Thanks For The Memories

I received a message the other day from Keith Mealey in response to a News From Nowhere posting way back in December 2007. In the post, I told the story of Auntie Rhoda and her time as a Winstanley Babe back in the 1920s. Keith tells me about his moth-in law, Edith Carr who was a Winstanley Babe back in the thirties. Since writing about the Babes, other people have also contacted me about their relatives who spent time as Winstanley Babes : some of them as recently as the 1960s. One of the great delights of the Internet is the way it can bring together people around shared interests. You don't need to spend twenty years researching a topic or organise complex reunions. You just need to mention a word or phrase and let Google or Yahoo do the rest. This is happened a number of times over the last year or so : I have had people writing to me to share memories of, say, Fircroft College or their enthusiasm for such things as motorcycle funerals. Helping to preserve such memories is one of the many pleasurable side-effects of blogging. Keith's message reminded me of all this and provides a perfect opportunity at the time of the Easter holidays to thank everyone for their messages.

What Goes Around, Comes Around

One of the delights of scanning old negatives is trying to remember where on earth you were when you took the photograph. After scanning the above image I studied it for some time, looking for a clue as to where the street leading down to the sea could possibly be. Eventually I thought I recognised the faded headland in the distance as the Great Orme on the North Wales coast. From the arrangement of the Orme and the sea (always assuming I had not put the negative into the scanner the wrong way around) the photograph must have been taken in Conway. And then it slowly came back to me. Alexander was about eighteen months old, we had hired a cottage in Conway. Isobel was taking her final examinations for the Royal College of Pathologists and spent the days revising. I pushed Alexander in his pram up narrow street after narrow street. And here we are seventeen years later. Alexander is out of his pram and home for Easter from Medical School. And whilst I sit upstairs scanning old negatives, he is downstairs revising his biochemistry. What goes around, comes around.

The Path Between The Seas

Is it just me, or do other people find that they can't read the same type of books in the morning as they can at night? This strange idiosyncrasy is not new : for as long as I can remember I have only been able to read fiction at night and non-fiction in the morning. This means that I have to have two books going at the same time and twice as much space on my bedside table as most other people.

Yesterday I took delivery of a new Morning Book : David McCullough's story of the construction of the Panama Canal, "The Path Between The Seas". It is not exactly new : I did own a copy of this substantial and fascinating book some years ago and I started to read it just before my first trip up the Panama Canal. But I had left the task too late : the book was too long and my part-transit was too short and I never got further than the introductory chapters. This time I am making an early start - my full transit of the Canal isn't until next January. The book is as readable and informative as I remember which means that I should get through it in the next few weeks. I will need to, as once I have finished I need to pass it on to two other families in the Crosspool Cruise Club. 

So there will be a few lengthy morning lie-ins over Easter as I follow the path between the seas.

Dog And Owner At One Against The Worms

We spent a fair amount of time today at the Vets. Amy - our Wheaten Terrier - had to go in to have her teeth cleaned. This is both a time consuming and frighteningly expensive procedure as she has to be given a general anesthetic in order to have them scaled and polished. The risk of not having them done - according to the Vet - is that she will develop progressive kidney failure, heart failure, skin disease, distemper and piles. And if that was not bad enough we would also risk prosecution under the new Animal Welfare laws.  Faced with that, £130 every couple of years seems cheap.

Vets waiting rooms are far from entertaining places at the best of times : there are always rabbits waiting to be de-flead and cats waiting to be put down. The whole experience is made far worse by the dreadful posters that decorate the walls warning owners about an array of frightening parasites that lurk in wait for kitty-cat or wuffy-dog. Today I spotted a new one which warns about the dangers of lungworm infestation. "Lungworm : is your pet protected?" proclaims the poster. The effectiveness of its warning is amplified by the picture of a lungworm which appears to be the kind of creature that haunts your worst nightmares : a cross between an ugly snake and a piece of OAP's intestine. 

Never having heard of the dangers of lungworms to dogs before, I decided to check up before I subjected poor Amy to yet another medical intervention. If you do an internet search for "lungworms" and "dogs" you are directed towards several sites which proclaim that lungworms are now an insidious threat to dogs in UK with a big increase in the number of cases being seen by Vets. However, if you search for documentary evidence of either the scale of lungworm infestation in dogs or the rate of increase, you draw a blank. Indeed the only source of the current scare appears to be a press release suggesting that there is an increase in cases but without providing any evidence. And where does the press release originate from? From a veterinary pharmaceutical manufacturer of course.

