ramonmercado
CyberPunk
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2003
- Messages
- 58,223
- Location
- Eblana
The Rathbone stuff sounds truly Fortean: disguised as a tree and shoots a German who thinks Rathbone is actually a tree?!
PeniG
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2003
- Messages
- 2,434
I am presently plagued by history that is willfully forgotten - things that nobody wanted to remember, so didn't talk about, and barely wrote down, and on which no one jumped in time. I'm researching the end of the American Civil War in my neck of the woods, and it's uphill work. There was a paper shortage, so most diaries and newspapers were either abandoned or written on paper unsuitable for curating - the San Antonio newspapers were being printed on wallpaper - during the time in which I'm interested. I need to know as much as I can about deserters, vigilantes, home guard units, guerillas, and outlaws (no category of which was exclusive of the others) in the southern and western parts of the state, but the generals in charge weren't fond of paperwork and the state of things was so chaotic the civilians for the most part preferred to put it behind them and never speak on the subject. As far as I can tell, no one has made a proper history of this area and the information I want, if it exists at all, is scattered all over the state, a record here and a family story there, most of it only significant if you have two or three other pieces of information.
And yet there's drama here like you wouldn't believe. I've told the story elsewhere of how the leader of Waldrip's Wolf Pack aka the Haengerbande was gunned down in the streets of Fredericksburg in 1867 by a person who only claimed credit years later, to his wife, who didn't see fit to pass it on for decades more. Going through the 1865 Texas Almanac last week, I scanned the home guard units for my counties of interest and saw a small one of 25 men under P. Waldrup. So the infamous Haengerbande that dragged old men out of their beds at night and hung them was incorporated as a guard unit with a mandate to protect those same old men from marauding Indians and outlaws! But when reading memoirs of this area, no names are attached to it by those who mention it, no one claims or accuses anyone of membership.
For the most part the war years are skippped in official history and in memoir: "I hauled freight to Mexico, then it was 1868." "Most people in town thought the War was completely unnecessary. Afterward - " I glimpse story after story: "Grandpa was the only support of the family, so he couldn't let himself get conscripted; but the Haengerbande was looking for him, so he lived in the hills above town and when he needed to work the farm, he dressed as a woman." "Uncle Oliver, the de Montel's head slave, would be in charge of things when Charles was gone, and slept on the porch behind the moon vines with a rifle next to him, in case of trouble." Just enough to whet the appetite, no more.
And yet there's drama here like you wouldn't believe. I've told the story elsewhere of how the leader of Waldrip's Wolf Pack aka the Haengerbande was gunned down in the streets of Fredericksburg in 1867 by a person who only claimed credit years later, to his wife, who didn't see fit to pass it on for decades more. Going through the 1865 Texas Almanac last week, I scanned the home guard units for my counties of interest and saw a small one of 25 men under P. Waldrup. So the infamous Haengerbande that dragged old men out of their beds at night and hung them was incorporated as a guard unit with a mandate to protect those same old men from marauding Indians and outlaws! But when reading memoirs of this area, no names are attached to it by those who mention it, no one claims or accuses anyone of membership.
For the most part the war years are skippped in official history and in memoir: "I hauled freight to Mexico, then it was 1868." "Most people in town thought the War was completely unnecessary. Afterward - " I glimpse story after story: "Grandpa was the only support of the family, so he couldn't let himself get conscripted; but the Haengerbande was looking for him, so he lived in the hills above town and when he needed to work the farm, he dressed as a woman." "Uncle Oliver, the de Montel's head slave, would be in charge of things when Charles was gone, and slept on the porch behind the moon vines with a rifle next to him, in case of trouble." Just enough to whet the appetite, no more.
McAvennie
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2003
- Messages
- 3,998
I'm fascinated by the Civil War era, and American history in general. Would have loved to have done American Studies at Uni but couldn't really see a career in it other than American Studies lecturer.
Not specifically Civil War era but I loved reading all of Herbert Asbury's books on NY, Chicago, New Orleans and San Fran. The late 1800s seem ancient history at times but when you read accounts of life it is not that far removed from where we are.
Truly fascinating but I imagine an absolute nightmare to research. I tear my hair out enough at the inaccuracy and missing articles/info when researching football matches played only 20 years or so ago. To be trying to track stuff down from near 150 years ago!
Not specifically Civil War era but I loved reading all of Herbert Asbury's books on NY, Chicago, New Orleans and San Fran. The late 1800s seem ancient history at times but when you read accounts of life it is not that far removed from where we are.
Truly fascinating but I imagine an absolute nightmare to research. I tear my hair out enough at the inaccuracy and missing articles/info when researching football matches played only 20 years or so ago. To be trying to track stuff down from near 150 years ago!
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
Spitfire pilot hi-jinks found on film
[ video ]
Extraordinarily rare footage of Spitfire pilots at leisure has been discovered.
The colour footage shows how the pilots kept their spirits high as the country fought for its very survival.
Pictures courtesy of the South West Film and Television Archive
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8347063.stm
[ video ]
Extraordinarily rare footage of Spitfire pilots at leisure has been discovered.
The colour footage shows how the pilots kept their spirits high as the country fought for its very survival.
Pictures courtesy of the South West Film and Television Archive
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8347063.stm
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
This is fascinating, moving, and sometimes hilarious:
The Children Who Fought Hitler
Documentary telling the forgotten story of a heroic battle fought by the children of the British Memorial School to help liberate Europe from the Nazis.
The school served a unique horticultural community of ex-First World War soldiers and their families living in Ypres in Belgium who lovingly tended the war graves. Steeped in ideals of patriotic service and sacrifice, many pupils and ex-pupils refused to surrender to the invading Nazi forces.
Three surviving school pupils tell their extraordinary stories of resistance, illustrated with rare archive film. Elaine Madden dramatically escaped to England where she joined the Special Operations Executive and was dropped into Belgium to work as a spy and saboteur. Jerry Eaton joined the RAF taking on especially dangerous missions over Europe and would later become a wing commander. Stephen Grady joined the French resistance where, as a young teenager, he became adept in sabotage and secret attacks on German troops.
