Two Days in Sutton Coldfield

Sounds dramatic doesn't it?

Well it wasn't all that dramatic - I've spent the last two days at a conference. Some interesting sessions, some painful ones, some where I sat quiet (not that many!) and some where I was one of the noisiest!

Gala dinner, pork, heavy on the stomach, wakeful night in roasting room.

I wonder why some hotels seem to cater for visitors from the equator and have no heating controls in the room. There were no opening windows in my room either - there was a door to a small balcony but it may have gone the opposite way if I'd left that open.

There was also a non-switchable heated towel rail so close to the toilet that to avoid burning your leg you had to sit sideways which is not that comfortable...

Am home again now until tomorrow when I trog off to Letchworth...

My Main Record Deck

In response to a couple of emailed questions, the record deck I use most of the time is this one.

It's a Pro-Ject with a built-in speed box for push button speed changing from 33⅓ to 45rpm. On most Pro-Ject decks this required lifting the platter - the turntable and moving the belt from one pulley to another.

I still need to do that to play 78rpm records and they also require a special stylus as the grooves are so much wider than on the more modern records. Finally, it has a built-in pre-amp so that I can plug the player into either modern amplifiers that do not have phono inputs or straight into the line-in socket on my PC. A deck like this will not play on its own - it needs to be plugged into a separate amplifier and speakers, but your PC will stand in quite happily in this regard. Cost will be around £250 sterling.

Return to Record Players Index Page

Blackpool Town Centre Rejuvenation

The Council have announced (ages ago actually) that the area from the railway station into town was going to have a massive redevelopment.

It's started by finishing a job that Hitler started in the Second World War. One of his bombers got a bit lost during the blitz on Liverpool and unloaded its bombs over Blackpool, destroying houses in Seed Street. In the event the row of terraced properties was demolished and the area has been in use ever since as a car park. The properties facing, the houses on Buchanan Street, have now been demolished. The plans for the new development as shown in the local paper several months ago looked very grand. There seems little point to me in putting up loads of shops and offices whose rent will eat up every bit of profit - that's the problem with all the market stalls we have in grand buildings like the old Woolworths building Pricebusters etc.

More to come...

Return to Blackpool Town Index Page

Half a Tower Is Better Than None!

It's been one of those mornings when Blackpool Tower comes over all shy...

Return to Blackpool Town Index Page

We Lived At 45 Revolutions Per Minute

The thing about mp3s is that you can't watch them.

You can't even watch a CD on the vast majority of players.

Records you can watch. It's unbelievably satisfying. Plus there's the skill of placing the stylus above the right bit and gently dropping it down with a finger. (Levers are for wimps!)

David, the other week said he had found a second-hand record store that had a sale on so we met up in Blackpool this morning and went to have a look.

We were happily rummaging around, finding stuff and suggesting the other bought it. I felt sure David would want "Donald Where's Your Trousers" by Andy Stewart or "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" by Middle of the Road. (I almost bought that myself just for the novelty of playing it to people and saying "Isn't that just awful?!?")

In the end we bought 50 between us which cost us the princely sum of a tenner.

One of the gems was finding this one!

It's the first time I've ever seen this red His Master's Voice cover for a 45rpm record. I've got loads of examples of the cover containing 10" 78rpm records but until this morning I thought the cover had never been made in 7" size. Just goes to show!

The next time I come to restock my jukebox I will be able to stock half of it with records it's never played before!

We're going back soon...

Tip-Em-Off Arcade Machine

Another in the series of seaside arcade coin operated machines.

Tip-Em-Off was a very simple idea. Pennies entered the game through one of the seven slots at the top and tumbled down a series of pins until they either reached the bottom of the box, which returned to the player, or fell to the side behind the platforms, which led to the arcade owner's money bank, or came to rest on one of the spring-loaded platforms. Once enough coins had landed on a platform the weight caused the platform to tip and the coins fell down to reward the player. The coins sometimes caused lower platforms to tip too. As with all arcade machines, it was the arcade owner who won in the end as a successful win only spurred the player to try again until all coins were gone!

Coin Slot Machines Index

TV Update

Well, as Fred Talbot was shown talking to camera, my guitar is in its stand at the very edge of the picture but David is shown nonchalantly sauntering across behind Fred, totally oblivious of the filming...

I mean... is that fair ???

Ha ha ha!

Dan Dare

The other day I mentioned my old Bayko building toy.