I am always suspicious when the person telling me there is a new problem tells me in the same breath they have a new solution. Manufacturers of anti-virus software packages are famous for this approach : warning of some dreadful virus or worm that is about to cause every computer to self-digest its mother board.  I have learnt to ignore such warnings and face up to whatever the worst these worms can throw at me. After careful consideration, Amy has decided on the same approach.

Fencing

Talking of Google street photos (as AB was recently) what I really need to show the progress of our house development is Google-type photos so you take a virtual tour of our 'works' - it's very difficult to show how things are coming on - as they are, apace - with a single photo.

In fact the photo above is already out of date - but it does show how fences are now in place dividing our (development house's) garden into two - top garden for the ground-floor flat, bottom garden for the upstairs flat, shared path down the side with a little 'alcove' off this for bike storage and re-cycling bins. AB and IB saw the start of this operation on their very welcome visit... except what they saw we had to decide wouldn't do - following the architect's plan the bike (etc.) 'alcove' was initially taken out of the upper (nearer in the photo) garden... making this look very 'mean'. So, poor (builder) Alan (visible in the gateway to the lower garden) had to move some of the fence (he was very good about it!) AB and IB saw so the bike 'alcove' was/is taken out of the shared path.

Since this photo - only about a week - the path on the left is now surfaced... not with 'rammed hoggin' as the architect specified because.... well, thereby hangs a tale. No, I didn't know what 'hoggin' was either until I visited the web... and anyway nobody seemed to supply it. Except one firm (the web, again) nearby claimed-to... except, they told me, we didin't want 'hoggin' but 'self-binding gravel' - THAT was what was used for paths in (Oxford) colleges and London parks and due to a geological curiosity it was only available (near here) from Wicklesham quarry near Faringdon... I needed another telephone number.... 'hoggin' was by contrast horrid messy stuff... (I had to believe since I still didn't really know what it is...)

My mind slightly spinning that I'd obviously been speaking to a connoissuer of gravels and soils, amazingly I had the order made and delivered all during the day yesterday.

And since this photo the gardens are turfed - except for a border JG-C is due to start planting this W/E, top soil due to arrive tomorrow - around the lower edges - with paved patios in place at the top ends.

We had to whip in a sprinkler to establish the turf this morning. Water supplied from a 'garden tap' I fitted that's to the right of where Alan is in the photo. There's also an outside electric socket there - not yet actually connected but end of the cable waiting for this in the house - both supplies run under the now-surfaced path on the left. In a moment of blinding forethought I only recently suddenly realised the lower garden/top-floor flat would need supplies down there or how could they actually use their garden?

To supply the tap for the sprinkler meant making a temporary water link in the house - easily enough done using blissfully easy-to-use push-fit plastic plumbing. Gas-plumber Martin was there and leapt to help. Highly entertaining because he swears you must tighten push-fit fittings or they'll leak, and therefore carefully did-so. He's quite wrong (and every packet with a fitting says you only need to tighten the fitting if you want to stop pipes rotating!)... but I hadn't the heart or courage not to tell him not to bother. I mean, when Martin wasn't there and I made similar temporary connection to test for possible leaks before covering up the pipe under the ground I just clipped them on, no tightening, nary a leak....

Indeed, just recently ran a pressure test on the central heating pipes that run well under the floor to check no leaks before they become inaccessible. Interestingly the fittings under pressure lock tighter and tighter because of their natty design, so much so I couldn't initially undo them to end the test until I remembered that actually you can competely unscrew the fittings (revealing all sorts of natty washers an O rings and things.) I was just wise enough to point the pipe away from doing this - water shot out as from a fireman's hose.

(I took this to indicate no leaks.)

So, our "Easter holiday" is to be spent with me wiring busily - there's now enough in place inside for me to wire TO - and JG-C working on the borders. Thing is, however friendly Alan and Martin are, it's much easier wiring without having to dodge around them and their tools...

Happy Easter!

A Pint Of Best

To mark National Cask Ale Week I have decided to consolidate all my beer-related blogging activities into a single new home : A Pint Of Best. My Great Yorkshire Pubs blog has been crawling along for over a year now and recently it was joined by a new blog which attempted to document British pubs before they are lost forever. Both these blogs have now been incorporated into the new Pint Of Best blog which will bring together pictures, cuttings, notes and jottings on all things related to beer, brewing pubs and bars.  Poor yourself a glass of beer, settle down and take a look. You can find the new Blog here.