The film is a much deserved tribute to the courage, sacrifice and heroism of the Memorial School children.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... ht_Hitler/
Another prog about WWII that I've been following is
Coal House - Coal House at War
Three Welsh families give up their 21st-century creature comforts and travel back in time to 1944 to face the hardships of life during the Second World War. Tensions run high when the workers turn up late to the mine and munitions factory. Whilst their bonuses are under threat, wartime shortages take a grip and the families battle to cope without electricity.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Episode_6/
Fascinating to me, because the fashions and way of life remind me of my early childhood, only a few years later. (I'm sure my mother had a copper with a mangle on top just like that!) All the adults I knew then had lived through the war, so this has always been part of the background of my life.
The Children Who Fought Hitler
Documentary telling the forgotten story of a heroic battle fought by the children of the British Memorial School to help liberate Europe from the Nazis.
The school served a unique horticultural community of ex-First World War soldiers and their families living in Ypres in Belgium who lovingly tended the war graves. Steeped in ideals of patriotic service and sacrifice, many pupils and ex-pupils refused to surrender to the invading Nazi forces.
Three surviving school pupils tell their extraordinary stories of resistance, illustrated with rare archive film. Elaine Madden dramatically escaped to England where she joined the Special Operations Executive and was dropped into Belgium to work as a spy and saboteur. Jerry Eaton joined the RAF taking on especially dangerous missions over Europe and would later become a wing commander. Stephen Grady joined the French resistance where, as a young teenager, he became adept in sabotage and secret attacks on German troops.
The film is a much deserved tribute to the courage, sacrifice and heroism of the Memorial School children.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... ht_Hitler/
Another prog about WWII that I've been following is
Coal House - Coal House at War
Three Welsh families give up their 21st-century creature comforts and travel back in time to 1944 to face the hardships of life during the Second World War. Tensions run high when the workers turn up late to the mine and munitions factory. Whilst their bonuses are under threat, wartime shortages take a grip and the families battle to cope without electricity.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Episode_6/
Fascinating to me, because the fashions and way of life remind me of my early childhood, only a few years later. (I'm sure my mother had a copper with a mangle on top just like that!) All the adults I knew then had lived through the war, so this has always been part of the background of my life.
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
Are these the bones of a legendary Persian army lost in the Sahara 2,500 years ago?
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:16 PM on 10th November 2009
The remains of a legendary 50,000-strong army which was swallowed up in a cataclysmic sandstorm in the Sahara Desert 2,500 years ago are believed to have been found.
Italian archaeologists Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni, twin brothers, have discovered bronze weapons and hundreds of human bones which they reckon are the remains of the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II.
According to the Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 BC), Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, sent the soldiers from Thebes to attack the Oasis of Siwa in 525BC.
Their mission was to destroy the oracle at the Temple of Amun after the priests there refused to legitimise his claim to Egypt.
Oracles were places where divine advice or prophecy was sought and the ancient Egyptians held them to be manifestations of the gods that could see into the future. They were often consulted before big decisions.
Two centuries after the soldiers disappeared, Alexander the Great made his own pilgrimage there in 332BC before he began his conquest of Persia. His historians claimed that the oracle then confirmed he was the divine son of Zeus, the Greek god equated with Amun, and the legitimate pharaoh of Egypt.
Because of the lack of any archaeological evidence historians had come to dismiss the tale of Cambyses' lost army as legend.
Among those to have searched for the army is Count László Almásy (on whom the novel The English Patient was based).
After walking for seven days in the desert, the army was said to have arrived at an 'oasis', which historians believe was El-Kharga, 120 miles west of the Nile in the Libyan Desert. After they left, a great sandstorm sprung up and they were never seen again.
Herodotus (484-425BC) wrote 'a wind arose from the south, strong and deadly, bringing with it vast columns of whirling sand, which entirely covered up the troops and caused them wholly to disappear'.
Dario Del Bufalo, a member of the Castiglioni expedition from the University of Lecce in Italy, told Discovery News: ‘We have found the first archaeological evidence of a story reported by the Greek historian Herodotus.’
The Castiglioni brothers are already famous for their discovery 20 years ago of the city of pharaohs the 'city of gold' Berenike Panchrysos which was quoted by Pliny the Elder in his 'Naturalis Historia'.
Alfredo Castiglioni told Discovery News that the discovery was the result of 13 years of research and five expeditions to the desert.
While working close to Siwa the team of researchers noticed a half-buried pot and some human remains.
Then the brothers spotted a rock 114ft long and 6ft in height which could have been used as a shelter by the army. Such rock formations occur in the desert, but this was the only one in a large area.
'Its size and shape made it the perfect refuge in a sandstorm,' Mr Castiglioni said.
It was there that a bronze dagger and several arrow tips were found.
'We are talking of small items, but they are extremely important as they are the first Achaemenid objects, thus dating to Cambyses' time, which have emerged from the desert sands in a location quite close to Siwa.'
The brothers studied ancient maps and came to the conclusion that the army did not take the caravan route most archaeologists believe they used.
'Since the 19th century, many archaeologists and explorers have searched for the lost army along that route. They found nothing. We hypothesised a different itinerary, coming from south,' added Mr Castiglioni.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z0WSlKAqIS
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:16 PM on 10th November 2009
The remains of a legendary 50,000-strong army which was swallowed up in a cataclysmic sandstorm in the Sahara Desert 2,500 years ago are believed to have been found.
Italian archaeologists Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni, twin brothers, have discovered bronze weapons and hundreds of human bones which they reckon are the remains of the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II.
According to the Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 BC), Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, sent the soldiers from Thebes to attack the Oasis of Siwa in 525BC.
Their mission was to destroy the oracle at the Temple of Amun after the priests there refused to legitimise his claim to Egypt.
Oracles were places where divine advice or prophecy was sought and the ancient Egyptians held them to be manifestations of the gods that could see into the future. They were often consulted before big decisions.
Two centuries after the soldiers disappeared, Alexander the Great made his own pilgrimage there in 332BC before he began his conquest of Persia. His historians claimed that the oracle then confirmed he was the divine son of Zeus, the Greek god equated with Amun, and the legitimate pharaoh of Egypt.
Because of the lack of any archaeological evidence historians had come to dismiss the tale of Cambyses' lost army as legend.
Among those to have searched for the army is Count László Almásy (on whom the novel The English Patient was based).
