Down on the Farm

We've only ever once had the experience of staying on a farm as part of a holiday. It was a bit of a weird holiday in that we zig-zagged all around the southern half of England, but we started out in Malmesbury, staying at the afore-mentioned farmhouse.

But if we are going to suddenly veer off during the rest of the week, we may as well start now and have a look at the remains of the Roman arena in Cirencester.

Gladiators used to fight in the arena here. On 25 May 1998 it appears to be the local teenagers doing the tumbling... Death is slower, but what a way to go... Those 17 year olds will be almost 30 now - I hope you are ashamed!!!

This is our base for a few days, Wychurch Farm in Malmesbury. Why we've never stayed in a farmhouse since is beyond me - I really enjoyed the experience.

Wychurch was kitted out with antique furniture and little displays of all sorts - hats, canes and a pile of parts from a clockwork Hornby railway set that made me want to sneak out of the bedroom at 3:00am and build a layout... Though the chamber pots on the bedroom window sill were in serious danger of being used as the rooms of course were not en-suite!

And just look at me, 1998 version! 32-inch waist and fit as a butcher's dog! Darn that sluggish thyroid! I still have that 6-pack. It's just that you can't see it anymore...

The good lady of the house had told us of a nearby river walk where kingfishers had been seen. We went out for a pre-breakfast walk - this is only about 7:15am. What???? Gasp...

I can't say we actually saw a kingfisher, but we did glimpse a vivid blue flash passing the field of vision from right to left. Sheesh, they are hard to spot on the move!

Ok, we've arrived. A few of the places we will visit during this week have already been covered on this blog but the photos are different and I'll attempt to say different things even if I have to make them up! They will be so compelling and realistic you won't be able to spot them amongst the truth. Apart from maybe the bit about the aliens...

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Broadway Sights

Sunday 5 June 1994. We're back in the Cotswolds again. However, this series is coming to an end with the next entry so I'll have to think of something else to blog about. Unless I go away again...

So we've left the deserted village of Snowhills and we are now at Broadway. Our trusty Fiesta is parked on the main street and all we can get for free is half an hour and time is marching on, so that's all we're staying!

Broadway is a town of stone buildings, many of which could have been the inspiration for one of Fran's Liliput Lane models. There are some large hotels, at least one of which look as though you'd need a second mortgage to stay! There's thatched cottages and shops a-plenty and certainly enough to fill half an hour. Is that all we've got? Right, let's get moving then!

In any quaint and ancient town you should expect to see shops selling quaint and ancient things and Broadway is no exception. There are antiques shops in abundance and I can quite happily spend hours in them (as long as they are not just about furniture and pottery).

A row of three bright red telephone boxes caught my eye as they were starting to disappear around this time to be replaced with the bland glass kiosks familiar today.

And there was this unusual bicycle combination with a push cart in front and trailer behind, each with insulated tubs for carrying and selling ice cream cones.

We bought one each and just had time to wolf them down before our half hour was up and I had to move the car. So a bit of a whistle-stop tour of Broadway but a nice place to look at as I'm sure you'll agree!

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Truvox Radio Jack

Doing a bit of rummaging - you can't beat a good rummage - and found this!

It's a radio believe it or not. Capable of receiving anything up to 2 stations - you click the switch - it dates from the 1950s I believe and was given to me by my grandfather sometime around 1962. You plugged it into the microphone socket of an amplifier or a tape recorder and it had two small screws on the rear to tune each of the radio stations. You attached a long piece of wire to the screw on the top to act as an aerial.

I've never managed to get it to work, but it would never cope anyway with the many radio stations we have now, crammed into small frequency ranges. It would probably pick up 6 at once even if I could get it to work!

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Bygone Times Chorley

Now whether you're a big fan of antiques or not, this place has something to interest you. When we first visited in 1991, old pinball machines were top of my list and they did have a few, but mainly beyond hope of redemption!

But there were all sorts of antiques and collectables. Antiques normally brings furniture and pottery to mind doesn't it? Here they had a much wider selection of goodies!

See what I mean? I did actually consider for a wild abandoned moment buying a couple of these to convert them into two-seater settees... But then reality hit - or was it Fran... anyway, you're right, with my track record of D-I-Y (Destroy-It-Yourself) I'd have only been taking on a load of trouble!

At that time in the early nineties, the firm had several large warehouses on the site, some filled with small stuff and others with large stuff - like bars that had come out of clubs and pubs. It was fascinating wandering round.

Later they opened "Botany Bay" - similar venture but mixed with craft outlets, in an old mill alongside the M61. A lot of stuff from Bygone Times disappeared to Botany Bay, but the main warehouse (which is almost like 3 or 4 warehouses in one) is still a great place to visit.

These photos are from our second visit - I had black and white film loaded in the camera the first time we went. From left to right, an old Mills pinball - almost a coin-operated bagatelle dating from around 1931; A Lucky pinball from the 1940s, scoring is done through electricity in the simplest of ways, the ball nudging a coil against a central pin to complete a circuit and finally a Japanese Pachinko machine along the same lines as our more familar Allwin flick-a-ball arcade games.

There's probably more from Bygone Times and Botany Bay to come and some of the arcade games already featured were seen there!

Large versions of the photos: waltzers and boat, bagatelle, Lucky pinball, pachinko

Mechanical Stamping Machine

I used to love these! These machines had a thin roll of metal and stamped out your message as you painstakingly moved the finger around the letters of the alphabet then pressed down hard on the lever on the right hand side.

The machine then delivered your message on a short length cut off the strip. Totally useless, you couldn't really do anything with it afterwards but put it in your pocket to gather fluff, but as a kid I used to love spelling my name out and getting a metal label! They were totally mechanical - if you didn't press hard enough on the lever that particular letter wouldn't be well defined. They worked on the same principle as (and were forerunners of) Dymo labellers.

They were often found in railway stations - this example is from the railway museum at York.

Coin Slot Machines Index

1950s Pop Parade Vol.3

Whenever I'm in Keswick I invariably go to have a browse through the old records at my favourite antique store.

This time I came away with half a dozen 78rpm records and this old 10" early LP. "LP" stood for Long Player; in an era when records had been just a single song per side for 40 years, having a record that delivered 5 tracks on each side was a novelty and the name summed it up.

Later LPs were standardised at 12" and could fit 20 minutes of music per side.

This example is the Pop Parade volume 3 an early compilation album. The artistes seem to be all American. They rejoice in names like Rusty Draper, Nick Noble and Jan August (who wears a suit and tie and sports a moustache). There are some well-known names there too - The Platters, Dinah Washington, The Crew Cuts and Patti Page.

Well, to be honest, they are all shown on the front cover. Sixteen artistes are shown. There are only ten tracks on the album though and they are delivered by only seven of the artistes shown!

The record itself looks in excellent condition and I'm looking forward to having a listen. So far I've only looked fondly at it...

Tram Photos at Flickr

I've uploaded a few more tram photos to my Flickr site. (no longer active)

I know that the Blackpool trams generate quite a lot of interest on my Blackpool website (sadly also no longer active, though most content is now included on this blog) and many of you have asked for larger versions of the photos to be made available.

All the photos at my Flickr site are 800x600 unless they are portrait oriented in which case they are 600 pixels high and as wide as the format allows.

The tram pictured is the oldest electric street tram in the world - Blackpool had the very first electric street tramway in 1885 and this is the only one of the original fleet still in existence. It is running on battery power because Blackpool originally had a conduit system instead of overhead lines. Power was picked up by a third slot running between the rails. However the problems with sand from the beach being blown into it led to the installation of the overhead system which is still in operation today.