The Freedom Fighters Of Broughton

Hats off to the proud British residents of the village of Broughton who took to the streets last week to stop the Google Street View van taking photographs of their houses. As one resident said, "we don't want people looking down our drives and at our houses". "We are fighting", said another, "for the age-old tradition that an Englishman's home is his castle".

But what kind of tradition is this? The idea that a person can do what he or she wants within their home and that they are guaranteed security and privacy has never existed. You cannot commit murder in your own home, nor can you emit noise pollution late at night. You cannot store stolen birds' eggs, beat your dog or download illegally copied music. You cannot build whatever type of home  extension you choose, erect a tall fence and sell alcohol to your neighbours. 

The concept of an Englishman's home being his castle (note the gender specific sub-text) is a seventeenth century conception with doubtful legal validity. What the citizens of Broughton are trying to do is to extend this dubious precept to cover the road, street or highway outside. If these people manage to stop the Google Street View Camera today, then they will no doubt try and stop me walking down the street and taking a photograph tomorrow. 

The Street View camera has not been down my street yet. If Google would like to let me know when it is due I will go out into the street and welcome them. I will make the driver a cup of tea and invite them to take whatever photographs they please. In the meantime, here is a photograph of our house that I would like to share with the good citizens of Broughton.

More up to date

Loathe though I am to follow AB's fascinating forays with trivia, nevertheless I thought the world should know we have just joined the modern world a bit - the thin black line (well, box) in the photo above.

In the way all such momentous decisions are made, last Sunday we realised we had used up all our spare VHS tape because I insisted on taping Harry Potter (which clashed with Time Team) and then we wanted to tape Lewis (just watched it - so well done in the spirit of Morse) so we could watch The Lady's Detective Agency (brilliant show catches the spirit of the original books so well) ... and then Damages (plot still impossible to follow) - thanks to the fates, the programmes we like to watch seem to turn up like London buses on Sunday evening at the moment.

But JG-C was due out to her 'small' choir Monday evening so we needed to record Crime Watch for her... and no clean tape left. Off we went on Monday morning to... er... buy some more tape. Except we'd long wondered about getting a DVD recorder, so we 'just had a look' in Curry's and... bought the box above. Where the fact it is a DVD recorder/player is almost irrelevant for us since we scarcely ever borrow (let alone buy) a pre-recorded DVD, nor do we tend to want to keep recordings long or archive them - no, no what the box does have which is absolute bliss is, firstly, an HDD (Hard Disc) recorder and, secondly, a digital tuner.

To deal with the second first, we increasingly find that programmes we want to watch (e.g. way-out zany Earl) - and therefore often need to record - are on digital (freeview) channels... previously only recordable by setting the digi-box (on the top in the photo above) for the VHS recorder (at the bottom in the photo) ... to record-from.... a process for not-quite-clear reasons by no means fail-safe and besides (the cheapo TV, just showing top of the photo, is old and only analogue) we couldn't watch a digital channel if we wanted to be recording a different one. So, to be able to record digital channel whilst possibly watching a different digital channel is good. And, shortly, analogue is going to switch off, anyway!

As for the former, the HDD not only easily can hold absurdly far more hours of recording than we'd ever want but has this godsend facility that you can watch from the start whilst the thing is still recording - thus JG-C could come in on Monday at about 9.20 and watch Crime Watch from the start whilst the programme was 20 minutes ahead of her. BUT, she could thereby be back to 'live' for the update.... and there's not much point watching a "live update" if in fact it's a recording(!)

Equally, now if somebody calls around (or telephones) when we are watching something and it's rude or inconvenient not to pay attention to them we can for a mere two flicks of the button start the HDD recording.... and go back to our programme easily after the interruption, watching without having to wait, merely watching five or ten minutes behind the actual transmission. This is SUCH a convenient practical facility...

Mind you, there is one snag with this ... fairly trivial but, then, 'trivial' is everything, I find. The new box takes about 30 seconds to get organised after switching on so you can't, actually, "just" hit the button unless you've neurotically set things with the recorder ready to go in case somebody calls. Nevertheless, what you can do once it's on is just so superb. Definitely a good buy. But for being able to do just exactly what you might pragmatically need... I find it funny it can do a million things we DON'T need which sound so glamerous... what's good is that it can do what we do need.