After walking for seven days in the desert, the army was said to have arrived at an 'oasis', which historians believe was El-Kharga, 120 miles west of the Nile in the Libyan Desert. After they left, a great sandstorm sprung up and they were never seen again.
Herodotus (484-425BC) wrote 'a wind arose from the south, strong and deadly, bringing with it vast columns of whirling sand, which entirely covered up the troops and caused them wholly to disappear'.
Dario Del Bufalo, a member of the Castiglioni expedition from the University of Lecce in Italy, told Discovery News: ‘We have found the first archaeological evidence of a story reported by the Greek historian Herodotus.’
The Castiglioni brothers are already famous for their discovery 20 years ago of the city of pharaohs the 'city of gold' Berenike Panchrysos which was quoted by Pliny the Elder in his 'Naturalis Historia'.
Alfredo Castiglioni told Discovery News that the discovery was the result of 13 years of research and five expeditions to the desert.
While working close to Siwa the team of researchers noticed a half-buried pot and some human remains.
Then the brothers spotted a rock 114ft long and 6ft in height which could have been used as a shelter by the army. Such rock formations occur in the desert, but this was the only one in a large area.
'Its size and shape made it the perfect refuge in a sandstorm,' Mr Castiglioni said.
It was there that a bronze dagger and several arrow tips were found.
'We are talking of small items, but they are extremely important as they are the first Achaemenid objects, thus dating to Cambyses' time, which have emerged from the desert sands in a location quite close to Siwa.'
The brothers studied ancient maps and came to the conclusion that the army did not take the caravan route most archaeologists believe they used.
'Since the 19th century, many archaeologists and explorers have searched for the lost army along that route. They found nothing. We hypothesised a different itinerary, coming from south,' added Mr Castiglioni.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z0WSlKAqIS
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
More recent history. Not exactly forgotten, but new to me:
AC Milan's Nottingham-born hero
By Neil Heath
Italian football giants AC Milan rightly lay claim to being one of the biggest and most famous clubs in world football.
But few people realise the debt of gratitude they owe Nottingham.
Seven-times European Cup winners AC Milan are a team who have been dominant both on the domestic front and in Europe and are synonymous with style and success.
But had it not been for Nottingham lace-maker Herbert Kilpin, then AC Milan's glorious trophy-laden history may not have happened.
Kilpin, a butcher's son in his late twenties, emigrated to work in the textile industry in the 1890s.
But after a heavy drinking session in a Milanese tavern, the homesick Kilpin and five friends decided to start a football team to remind them of home.
AC Milan was born.
Kilpin became the club's first coach and captain, as well as the team's star player.
etc...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/nottingham/ ... 291087.stm
AC Milan's Nottingham-born hero
By Neil Heath
Italian football giants AC Milan rightly lay claim to being one of the biggest and most famous clubs in world football.
But few people realise the debt of gratitude they owe Nottingham.
Seven-times European Cup winners AC Milan are a team who have been dominant both on the domestic front and in Europe and are synonymous with style and success.
But had it not been for Nottingham lace-maker Herbert Kilpin, then AC Milan's glorious trophy-laden history may not have happened.
Kilpin, a butcher's son in his late twenties, emigrated to work in the textile industry in the 1890s.
But after a heavy drinking session in a Milanese tavern, the homesick Kilpin and five friends decided to start a football team to remind them of home.
AC Milan was born.
Kilpin became the club's first coach and captain, as well as the team's star player.
etc...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/nottingham/ ... 291087.stm
Sogna
Devoted Cultist
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2006
- Messages
- 227
It's probably also in John Foot's book, but Mussolini is supposed to have forced them to change their name to AC Milano during the war, with the club reverting to Milan afterwards. I've certainly come across at least one Italian player referring to the manager as "my mister", another throwback to the Italian game's English roots.
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
North Atlantic battle that made legend of HMS Rawalpindi
The valiant fight given by HMS Rawalpindi before she was sunk by Scharnhorst captured the public imagination
Magnus Linklater
It was, on paper, one of the Second World War’s worst naval disasters, costing almost 300 British lives. But it was also an act of extraordinary heroism, which Winston Churchill said was in the great tradition of Drake and Nelson.
Seventy years ago, in the freezing waters off Iceland, the British merchant cruiser HMS Rawalpindi — armed with little more than pre-First World War guns — found itself confronting two of the deadliest battleships in the German navy.
This week, a reception will be held to commemorate the incident, which some believe should have been marked by the award of a posthumous Victoria Cross for the man who led it.
On the bridge of the British ship , on November 23, 1939, stood Captain Edward Coverley Kennedy, a 60-year-old Scot, father of the late Sir Ludovic Kennedy, with a distinguished naval career behind him, who had come out of retirement to command the Rawalpindi. Its role was to intercept merchant vessels carrying grain to Germany but, in the darkening afternoon, Captain Kennedy saw something far more threatening — the silhouette of an enemy battleship.
In fact there were two – the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, each weighing 32,000 tons, with a maximum speed of 31 knots, and fitted with state-of-the-art guns and armour plating. The British ship stood no chance. Kennedy took immediate evasive action but was outrun. Ordered to surrender, he faced a momentous choice — whether to give in or to fight.
Turning to his chief engineer, he remarked calmly: “We’ll fight them both, they’ll sink us, and that will be that. Goodbye.” They shook hands.
The Rawalpindi’s first salvos hit the Gneisenau but fell short of the Scharnhorst. Both ships opened fire, to devastating effect. Fifteen minutes later it was all over.
They destroyed the Rawalpindi’s bridge, wireless room, gunnery control room and engine room, plunging the ship in darkness and disabling the electric ammunition hoists. Kennedy ordered shells to be pulled up by hand and rolled to the guns, now forced to fire independently. Although the ship was on fire the guns kept firing, scoring hits on both German vessels. But as Kennedy went aft with two ratings to organise a smokescreen, they were met by another enemy salvo. All three were instantly killed.
By this stage Rawalpindi’s steering gear was out of action, her water supply had failed and her guns fell silent. As the crew took to the lifeboats, a shell the Scharnhorst penetrated Rawalpindi’s forward magazine, causing a huge explosion. The ship split in two and began to sink.
