keep hands on knees... Hey, no, come on... I'm not that bad! Here we are at Gaudi's unfinished cathedral, La Sagrada Familia.

In truth it was good fun and not too strenuous. We rode about 12 miles over a period of about 3-4 hours and had 3/4 hour to stroll about and visit a pavement cafe for a drink. Here, Miss Franny regards the camera with a look that says "I want to do this again"...

And so after a whiz around the city we arrived back at the ship for lunch. The afternoon was spent reading and soaking up fresh air and sunshine.

As we finally left at the end of the day we looked over the ship's rail at this unloaded cargo ship riding high in the water with the shadow of Island Star's funnel stack against it's bow.

We are heading for Ibiza with its clublife, topless girls and sun, sea and sex... Well... I can hope... Hmmm - was that the reason for Fran's expression...?

Large versions of the photos: all the photos from this holiday are in a set at Flickr.

A Day on Lake Windermere

2011-07-23T08:18:00.010+01:00

Yesterday we took advantage of both being off work on the same day and drove up to the Lake District.

There wasn't a surplus of parking spaces to be found in Bowness, but I managed to squeeze the car into a space and we paid to go up to Waterhead at the top of the lake on the regular sailings.

These go every twenty minutes from Bowness Pier and you can get off at Waterhead and return on a later boat which is exactly what we did.

It's a half hour journey from Bowness to Waterhead and here we are, approaching Waterhead Pier. We took the small somewhat ramshackle bus into Ambleside. The bus is an electric vehicle and I suspect may have started life as a milk float... Still, it's cheap and cheerfull and takes you from the pier to the Lion Hotel in the centre of Ambleside.

We had some lunch - well a breakfast actually - in Daisy's Cafe with a mug of "milky Nescafe". Ooh! Much better and far less pretensious than Star(after your)bucks or Costa(fortune). And we got a decent normal sized mug of excellent coffee instead of having to buy a bucket full of froth over too-strong espresso!

We walked the mile back to the pier at Waterhead to catch the returning boat to Bowness.

On the way Miss Franny graciously ordered - er... I mean allowed - me to buy an addition to the Lilliput Lane cottage collection which over the years has grown from a hamlet to a sprawling conurbation. She came out with three new cottages. Three!!! Well, to be fair one was a freebie, but even so, where she's going to put them I don't know... It's a good job they don't come with streets and cars because there's no space between the houses to drive anything wider than a scale pram...

We had an ice cream at Waterhead whilst waiting for the boat to come. They do a chocolate dip ice cream. Which means an ice cream cone dipped upside down into molten chocolate which solidifies all round it. Somewhat scrummy, though quite messy to eat. I had my other hand full of camera and bags of cottages so had to put up with Miss Franny laughing whilst cracked chocolate stuck out from my mouth and melting ice cream ran down my chin... At least I had the camera and could avoid photographic evidence...

Half an hour later we arrived at Bowness again.

Miss Cumbria was just setting off with a full load of passengers on her tour. The "Lakes" attract people from far and wide. You are as likely to hear Japanese and American accents as northern English accents. The Lake District was famous for its poets and artists and authors.

We walked back to the car, past the rapidly growing funfair being set up next to the car park and thanked our lucky stars we had not gone up there today. There's a huge air show today at Windermere with the Red Arrows appearing. Unless you arrived about 7:00am this morning there won't be a single car parking space available or a single road without a massive nose-to-tail queue...

Large versions of the photos: Lake Windermere, Waterhead Pier, Waterhead hire boats, Miss Cumbria

More Lake District photos from my Flickr collection.