Cat in the Dog House

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

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

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

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.

Return to Blackpool Illuminations Index Page

Blue Postcards

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

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 if you are from the north as I am, 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...

Return to Work Index

Caption Competition

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!

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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

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

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.

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

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

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 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!

Return to Legends, Lore and Superstition Index Page

Club and Pub Weekend

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

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 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 the top photograph 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.

Then down the length of 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!

Return to Lake District and Cumbria Index