The loss of her Captain and nearly all her 300 crew was a devastating blow so early in the war. But back home, the engagement caught the public’s imagination. The press portrayed the action as a sign that the fighting spirit of the Royal Navy had not been broken. Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, spoke of Kennedy in the same breath as Drake, Hood and Nelson.
Among naval historians, controversy still surrounds Kennedy’s orders, which had been been to evade action, not seek it out. But, in fact, the circumstances of that day left him with no alternative. The Rawalpindi did its best to seek the shelter of a fog bank, and sent out smoke floats, which failed to ignite. An iceberg four miles away offered better protection, but it was too late. The outcome of Kennedy’s refusal to surrender led to the loss of his ship and most of its crew. But it was also a significant setback for the German navy. Not only did the Rawalpindi inflict damage on the two battleships but it ensured that they gave up any notion of breaking out into the Atlantic, which could have been disastrous for the Allies.
Out of a crew of 300, only 37 sailors were rescued: 26 were picked up from Rawalpindi’s lifeboats by the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, while a further ten were rescued from another lifeboat the following afternoon by Rawalpindi’s sister ship, HMS Chitral.
An eleventh man, Harry Fleming, 21, from east London, had managed to scramble on to the keel of an overturned lifeboat with three others. One by one they had slipped, exhausted, into the sea, leaving Harry on his own.
Harry’s son Michael Fleming, born in 1940, explains what happened next: “The Chitral saw the upturned lifeboat and the body on it. She steamed slowly past but my father couldn’t move, he was frozen and couldn’t get his hands off the keel. The men on the Chitral’s bridgehead thought he was dead but one signalman, who kept looking backwards, saw my father rip one hand off the keel and raise it, and the guy shouted ‘He’s still alive!’
“They turned and picked him up. He’d been in the sea 23 hours.”
Mr Fleming recently met up with Captain Kennedy’s daughter, Katherine Calvocoressi, 82, forming a friendship with her based on shared memories. Aged 12, she had learned of her father’s death on the radio: “We were living in a cottage in Scotland with no telephone and my mother heard it on the 9 o’clock news.
“My sister and I had gone up to bed and my mother came rushing upstairs saying, ‘Girls, you must come down!’ She told us what had happened, which was a huge shock. I remember saying, ‘Perhaps Daddy’s one of the survivors?’ and my mother replying, ‘No, he was the Captain’. She was an extremely strong character.”
On Monday, Mrs Calvocoressi is holding a 70th anniversary reception to commemorate those who lost their lives on the Rawalpindi. Mr Fleming will be there. The centrepiece will be a scrapbook of the Rawalpindi engagement, compiled immediately afterwards from press cuttings, tributes, photographs and letters, which was placed on loan to the Imperial War Museum after Mrs Kennedy’s death.
“It’s brought the whole thing back to me. I’ve always been proud of my father but am more so now, reading all these marvellous things. It’s had a great emotional impact on me.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 926316.ece
The valiant fight given by HMS Rawalpindi before she was sunk by Scharnhorst captured the public imagination
Magnus Linklater
It was, on paper, one of the Second World War’s worst naval disasters, costing almost 300 British lives. But it was also an act of extraordinary heroism, which Winston Churchill said was in the great tradition of Drake and Nelson.
Seventy years ago, in the freezing waters off Iceland, the British merchant cruiser HMS Rawalpindi — armed with little more than pre-First World War guns — found itself confronting two of the deadliest battleships in the German navy.
This week, a reception will be held to commemorate the incident, which some believe should have been marked by the award of a posthumous Victoria Cross for the man who led it.
On the bridge of the British ship , on November 23, 1939, stood Captain Edward Coverley Kennedy, a 60-year-old Scot, father of the late Sir Ludovic Kennedy, with a distinguished naval career behind him, who had come out of retirement to command the Rawalpindi. Its role was to intercept merchant vessels carrying grain to Germany but, in the darkening afternoon, Captain Kennedy saw something far more threatening — the silhouette of an enemy battleship.
In fact there were two – the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, each weighing 32,000 tons, with a maximum speed of 31 knots, and fitted with state-of-the-art guns and armour plating. The British ship stood no chance. Kennedy took immediate evasive action but was outrun. Ordered to surrender, he faced a momentous choice — whether to give in or to fight.
Turning to his chief engineer, he remarked calmly: “We’ll fight them both, they’ll sink us, and that will be that. Goodbye.” They shook hands.
The Rawalpindi’s first salvos hit the Gneisenau but fell short of the Scharnhorst. Both ships opened fire, to devastating effect. Fifteen minutes later it was all over.
They destroyed the Rawalpindi’s bridge, wireless room, gunnery control room and engine room, plunging the ship in darkness and disabling the electric ammunition hoists. Kennedy ordered shells to be pulled up by hand and rolled to the guns, now forced to fire independently. Although the ship was on fire the guns kept firing, scoring hits on both German vessels. But as Kennedy went aft with two ratings to organise a smokescreen, they were met by another enemy salvo. All three were instantly killed.
By this stage Rawalpindi’s steering gear was out of action, her water supply had failed and her guns fell silent. As the crew took to the lifeboats, a shell the Scharnhorst penetrated Rawalpindi’s forward magazine, causing a huge explosion. The ship split in two and began to sink.
The loss of her Captain and nearly all her 300 crew was a devastating blow so early in the war. But back home, the engagement caught the public’s imagination. The press portrayed the action as a sign that the fighting spirit of the Royal Navy had not been broken. Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, spoke of Kennedy in the same breath as Drake, Hood and Nelson.
Among naval historians, controversy still surrounds Kennedy’s orders, which had been been to evade action, not seek it out. But, in fact, the circumstances of that day left him with no alternative. The Rawalpindi did its best to seek the shelter of a fog bank, and sent out smoke floats, which failed to ignite. An iceberg four miles away offered better protection, but it was too late. The outcome of Kennedy’s refusal to surrender led to the loss of his ship and most of its crew. But it was also a significant setback for the German navy. Not only did the Rawalpindi inflict damage on the two battleships but it ensured that they gave up any notion of breaking out into the Atlantic, which could have been disastrous for the Allies.
Out of a crew of 300, only 37 sailors were rescued: 26 were picked up from Rawalpindi’s lifeboats by the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, while a further ten were rescued from another lifeboat the following afternoon by Rawalpindi’s sister ship, HMS Chitral.