Today the nostalgia spyglass turns onto the Dan Dare Planet Gun! Actually this was just a differently branded version of the Merit Planet Gun, which had a much plainer box. I'm afraid I was too young to tell you whether it cost any more for the Dan Dare version!

The spinners had to be loaded into the front of the gun and then twisted to a maximum of 8 clicks. Pressing the trigger then spun the discs which zoomed off towards... er... well in the case of my brother Frank and I, they zoomed off towards each other!

Dan Dare was the space hero who was the main character in the comic Eagle. The Mekon, pictured on this page, was the leader of the Treens and came from Venus.

Dan's batman was Digby, who provided the humour element in the stories. They flew in the Anastasia, Dan's space ship.

Dan Dare was extremely popular for many years and quite a range of toys came out with a Dan Dare brand. This is just one that I've managed to find an image of!

In the end both Frank and I couldn't resist clicking more than the prescribed 8 clicks in an attempt to send the discs further and we broke the springs in the guns. Oops...

Return to Toys Index Page

The World's Largest Hotpot

Well I don't think we made the telly, but we did speak to Lloyd Grossman, who was fancying a go on the guitar and Granada North West's Fred Talbot was filmed in front of us (but with the camera pointing across instead of at us).

Both ITV (Granada) and the BBC were present to film at the attempt to cook the world's largest Lancashire hotpot in Garstang this morning.

The hotpot was indeed big and broke the world record, though by the time it was ready we were a touch busy. Bob was stuck at work so it was just David and myself, but we were approached by lots of people who were very complimentary - and one who wanted to know what music had to do with "the countryside" and suggested we should throw our equipment in the river! Well, a very good morning to you as well sir!

In fact the event was nothing to do with the countryside anyway, it was to promote Garstang's forthcoming food festival and everyone was agreeably surprised at just how many people turned up.

Here's the hotpot being cooked with Fred and his cameraman reviewing a scene already filmed in the background.

There was a juggler, lots of local food produce, a magician and the two of us. Lloyd Grossman vied with several local mayors but spoke extremely well and worked in a very humourous story of speaking at a somewhat quieter event.

Cadfael's Abbey

Monday 8 October 2007. I was running a workshop for Shrewsbury College the following day which required a stopover on Monday night. I arrived early enough to have a look at something connected to a series of books I was reading.

I couldn't be in Shrewsbury and not have a look at the remains of the abbey. The Benedictine Abbey was founded in 1083 by Roger de Montgomery, the Norman Earl of Shrewsbury, a relative of William the Conqueror and, of course, was made famous by Ellis Peters as the Abbey of St Peter and St Paul, the setting for the Cadfael books. It contains the relics or remains of Saint Winifred, a Welsh saint. The story was that she was visited by a prince who wanted to seduce her, but she ran from him and he was so enraged, he went after her, sword in hand and cut off her head. Never the best way to woo a maiden... Her uncle, St Beuno, found them and prayed for her revival which was granted, her wound being invisible except for a thin white line around her neck.

The acquisition of the saint's remains forms the background for the plot of the first Cadfael book, A Morbid Taste for Bones. There is obviously a great deal of fiction mingled with the facts, but the facts of the translation (the moving of the relics from Gwytherin near Conwy to Shrewsbury) is a fair representation of history. Prior Robert of the abbey, negotiated and carried out the disinterment and transportation of the body, the journey carried out on foot by the monks over the course of a week. He wrote the saint's life story shortly after the move along with an account of his work to bring about her move to Shrewsbury. He later became the abbey's fifth Abbot.

The abbey and its associated buildings and land were huge. It is much less so now. With the Dissolution of the Monasteries Shrewsbury was one of the last monasteries to surrender to being dissolved - more due to it being towards the end of the Commissioners' circuit than to any active resistance.

Over the following centuries the abbey church was retained as the parish church of Holy Cross, though it was reduced in height in the 1600s by one storey (the clerestory) after the roof collapsed and it also lost its transcepts. Broken brickwork on the existing building makes it obvious where losses occurred. However many monastic buildings survived into the 1700s but most of them disappeared from then on, particularly when the main London Road, the A5, was built by Thomas Telford on the opposite side of the parish church.

The refectory pulpit stands alone in a closed off area in the car park, whilst the main road runs between it and the abbey church that it was once a part of. From this pulpit Biblical texts would be read whilst the monks ate their meals.

Return to English Churches and Cathedrals Index

Tamed by the Shrew

I'm in Shrewsbury on a 57k connection so no photo on this until I get home I think! [Coo-ee! I'm home!]

