Lancaster Priory

I've been scanning a random collection of colour slides recently. Dates all over the place, yesterday I scanned some from 1970 all the way up to 1990 - this because of the haphazard storage not because I scanned every photo I'd taken...

Anyway amongst them were a few from 1985 and a visit to Lancaster when I went into the priory church to take a few photos. I went to see the carvings above the choir stalls and whilst there I found a few others, not great in size, but testaments to the carvers' skills and softened and darkened by age.

It is thought that the present church was built on the site of an earlier 6th century Saxon church and that this predecessor itself had been built on the foundations of a Roman building, a wall of which still exists under the chancel.

All manner of creatures, human, animal and demonic are to be found in old churches. Some are intended to warn of the consequences of straying from the path and others designed to tell a little moral story and here and there you might even spot touches of humour.

I am a big fan of the King's England series of county guides, written by Arthur Mee in the 1930s and 40s and updated a couple of times since. There is one for every one of England's pre-1974 counties, with Rutland lumped in with Leicestershire and Yorkshire given a book for each of the three Ridings. I have a handful of these books, which include descriptions of the most noteworthy carvings and tombs in churches but, whatever I set off to see, it invariably flies out of my mind once I'm there and I would love an e-book that would be more easily carried about on visits!

Anyway in this case I was able to remember it was the tracery over the choir stalls that I had come to see!

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Single-Sided 78 rpm Record

Over the Christmas break we got out of the house for a bit and visited one of the local antiques warehouses, G.B. Antiques in Lancaster. I wasn't looking for anything in particular but I always have an eye out for old records (which usually means 78s) or old books, or really anything from my past which can give me a nice nostalgic kick.

Finding records in places like this is easy, Finding records in good condition and particularly finding 78s that are not just old collections of classical music is not always easy.

So I was pleasantly surprised to come across three different stalls that had something I could bring away with me. I even bought some 45s, though generally they are in much worse condition than the 78s. 45s didn't break - but they scratched much more easily!

The 10" record pictured dates from 1909. Unbelievable almost that it should be in its original sleeve and that the sleeve was in excellent condition. It was a bit faded and the colour was turning brownish at the edges - I've edited it in the scan to restore the colour.

It is Peter Dawson's rendition of Queen of The Earth and on the B side is... nothing. Many of the very early records were single sided. On the back of the record is an engraving of the Zonophone record company logo.

Altogether I spent £20.80 and came away with 24x 78 rpm records and 5x 45 rpm singles. Not too bad considering they were from antiques stalls, which tend to overprice stuff. The other trouble with antiques stalls is that they tend to think of records as "tat" and plonk sticky labels over them where they will ruin the record label or original sleeve.

I was lucky enough to get the sticky price label off this 1959 Marty Wilde record, but the damage over the record company's name is clear and permanent and caused by the desire to label it at 50p! It has J Mills written on it in pencil, which is harder to spot but in any case only serves to show that the record was loved and valued by a former owner.

I liked the look of these old bottles with the light shining through them, but records were the only things we bought on this visit. So to finish with, here's just a few of the rest of the day's findings.

The 45 rpm singles were in absolute mint condition, though most were in wrong or very tatty sleeves. Buying second hand vinyl is an extremely risky business and I never buy stuff that looks as though it has been given to a dog to play with!

Blackpool Air Show 2013 - The War Planes

Yesterday I featured the Red Arrows display from this year's air show here in Blackpool. Today I feature the aircraft from the Second World War. These are a Fairey Swordfish MkII, torpedo bomber, made in Sherburn-in-Elmet in 1943. This makes her a Fairey "Blackfish" as the Sherburn Swordfish are known, this being a play on words as the makers were Blackburn Aircraft. The other photos are of the famous Battle of Britain commemorative flight of a Hawker Hurricane, Spitfire and Lancaster bomber. Enjoy.

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Hiding Priests at Thurnham Hall

This week my Mum decided she was taking us out to lunch and decided on Thurnham Hall near Lancaster.

The estate dates back to the 12th century but the hall is mostly 16th century restoration and additions. There is a chapel attached and a pele tower.

The hall has a number of rooms and apartments available to visitors and a restaurant in the wonderful hall with a powder blue panelled roof, oak panelling on the walls and stained glass in the windows. We had our granddaughter, Grace with us. She sneaked her own dinner in, but was quite willing to sample ours as well. In fact she took quite a liking to my chips, until she decided she'd had enough and the last mouthful was deposited onto my arm... Thanks, Grace...

We were allowed to have a look round and were told that the main point of interest - a priest hole - could be viewed as the apartment containing it had no one staying in it. We went up the staircase shown and through a set of doors that came from a sailing ship originally.

The priest hole dates from the days after Henry VIII had severed ties with the Catholic church and Lancashire was reluctant to turn Protestant. Priests faced dire consequences if they carried on celebrating the Catholic mass and a number of houses contained intricate ways of hiding them.