An eleventh man, Harry Fleming, 21, from east London, had managed to scramble on to the keel of an overturned lifeboat with three others. One by one they had slipped, exhausted, into the sea, leaving Harry on his own.
Harry’s son Michael Fleming, born in 1940, explains what happened next: “The Chitral saw the upturned lifeboat and the body on it. She steamed slowly past but my father couldn’t move, he was frozen and couldn’t get his hands off the keel. The men on the Chitral’s bridgehead thought he was dead but one signalman, who kept looking backwards, saw my father rip one hand off the keel and raise it, and the guy shouted ‘He’s still alive!’
“They turned and picked him up. He’d been in the sea 23 hours.”
Mr Fleming recently met up with Captain Kennedy’s daughter, Katherine Calvocoressi, 82, forming a friendship with her based on shared memories. Aged 12, she had learned of her father’s death on the radio: “We were living in a cottage in Scotland with no telephone and my mother heard it on the 9 o’clock news.
“My sister and I had gone up to bed and my mother came rushing upstairs saying, ‘Girls, you must come down!’ She told us what had happened, which was a huge shock. I remember saying, ‘Perhaps Daddy’s one of the survivors?’ and my mother replying, ‘No, he was the Captain’. She was an extremely strong character.”
On Monday, Mrs Calvocoressi is holding a 70th anniversary reception to commemorate those who lost their lives on the Rawalpindi. Mr Fleming will be there. The centrepiece will be a scrapbook of the Rawalpindi engagement, compiled immediately afterwards from press cuttings, tributes, photographs and letters, which was placed on loan to the Imperial War Museum after Mrs Kennedy’s death.
“It’s brought the whole thing back to me. I’ve always been proud of my father but am more so now, reading all these marvellous things. It’s had a great emotional impact on me.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 926316.ece
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
From Colditz to D-Day: Amazing aerial images taken by daring Allied pilots on secret missions during World War II
By David Wilkes
Last updated at 9:53 AM on 23rd November 2009
The detail is astonishing. At first it looks like just another castle surrounded by tiny houses and neat fields. But zooming in on the courtyard one can see figures milling around.
They are in fact Allied officers being held in the notorious German PoW camp of Colditz and the photograph is one from an archive of aerial photographs taken by airmen - sometimes flying as low as 50ft - during secret reconnaissance missions in World War II.
Until now the pictures have been kept behind closed doors. But they are revealed to the public for the first time today via the internet amid a painstaking cataloguing process.
In another image, precise as a hole punch through a sheet of paper, craters surround a Nazi doodlebug factory in an extraordinary photograph showing the devastation wreaked by an Allied bombing raid.
The date is September 2, 1944 and the place Peenemunde, a village on the Baltic, where the terrifying weapons Adolf Hitler hoped would win the war for Germany were designed and tested.
Others in the collection convey the human suffering experienced amid the fighting, including rare shots of a Nazi slave labour camp and of the landings on D-Day.
Alan Williams, manager of the National Collection of Aerial Photography which houses the photos, said: 'The archive literally shows the world at war.'
Long before the days of Google Earth, the highly skilled airmen who took them flew alone, by day and night, in unarmed Spitfires relying on their wits as they risked their lives to capture the images on their plane-mounted cameras.
Sometimes their planes were painted pink, as the unusual colour proved very good at hiding the aircraft against a background of low cloud. For high altitude missions, the planes were painted a dark shade of blue.
But often they still found themselves targeted by anti-aircraft missiles. Hundreds of them never returned home.
Those that did brought with them photos vital to the war effort.
Expert photographic interpreters studied the pictures using optical instruments such as stereoscopes to view them in 3D to build up detailed information for intelligence reports and models used in military planning for operations such as the D-Day landings.
The 'detective' teams, who were headquartered in a stately home in Buckinghamshire at RAF Medmenham - MI4's Allied Central Interpretation Unit - included Oxbridge academics, geographers and archaeologists.
While the pilots were all men, a large proportion of interpreters were women, including Winston Churchill's daughter Sarah.
Other famous names attached to the unit included actor Dirk Bogarde.
Peenemunde was a key strategic site where the doodlebugs - or V1s, as they were called by the Nazis - were built. The 2,000lb bombs were pilotless planes powered by a jet motor.
First launched from ski-slope ramps by powered catapults in northern France, they killed more than 6,000 people in south east England.
Winston Churchill ordered Operation Crossbow - a plan to destroy V1 production and launch sites - and some 36,000 tons of bombs were dropped on these targets.
The photo of the destruction this caused at Peenemunde comes from the Aerial Reconnaissance Archives (Tara), which contains more than 10million photographs, including pictures taken by the RAF up to the 1990s and by the Luftwaffe.
The photo of the slave labour camp near Mainz in Germany, taken on June 2, 1945, is one of only a handful of images that remain of the factory site because it was dismantled quickly after the war.
Slave labour camps were concentration camps where interned inmates had to do hard physical labour under inhumane conditions and cruel treatment. This one provided workers for a heavy machinery company.
In the photos of Colditz - the high security castle where Allied officers who had repeatedly escaped from other camps were held - prisoners can be seen in the courtyard of the high security prison on April 10, 1945, just days before US forces took over the area.
Other images show vehicles disembarking from landing craft on D-Day, and the so-called bridge over the River Kwai, part of the Thai-Burma railway project that cost the lives of thousands of prisoners of war.
Mr Williams said: 'The skill of the photo reconnaissance pilot was incredible - they were among the best pilots in the air force.
'As so many of them lost their lives, the archive has become a memorial to them and the events on the ground they photographed.
'How they could take the photos they did is astonishing. When you remember they were taken in combat, and often being shot at - it's astounding.'
All the photos were stored for more than 50 years at Keele University before Tara was moved to Edinburgh last year to join The National Collection of Aerial Photography.
Specialist staff are continuing the lengthy task of researching, cataloguing and digitising the images, which is expected to take many years.
Around 4,000 images from the archive will go online initially with more to be added.
The archive can be viewed at aerial.rcahms.gov.uk
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z0XgGyTRRu
By David Wilkes
Last updated at 9:53 AM on 23rd November 2009
The detail is astonishing. At first it looks like just another castle surrounded by tiny houses and neat fields. But zooming in on the courtyard one can see figures milling around.