Clive and I are ensconced in the Lion Hotel, an establishment enjoyed in the past by Charles Dickens who wrote something here - perhaps a note saying his radiator was cold, Paganini who sang in the Minstrels Gallery in the ballroom - I haven't seen that, as it is in use for some sort of event; and Prince William Henry - I'm sure there must have been more than one of those. Anyway the one who was here danced in the same ballroom that Paganini had sung in. Probably because Paganini had shut up and gone back to wherever he came from?

Those damn foreigners - they just turn up and start singing all over the place...! (I do the same when I'm abroad!) They still are - the legendary Julie Felix is here on Friday on a "Forever Young" tour. She's only kidding herself I fear, but a shame I'll miss her all the same.

After last night the conversation over a pint or two has been Disney and Florida and (because it's me and Clive and it's what we do) about the differences in culture between Americans and the UK both in business and in personal life.

Thankfully, sense has prevailed back at the Burke household and Florida is "off" for next year at least...

From China to Florida USA

We went out for an excellent Chinese meal last night (Treasure City in Thornton) with Gill and Eddie and talk got round to holidays.

Gill's a big fan of Disney but Eddie said he fancied going to Florida rather than Paris. We have been to Florida once, back in 1993 - Gill and I pictured at a cabaret evening meal at Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

Fran immediately thought that a good idea - er... haven't we already booked a cruise??? Anyway, she's already on Teletext this morning searching for deals...

We dropped Gill and Eddie off and went in for a coffee then came home where I spent an enjoyable hour listening to Pierre Petrou's excellent Rock 'n' Rodeo show on Radio Northwick Park over the Internet.

Pierre's one of the regulars on the forum at Billy Fury .com and there were quite a few of us chatting away over the Internet as he played played our requests and passed on dedications.

Dissention in the Ranks

In the entry Stow-on-the-Wold I described how my first car, a Reliant Regal MkIV, needed to have the spark plugs cleaned every 20 miles.

This "sparked" (sorry!) an email from mate Alex:

"20 miles my arse - I remember going to the Regal (cinema not the Reliant) one time after you had spent half of Saturday afternoon cleaning your spark plugs, then you had to change the buggers again before we set off home!"

It's so sad when old friends lose their memories and succumb to old age, but the journey Alex is remembering was in my second car - a Reliant Regal MkV or MkVI which was a saloon car not a van and indeed messed up its spark plugs in a mere 7-10 miles. I had to ditch the van after the Department of Transport decided to ask me to have it weighed and it turned out to weigh more than the maximum allowed for a 16-year-old to drive.

This was due to a metal sheet that had been placed in the back of the van to cover holes in the wooden flooring! The blue Ford Anglia seat that had replaced Reliant's original deckchair style passenger seat couldn't have helped either...

I was lucky with cars - the saloon car gave up the ghost spectacularly when the engine mountings snapped one day, plunging the engine down and forward into the radiator, causing clouds of steam from the front of the car and great hilarity from the small crowd waiting at a bus stop just opposite...

Record Player or Steel Cutter

The early record players were almost as brutish as the old-fashioned wind-up gramaphones.

Just look at the playing head of this record player. Put the needle on your finger and you have to be brave to let go with your other hand on the playing head! These players wore out records in no time.

They turn up fairly regularly and almost every antiques shop will have one. The problem for collectors is that these, like the first radios, are not so much a piece of sound equipment as a piece of furniture!

You would have to have a mansion to house a collection of these. I'll stick to Dansettes!

Return to Record Players Index Page

Stow-on-the-Wold

Don't you just love those Cotswolds place-names! Stow-on-the-Wold, Moreton-in-the-Marsh, and of course, Bourton-on-the-Water. All aligned in a straight line along the A429 or, as the Romans knew it, the Fosse Way.

Any of these three villages is well worth a visit. We have been on numerous occasions, sometimes making a very slight detour to Upper and Lower Slaughter - a name so evocative of evil doings, but such a delightful place to visit.

This is the second of my postcard views tonight and this one from the late 1950s or early 1960s is one of my favourites as it shows a model of the very first car I owned and drove - a MkIV Reliant Regal.

Unfortunately half hidden in shadow, photographs of these 3-wheeled cars are hard to come across. The one I had was a van and whilst this one is the same shape exactly, the model shown has had windows fitted - an expensive luxury as this made the car liable at the time for Purchase Tax whereas the van had solid (I use the term loosely!) fibreglass sides.

It was in fact the first fibreglass Reliant. Previous models had been aluminium - that metal whose name is such a challenge for our friends across the Atlantic!