The Age Of The Digital Warehouse and a Narrow Pair of Corsets

One of the great delights of the web at the moment is the amount of material that is being added. We have managed to get passed the stage where a large proportion of the material available was not of the type you would want your maiden aunt to see. We have also got passed the stage where large parts of the web were given over to corporate shop-windows. We have reached the age of the digital warehouse : the age when the complete written records of mankind are slowly being transferred so they are available on-line. The true delight of being around at the moment is that you can wake up each day and discover yet another treasure trove of information. For information nuts like me it is not so much like being a kid in a sweetshop as being a kid let loose in a chocolate factory.

Yesterday I discovered that the entire British parliamentary records are now available online and free of charge. Hansard is the verbatim transcripts of the proceedings of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and the digital archives cover every day of every session from 1803 to 2005 (more recent Hansard records are available from the Houses of Parliament website). It is the historical archives which are more interesting and offer endless hours of pleasure for information drifters like me. I tested the system out by calling up the day of my birth and was well rewarded with a tabernacle full of trivia. 

There, for example was a youthful Harold Wilson (then President of the Board of Trade) explaining to Reg Sorensen MP that women could get corsets without the need of clothing coupons as long as they were less than six inches wide. A few pages later, up pops a dear old friend of mine (Lucy Middleton, then MP for Plymouth) asking why Princess Elizabeth's wedding dress was not being exhibited in her constituency. Cyril Dumpleton MP - such a splendid name - rose to his feet in indignation to ask the Education Minister why a juvenile under the age of 12 was being allowed to take part in a public performance by conducting an orchestra at the Harringay Festival. The House of Lords was engaged in more weighty stuff but with their usual efficiency they managed to give a Third Reading to the Ascot Racecourse Bill in just 12 words and adopt the William Brown Nimmo Charitable Trust (Amendment) Order in just four sweet words.

I could go on, but I won't. Loosen your six-inch corsets and go for a wander yourselves.

The Photographs Went In Two-By-Two

I always think that the Internet is the ideal medium for people to share images. Whilst there are numerous sites where you can post your latest photos, there are few where you can share archive photographs. Where they do exist, such sites all too often are infested with the "I can make money out of this" virus and carry ridiculous copyright warnings. It is therefore refreshing to discover a site dedicated to the free sharing of archive photographs between people, like me, who see old photographs as windows to the past. The site is Photo-Ark.co.uk. It is well worth a visit and well worth an extended browse.

Fat George Wyatt and The Apprentice

I was watching The Apprentice last night and noticed that one of the contestants described himself as owning a chain of ten public houses. I thought this must be a sign of the times : with the state of British pubs at the moment I suspect that you would be able to acquire a chain of ten pubs and still have change out of a fifty pound note. I launched into one of those "it wasn't like this in the good old days" rants : when I was a young man landlords looked after one pub and looked after it well.

And then this morning I was reading John Pudney's excellent history of the Courage Brewing Group when I came across the story of George Wyatt.  Towards the end of the nineteenth century the increasingly powerful brewers were beginning to establish a pattern of "tied" houses which continued for almost one hundred years. Different brewers adopted different approaches to creating the all-important "tie", the approach favoured by Courage was to use loans. Innkeepers would receive the necessary capital to develop their business from the brewery in return for an agreement to exclusively buy their beer. It was not uncommon for publicans to obtain a series of such loans in return of exclusivity agreements : one for draught beer (from, for example Courage), one for bottled beers (from, for example, Bass or Worthington) and one for spirits.

In his book, Pudney tells the story of one George Wyatt, a nineteenth century publican who was a big man in a number of ways. Physically he was a big man weighing in at over 20 stones, but he was also a sizable businessman as well, owning some fifteen public houses. He had a loan from Courage for each of his fifteen pubs and was in receipt of some £100,000 in total from the brewery (which, according to the clever little measuringworth calculator, is the equivalent of getting on for £8 million today). The brewery was understandably worried about - what today would be called - their exposure and the Directors decided to take out an endowment insurance policy on Fat George to cover themselves in case of his demise. The insurance company demanded that George should be weighed before a policy could be issued and he was told to report to the brewery for weighing. When he got there it was discovered that the brewery did not have enough weights to complete the process so a string of clerks were sent to the brewery office to carry out the heavy office ledgers to use as balances on the scale. 

It appears that, despite his size, George Wyatt survived to pay off the loans. As the owner of a chain of fifteen pubs he would have been prime material for a Victorian version of The Apprentice.