They are in fact Allied officers being held in the notorious German PoW camp of Colditz and the photograph is one from an archive of aerial photographs taken by airmen - sometimes flying as low as 50ft - during secret reconnaissance missions in World War II.
Until now the pictures have been kept behind closed doors. But they are revealed to the public for the first time today via the internet amid a painstaking cataloguing process.
In another image, precise as a hole punch through a sheet of paper, craters surround a Nazi doodlebug factory in an extraordinary photograph showing the devastation wreaked by an Allied bombing raid.
The date is September 2, 1944 and the place Peenemunde, a village on the Baltic, where the terrifying weapons Adolf Hitler hoped would win the war for Germany were designed and tested.
Others in the collection convey the human suffering experienced amid the fighting, including rare shots of a Nazi slave labour camp and of the landings on D-Day.
Alan Williams, manager of the National Collection of Aerial Photography which houses the photos, said: 'The archive literally shows the world at war.'
Long before the days of Google Earth, the highly skilled airmen who took them flew alone, by day and night, in unarmed Spitfires relying on their wits as they risked their lives to capture the images on their plane-mounted cameras.
Sometimes their planes were painted pink, as the unusual colour proved very good at hiding the aircraft against a background of low cloud. For high altitude missions, the planes were painted a dark shade of blue.
But often they still found themselves targeted by anti-aircraft missiles. Hundreds of them never returned home.
Those that did brought with them photos vital to the war effort.
Expert photographic interpreters studied the pictures using optical instruments such as stereoscopes to view them in 3D to build up detailed information for intelligence reports and models used in military planning for operations such as the D-Day landings.
The 'detective' teams, who were headquartered in a stately home in Buckinghamshire at RAF Medmenham - MI4's Allied Central Interpretation Unit - included Oxbridge academics, geographers and archaeologists.
While the pilots were all men, a large proportion of interpreters were women, including Winston Churchill's daughter Sarah.
Other famous names attached to the unit included actor Dirk Bogarde.
Peenemunde was a key strategic site where the doodlebugs - or V1s, as they were called by the Nazis - were built. The 2,000lb bombs were pilotless planes powered by a jet motor.
First launched from ski-slope ramps by powered catapults in northern France, they killed more than 6,000 people in south east England.
Winston Churchill ordered Operation Crossbow - a plan to destroy V1 production and launch sites - and some 36,000 tons of bombs were dropped on these targets.
The photo of the destruction this caused at Peenemunde comes from the Aerial Reconnaissance Archives (Tara), which contains more than 10million photographs, including pictures taken by the RAF up to the 1990s and by the Luftwaffe.
The photo of the slave labour camp near Mainz in Germany, taken on June 2, 1945, is one of only a handful of images that remain of the factory site because it was dismantled quickly after the war.
Slave labour camps were concentration camps where interned inmates had to do hard physical labour under inhumane conditions and cruel treatment. This one provided workers for a heavy machinery company.
In the photos of Colditz - the high security castle where Allied officers who had repeatedly escaped from other camps were held - prisoners can be seen in the courtyard of the high security prison on April 10, 1945, just days before US forces took over the area.
Other images show vehicles disembarking from landing craft on D-Day, and the so-called bridge over the River Kwai, part of the Thai-Burma railway project that cost the lives of thousands of prisoners of war.
Mr Williams said: 'The skill of the photo reconnaissance pilot was incredible - they were among the best pilots in the air force.
'As so many of them lost their lives, the archive has become a memorial to them and the events on the ground they photographed.
'How they could take the photos they did is astonishing. When you remember they were taken in combat, and often being shot at - it's astounding.'
All the photos were stored for more than 50 years at Keele University before Tara was moved to Edinburgh last year to join The National Collection of Aerial Photography.
Specialist staff are continuing the lengthy task of researching, cataloguing and digitising the images, which is expected to take many years.
Around 4,000 images from the archive will go online initially with more to be added.
The archive can be viewed at aerial.rcahms.gov.uk
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z0XgGyTRRu
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
Can Cyprus overcome its bloody history?
By Chris Summers
BBC News
More British soldiers were killed during the "Cyprus emergency" in the 1950s than have died in Iraq or Afghanistan. So why has it been forgotten and what hope is there of reuniting the island?
On Remembrance Sunday, about 500 relatives and veterans watched as a new memorial was unveiled in Kyrenia, in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus, to recognise the 371 British servicemen who lost their lives on the island between 1956 and 1959.
The unveiling, and the laying of a wreath by the British High Commissioner, Peter Millett, sparked a diplomatic row, with President Demetris Christofias raising the matter when he met UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown a few days later.
One of the names on the memorial is Corporal Mervyn Whurr, 22, killed by a bomb on Kyrenia's Six Mile Beach in September 1956.
His sister, Barbara Hocking, from Millbrook in Cornwall, said: "My mum had a telegram saying he'd been injured, then she got another one saying he had an arm and a leg amputated. A few days later another telegram came saying he'd died."
Unlike those of troops killed in Afghanistan, his body, like those of most of the Cyprus casualties, was not flown home and lies in a cemetery at Wayne's Keep on the island.
Mrs Hocking was at the unveiling of the memorial, where she was joined by Margaret Moncur, whose brother 19-year-old Matt Neely, from Glasgow, was killed in 1956 by a bomb while doing his National Service.
Mrs Moncur said: "He loved his football, he was full of fun, playing jokes and was very popular with his mates.
"For some reason Cyprus has become a forgotten war."
The Cyprus High Commissioner to London, Alexandros Zenon, said the failure to consult the Cyprus government about the memorial was perceived as an "insult".
He said: "In principle we are not against a country honouring its soldiers who fell in service.
"The problem is that the memorial was built and unveiled in the occupied part of Cyprus. It could have been erected in the British sovereign base area.
"We also feel it's politically premature. I understand they want to honour them, but for Greek Cypriots the anti-colonial struggle is still a very sensitive issue."
In the late 1950s the British Empire was trying to cling on to the island, which remained a strategic location, especially around the time of the Suez crisis.
Greek Cypriot fighters belonging to an organisation called Eoka planted bombs and attacked British servicemen on and off duty.
etc...