The Reliant van had been made in 1959 and was 11 years old by the time I made its acquaintance. The engine, a 700cc sidevalve - which meant that the spark plugs pointed up vertically out of the top of the engine - was completely knackered and friends soon got used to it breaking down and me changing the spark plugs and cleaning the oil and deposits off the old set for use in another 20 miles...

This is the beast itself! One white headlight and one yellow one. In the 1960s many drivers preferred yellow headlights because they shone through smog better than white light, which just lit up the fog and soot and made it look like you had a wall around you.

I passed my driving test in this vehicle, although I had to take another to be able to drive a 4-wheeled car when I was 17. The only reason for having such an embarrassing car was that it was legal to drive at 16!

There's more about the car and its successors on my Nostalgia web site.

They Dug Up The Gardens...

I'm in a postcard mood tonight.

My entry about the slightly naughty French postcards attracted a comment from Linda who has a business and excellent blog featuring antique postcards. Well worth a visit (as long as you promise to come back here!)

Anyway I've dug out a couple of old postcards today for you.

The first one is an old Blackpool postcard showing the now demolished South Shore rockery gardens south of the Pleasure Beach. This is taken from a painting, done especially for the postcard industry. I have a few of these from around the same time, which look to me like the work of the same artist.

This is the fourth of my postcard entries and there's going to be more, so I'll add it to the list of topics at the side.

20 Years Ago...

I was looking through a few photos on the computer to see what we were upto 20 years ago.

We had just moved into the house we are still living in today. It was - as compared to today - just about as minimalist as I have ever got! The TV had four channels, the settee was second hand, the cabinet had been bought 12 years previously from Tescos on a double Green Shield Stamp day (that was a bonanza for the tongue!)

It contains a few shields and cups from the Photographic Society that I was a member of at that time.

We had a cheap Fidelity record player but as yet no CD player. They hadn't been out all that long anyway.

Just discernable outside is my wonderful 1972 model Cortina.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....!

Creeping Bentgrass TV Spot

We may not be featured - but you may be able to spot us on one of the NW local TV programmes on Wednesday 10 October 10:00am - 12:30pm, as we've been invited to play again in Garstang town centre as they attempt to cook the world's largest ever Lancashire Hot Pot! BBC Radio Lancashire will also be there.

As long as they get it measured and weighed or whatever before Bob gets his chompers round it...

We will be there somewhere in the background, trying to keep the expected crowds of hungry folk entertained!

If you want to come along, we - and the hot pot - will be on the main car park near the council offices. I have no idea what the plans are for the hot pot! If you come equipped even with your own knife and fork I'm not going to guarantee you'll get a plateful. And as hinted before; if you're behind Bob in the queue... no chance...!

Arcade Racing Machines 2

I've already shown one variant of this arcade game of the 1950s.

Here the game is to see who can get their helicopter to rise first to the top of the cabinet by turning the handle below as fast as you can. In this case I seem to remember the helicopter started to sink down again if you didn't keep a momentum going! There are still one or two museums with arcade games of this era in existence. This example was photographed in 2004 at the excellent Wookey Hole caves and museum complex near Wells in Somerset.

Coin Slot Machines Index

Before IMAX came Cinema USA

It was a busy day yesterday for people leaving comments against my Blackpool photos at Flickr. (no longer online) Someone mentioned the old Cinema USA on the Pleasure Beach and, although I haven't any photos of it there I knew there was one of it on the Central Pier somewhere.

A bit of rooting through the computer came up with this. Taken in 1981 this shows the Cinema USA dome. Inside, a film was shown with the normal eye-line way above the normal horizon. There were no seats so you stood looking upwards which threw you off balance a bit to start with. The films were of the fast motion variety - a ride in a Porsche, a roller coaster ride, a helicopter over a gorge etc. People would sway or even lurch sideways watching the film. I seem to remember the odd one in 3D too. They were a pre-cursor to Imax.

It is now the site of a Big Wheel. Almost immediately after uploading the photo to Flickr (still no longer online), a comment appeared against it from "Yorkie", an ex-pat living in America.

"There's a similar attraction still operating in Canobie Lake Park in New Hampshire, and though the film has definitely faded over the years they're still showing the same footage you describe ..."http://www.flickr.com/photos/yorkie/tags/cinema180/ "Love your old shots of Blackpool, John!"

Cheers, Yorkie! The link in Yorkie's message is to his photograph taken inside the dome he mentions showing a film that has decidedly yellowed with age!

Return to Blackpool Central Pier Index Page