This tiny room is built into the back of the chimney of the fireplace in the adjoining room. It is accessed through this small hole in what is now an apartment kitchen. There is a seat - not much more than a narrow resting place and nothing else. No room to stand up fully, no room to move about. During a search the priest would have to hide perhaps for a couple of days in pitch dark and without making a sound. Fancy trying it? Me neither...

The entrance was hidden by means of an ingenious device. Opening the door to the room containing the access hole raised a screen of apparently solid stone, allowing access to the hole. When the priest was in the hole, the door was closed, the screen of masonry dropped back down, the priest removed a wooden peg and now opening the door left the screen in place. The priest was left to his fate, hoping that replacing the peg would allow the screen to be raised again!

My guide told me he had been on night porter duty and on one of his screens he saw that in the main hall the piano was missing and a priest was standing in its place. He (quite bravely I thought!) went down to the hall and there was the piano and no priest. On returning to his desk, the monitor still showed the priest and he took a photo on his phone of the screen image. He showed me this photo. It may have taken a bit of imagination to turn the blurred areas of light and dark into a priest... but I certainly did not see anything resembling a piano!

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After Dinner Entertainment

Last Saturday night we played at Lancaster Golf Club for a members' social evening. The food was excellent and there was lots of it. David and I don't eat much before playing but I couldn't resist a small helping from the buffet after the members had all been round it.

It put them in such a good mood they hit the dance floor almost immediately too and we had a great night. We think they did too!

Memories of the Press Gangs

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. They visited so often that the pub earned the nickname of Snatchems!

The Good Old Days are 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 will be above the roof of your car! Time your visit carefully!

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Glasson Dock

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

Christmas and New Year Gigs

A couple of gig reports. Fran hadn't picked her camera up for the first one but yesterday David gave me a disk of photos taken by Jeannie so I can now include a report here!

23 December 2010 saw us at the Wyrebank Banqueting Suite in Garstang, battling snow and ice to get there to play for a rather unusual event.

This was a pig club - a group that had reared a pig and was celebrating this night with the fruits of their endeavour. A meal of pork sausages and mash with plenty of sausages was followed by a sale of yet more sausages and a raffle - no they had other prizes for that!!!

Generously they invited us to sit with them for the meal and whilst David and I hardly ever eat much before a gig, (belching down microphones is never good...) it was an excellent meal.

Then we played for the rest of the night before slipping and sliding back on the ice to load the car in rather cold temperatures! Oh - and we were given a big bag of sausages as a bonus! They are rather yummy...

Last night we played the New Year in at Lancaster Golf Club. As I tuned the guitar just before starting I hit the end of a string with the tip of my thumb, feeling the string go right down into my thumb.

Muttering a surprised "Good Gracious!", I had to stick a plaster on the end of my thumb to avoid getting blood all down the neck of the guitar which would have gone sticky and perhaps not looked as aesthetically pleasing as I'd have liked.

Unfortunately the only plaster they could find was designed to cover the whole of the upper torso... Still, after a couple of songs I was able to take it off and apart from a mild soreness the thumb performed it's usual task of keeping the neck of the guitar pressed against my fingers with no problem!

And what a night! The dance floor filled as soon as we started to play and as we counted down to midnight there were balloons, confetti, cheers, hugs and kisses all round. No sausages though...

Lancaster Golf Club

A brilliant night last night out at Lancaster Golf Club.

It was meant to be an open air event with a bar-b-que but the weather was most definitely not looking conducive to sitting outside and so we set up inside the clubhouse where we treated club members to some gentle songs whilst they ate and then went into full-on 60s mode and got them singing along and dancing.

We had a break whilst the prize giving ceremonies were conducted and then wound up the night with some rock and roll and then some gentler tunes for couples to dance together.

A very enthusiastic audience - we have to say a big thank you for making us so welcome and we look forward to coming back on New Year's Eve!

Blackpool Air Display 2009

Today there was an air show over the sea between the South and Central piers. I went down there with my trusty camera - eventually after thinking it would as usual be between the Central and North piers...

Topping the bill as usual were the Red Arrows, the RAF display team. First however there were a lot more things to do and see.

Several thousand people for one thing. A Promenade still cordoned off for building work for another. I did stand on the North Pier for a bit but it soon became obvious I wasn't going to see much from there so I set off walking down towards the Central Pier. Which meant walking on the tram tracks really.

Whilst I was still walking, the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight gave their display. This was one of the main attractions for me and my view was somewhat limited by railings and fencing, trams going past and people's heads - duh, if 5 foot four inches is good enough for me, it should be good enough for everyone...

Anyway I managed to get one or two shots but the aircraft, flying out over the sea seemed a long way away.

Also the sun sets in the west and at Blackpool the sea is to the west, so having an air display late afternoon over the sea means squinting against the sun and hence a few photos are a bit like silhouettes I'm afraid. They should have it in the morning!

By the time I got down onto the beach just south of the Central Pier there was a wing walking display going on. There wasn't a lot of walking going on actually as she looked to be fairly well fastened to one spot. But she did wave cheerfully and managed to hide the sick bag until the plane had gone past and she had her back to us. Rather her than me. I mean... wouldn't do a thing for my hair!