Mrs Hocking said it was sad the memorial had led to a row and she said of her brother's death: "Was it worth it? The two governments are still not talking. Was it worth all those lives being wasted? It's just like Afghanistan."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8321765.stm
By Chris Summers
BBC News
More British soldiers were killed during the "Cyprus emergency" in the 1950s than have died in Iraq or Afghanistan. So why has it been forgotten and what hope is there of reuniting the island?
On Remembrance Sunday, about 500 relatives and veterans watched as a new memorial was unveiled in Kyrenia, in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus, to recognise the 371 British servicemen who lost their lives on the island between 1956 and 1959.
The unveiling, and the laying of a wreath by the British High Commissioner, Peter Millett, sparked a diplomatic row, with President Demetris Christofias raising the matter when he met UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown a few days later.
One of the names on the memorial is Corporal Mervyn Whurr, 22, killed by a bomb on Kyrenia's Six Mile Beach in September 1956.
His sister, Barbara Hocking, from Millbrook in Cornwall, said: "My mum had a telegram saying he'd been injured, then she got another one saying he had an arm and a leg amputated. A few days later another telegram came saying he'd died."
Unlike those of troops killed in Afghanistan, his body, like those of most of the Cyprus casualties, was not flown home and lies in a cemetery at Wayne's Keep on the island.
Mrs Hocking was at the unveiling of the memorial, where she was joined by Margaret Moncur, whose brother 19-year-old Matt Neely, from Glasgow, was killed in 1956 by a bomb while doing his National Service.
Mrs Moncur said: "He loved his football, he was full of fun, playing jokes and was very popular with his mates.
"For some reason Cyprus has become a forgotten war."
The Cyprus High Commissioner to London, Alexandros Zenon, said the failure to consult the Cyprus government about the memorial was perceived as an "insult".
He said: "In principle we are not against a country honouring its soldiers who fell in service.
"The problem is that the memorial was built and unveiled in the occupied part of Cyprus. It could have been erected in the British sovereign base area.
"We also feel it's politically premature. I understand they want to honour them, but for Greek Cypriots the anti-colonial struggle is still a very sensitive issue."
In the late 1950s the British Empire was trying to cling on to the island, which remained a strategic location, especially around the time of the Suez crisis.
Greek Cypriot fighters belonging to an organisation called Eoka planted bombs and attacked British servicemen on and off duty.
etc...
Mrs Hocking said it was sad the memorial had led to a row and she said of her brother's death: "Was it worth it? The two governments are still not talking. Was it worth all those lives being wasted? It's just like Afghanistan."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8321765.stm
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
I've just watched the latest episode of Coal House
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Episode_9/
Part of it was filmed in a church hall, and I couldn't help but notice that the power sockets on the wall looked very modern. (Probably because they are!)
But my early memories fail me - I can't remember anything different!
Does anyone have access to info on UK wartime electrical fittings? Did they have three-pin plugs then? (I can remember that the colours of the three wires changed in my lifetime, but that was well after the war.)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Episode_9/
Part of it was filmed in a church hall, and I couldn't help but notice that the power sockets on the wall looked very modern. (Probably because they are!)
But my early memories fail me - I can't remember anything different!
Does anyone have access to info on UK wartime electrical fittings? Did they have three-pin plugs then? (I can remember that the colours of the three wires changed in my lifetime, but that was well after the war.)
Spookdaddy
Cuckoo
- Joined
- May 24, 2006
- Messages
- 7,951
- Location
- Midwich
rynner2 said:
There were three-pin plugs (edit: as well as two pin), but I'm pretty sure they were round pins - I don't think square pins came in until after the war. Also there were at least two different sizes - one for 5amp and one for 15 amp circuits. And no earth. :shock:
I know this (or at least, I think I know this) because when I moved into my place there were about seven different generations of wiring intermingled with each other. When I lifted the floorboards it looked like the entrails of some huge bakelite and wet-string leviathan. It was a wonder you didn't get a belt just walking past the place.
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2001
- Messages
- 5,823
They looked a bit like this, three pins but round instead of square like today's.rynner2 said:
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2001
- Messages
- 5,823
Well there you go, you're not as old as you make out.
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
The unsung hero behind the Mini
Britain's greatest car is celebrating its 50th birthday, but Bill Cull, the engineer who made it all possible, has yet to receive his due
Martin Wainwright The Guardian, Tuesday 24 November 2009
Finally, as the candles gutter on this year's 50th birthday cake for the Mini, tribute is being paid to the man who actually made the little car go.
Not Sir Alec Issigonis, who died festooned with awards for his revolutionary design, but an unsung Yorkshire engineer who came to the rescue when it wouldn't work. He was Bill Cull, perfector of a universal joint of great beauty, even to those of us who failed physics-with-chemistry O-level. Cramming steel rods, ball-bearings and grooves into a tight metal ball, it transferred power from the Mini's engine through nearly 90 degrees to the car's Lilliput-size front wheels.
"Nothing else worked," says Bob Grice, apprentice of the year at Longbridge in the Mini's launch year, 1959. "Everything broke, including a superjoint licensed from Porsche." The secret Mini team were tearing their hair out when a patent trawl – the 1950s equivalent of Google – unearthed Cull.
The joints had previously had a tiny run as a secret component in Royal Navy submarine periscopes. They worked steadfastly on all 5,387,862 cars, including the Mini-trac, a one-off with caterpillar tracks used by Australian scientists in Antarctica which was built in a workshop in the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine.
Plans are now afoot to fix a plaque to a similar lock-up building in Shipley, near Bradford, where Cull ran his own business after leaving the local Scott motorbike company. His previous designs included Scott's Flying Squirrel, an adapted engine that powered the 1930s kit plane The Flying Flea, a sort of aerial Mini that proved too dangerous to make the commercial big time.
A modest man, absorbed in experiments until he died in his 90s, Cull never challenged the man nicknamed "Arragonis" for his place in history, and others were mostly too busy to push on his behalf. An exception is a retired colleague, Peter Wheeler, who fought successfully for Cull to be given his company Mini when he retired. "For goodness sake," he told penny-pinching colleagues who wanted to keep the car. "If it wasn't for this man, none of you would have jobs."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... car-design
Britain's greatest car is celebrating its 50th birthday, but Bill Cull, the engineer who made it all possible, has yet to receive his due
Martin Wainwright The Guardian, Tuesday 24 November 2009
Finally, as the candles gutter on this year's 50th birthday cake for the Mini, tribute is being paid to the man who actually made the little car go.