And then... oh, fabulous! A Vulcan bomber did just two fly-past runs. Those things must suck in fuel at a rate my car can only aspire to, so whilst brief, the Vulcan display might well have been amongst the more costly of the displays of the afternoon. But what a magnificent sight.

I used to have a mate who, during the Cold War, had to sleep under one of these in readiness for being woken up to go and drop atom bombs on Russia. And you think you are stressed at work?

Then a four-aircraft aerobatic display, The Blades. Apparently they are all ex-Red Arrow pilots and they did give a superb display.

But now it was time for the real thing.

The past few times I've seen the Red Arrows there has been low cloud and they had to do a low-level display to avoid being invisible to the audience for much of the time. No such problems this afternoon and we had a superb display, well worth the long walk from the car park.

It took me an hour to walk back afterwards with an incredible amount of people all wanting to either get back home or head back to a hotel for their evening meal. A bit like Blackpool of old! I came over all proud!

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Sweets For My Sweet

We had a run out to Lancaster the other day. I don't know, I just had a rush of blood to the head or something...

It was a bit of a flying visit and more to look for something in the market than anything else, but I couldn't resist taking a photo of the old-fashioned sweets shop with the jars of sweets in the window.

So what were your favourites? I loved sour apples and cola cubes! Oh, and... hang on, where's Fran gone...? Sheesh! Wouldn't you know? Went in to buy some and had the shopkeeper fishing her favourites out of a jar of mixed assortments... Oh the shame...

Large version of the photo: sweet shop

Cack-Handed Record Player

Every now and then (when I'm fed up enough) I go through my photos to see whether I was doing anything this day 5, 10, 15 whatever years ago. In 1998 I'd gone to the antiques warehouse GB Antiques in Lancaster.

We came across this rather strange record player, though quite admirably I resisted buying it! The casing is a bit weird in that the lid seems to cover the entire thing rather than sitting on a bottom half. Then a closer look at the record deck itself made me wrinkle the noble brow in surprise. The pickup arm rests at 90 degrees to the usual resting place. It looks almost back to front! Unfortunately it didn't have a maker's or model name, so unless someone can identify it and leave a comment then it will have to remain a mystery for another ten years or so...

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Italy and Skipton

Oh dear, another week has gone by!

Well, I've found enough to keep me busy without venting my spleen at anyone or feeling the urge to rave about something or let off a few quips of humour.

I've spent most of my spare time this week trying to finish a project that's been ongoing for far too long. I've been creating a set of digital montages to create a year book. You'll understand what I mean about it having taken a long time when I point out it's a year book of 2005...

I've got as far as our Sorrento holiday from that year and the resulting montages have been being uploaded to my Flickr Account at the rate of a couple a day.

I have just about finished the holiday photos now and moved on to the rest of 2005 but it will take approx a couple of weeks for the photos to appear on Flickr - unless I get fed up or find something else to post up there in which case there could be a flood of photos uploaded at some point in the next few days!

Today we had a run out in the car to Skipton, taking the long way round, via Lancaster then Ingleton and back down.

We passed through some lovely little villages that are a definite for a return visit some day and the weather was really great until we got just a few miles from Skipton, after which it has poured down all day...

So here's a rather dreary photo of Skipton Castle just to prove we were there and I'll try to drum up some sunny weather for our next trip out!

Now - see if you can find a blog entry anywhere else that gives you Italy and Skipton in one entry!

What? A Week???

Ah yes... perhaps a little remiss of me, but it has been a busy week.

Since my last missive I've been to Glasgow, Lancaster, Newcastle and Edinburgh for work and there's not been a lot of time to devote to the blog! I've not taken the camera with me either on the trips I've been on.

Last weekend Fran and I drove up to Anchorsholme for a walk along the cliffs and a view of the Riverdance which is still there. As you can see from the photo it is now well and truly on its side and as fast as they empty the fuel out, it has to be filling up with seawater as the tide half submerges it twice a day. My guess is that if the March spring tides don't let the salvage people float her then she will end up being dismantled where she lies - or Cleveleys will have a new permanent tourist attraction.

The roads in and out of Cleveleys - which is the main Fleetwood peninsular road - has been horrendous at weekends with sightseers coming in to have a look.

In an non-customary fit of junk-throwing I unearthed a folder containing a load of old photography magazines from the early 1980s last weekend which have provided a few hours of fun reading through them again.

I used to buy Practical Photography every month, Amateur Photographer every week and Photography most months in the 70s and 80s. Practical Photography I see used to cost 80p in 1982... It brought a load of memories back, of sending off loads of photos and the joy of seeing one in print every now and then. Ex-PP editor Robert Scott also used a couple of photos in the Club Canon magazine and I came across a couple of photos of the gorgeous Collette Caton, a model who got noticed through Practical Photography's annual Photo Girl contest one year. I met her on the PP stand at a fair in Haydock and have a hideously underexposed slide somewhere that totally fails to do her justice!

Ah well, so now at least you know what I've been up to and now I've got to get ready for another trip. Shrewsbury, here I come!