Not Sir Alec Issigonis, who died festooned with awards for his revolutionary design, but an unsung Yorkshire engineer who came to the rescue when it wouldn't work. He was Bill Cull, perfector of a universal joint of great beauty, even to those of us who failed physics-with-chemistry O-level. Cramming steel rods, ball-bearings and grooves into a tight metal ball, it transferred power from the Mini's engine through nearly 90 degrees to the car's Lilliput-size front wheels.
"Nothing else worked," says Bob Grice, apprentice of the year at Longbridge in the Mini's launch year, 1959. "Everything broke, including a superjoint licensed from Porsche." The secret Mini team were tearing their hair out when a patent trawl – the 1950s equivalent of Google – unearthed Cull.
The joints had previously had a tiny run as a secret component in Royal Navy submarine periscopes. They worked steadfastly on all 5,387,862 cars, including the Mini-trac, a one-off with caterpillar tracks used by Australian scientists in Antarctica which was built in a workshop in the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine.
Plans are now afoot to fix a plaque to a similar lock-up building in Shipley, near Bradford, where Cull ran his own business after leaving the local Scott motorbike company. His previous designs included Scott's Flying Squirrel, an adapted engine that powered the 1930s kit plane The Flying Flea, a sort of aerial Mini that proved too dangerous to make the commercial big time.
A modest man, absorbed in experiments until he died in his 90s, Cull never challenged the man nicknamed "Arragonis" for his place in history, and others were mostly too busy to push on his behalf. An exception is a retired colleague, Peter Wheeler, who fought successfully for Cull to be given his company Mini when he retired. "For goodness sake," he told penny-pinching colleagues who wanted to keep the car. "If it wasn't for this man, none of you would have jobs."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... car-design
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2006
- Messages
- 319
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
Fans' tribute to football's 'saviour'
By Sitala Peek
BBC News, Birmingham
It was an idea that spawned a multi-billion pound global industry; a model that has been copied throughout the sporting world and is acknowledged to have saved professional football from bankruptcy.
Yet the man who created the Football League has been largely forgotten - until now.
It may seem strange in the polarised world of modern football that a Scotsman was behind the success of the sport in England.
In 1886, the crisis facing professional football south of the border was brought home to William McGregor in a heated exchange with an Aston Villa fan, so it is perhaps fitting that a lasting tribute to this pioneer should be provided by supporters of that club.
On Saturday, ahead of Villa's Premier League match with Tottenham Hotspur, a 7ft 6ins (2.3m) bronze statue of McGregor will be unveiled at Villa Park by Lord Mawhinney, the Chairman of the Football League.
The statue has been funded by donations to the Aston Villa Supporters' Trust, with additional finance from the club.
Peter Warrilow, chairman of the trust, said the idea was formulated in 2002 as a way to celebrate the club's heritage, with a host of famous names suggested for immortality.
Mr Warrilow said: "In the end it was a unanimous decision to nominate McGregor, because he was the man who had the biggest worldwide influence on football.
"It was his idea that, rather than playing friendly games which had a tendency to get cancelled, people should play in a league which made clubs commit to playing matches."
Back in 1886, because of a lack of regular competition clubs were finding it difficult to attract crowds who had grown tired of those meaningless and regularly postponed friendlies.
When Villa fan Joe Tillotson forcefully argued this point with club director McGregor, the man from Braco in Perthshire vowed to do something about it.
He won the support of first his own club, then 11 of the other leading names, and in September 1888 his Football League kicked off.
From the outset he bombarded the press with information on the League, as well as providing them with facilities and regular columns, to ensure the competition received the publicity needed to attract ever-growing crowds.
It worked, and continues to, in ways even the visionary McGregor could not have foreseen.
In English football alone, McGregor's concept has grown to include more than 7,000 clubs playing in 480 divisions, and the league system has been adopted by most sports across the world.
Surprisingly, given his pivotal role in football, McGregor has never been commemorated in such a grand way.
There is a bust of him at the Football League headquarters and his image can be seen in photographs and paintings around Villa Park, but he remains an unknown figure to most.
"His founding role is one of those things that got lost over time," Mr Warrilow said.
"It should have been done a long, long, time ago, but it's having someone who wants to do it to make it happen."
The supporters' trust contacted all the league football clubs in England as well as businesses in the Midlands for donations, but received very little response.
The project went ahead after six years of fundraising with help from private individuals and two bucket collections held at Villa Park.
Lee Preece, Aston Villa's Secretary, said: "Without the supporter's trust this statue project would not have happened.
"On behalf of everyone at the club we are extremely excited to be involved.
"In 50 years to come, when we are gone, people will say, I'll meet you by the McGregor statue... that will be our legacy."
Sculptor Sam Holland copied McGregor's likeness from a few photographs taken of him and a painting of him at a meeting with other directors that hangs in the McGregor Suite at Villa Park.
It depicts him standing with a letter in his hand, proposing his vision for the system of future football competitions.
etc...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west ... 377219.stm
By Sitala Peek
BBC News, Birmingham
It was an idea that spawned a multi-billion pound global industry; a model that has been copied throughout the sporting world and is acknowledged to have saved professional football from bankruptcy.
Yet the man who created the Football League has been largely forgotten - until now.
It may seem strange in the polarised world of modern football that a Scotsman was behind the success of the sport in England.
In 1886, the crisis facing professional football south of the border was brought home to William McGregor in a heated exchange with an Aston Villa fan, so it is perhaps fitting that a lasting tribute to this pioneer should be provided by supporters of that club.
On Saturday, ahead of Villa's Premier League match with Tottenham Hotspur, a 7ft 6ins (2.3m) bronze statue of McGregor will be unveiled at Villa Park by Lord Mawhinney, the Chairman of the Football League.
The statue has been funded by donations to the Aston Villa Supporters' Trust, with additional finance from the club.
Peter Warrilow, chairman of the trust, said the idea was formulated in 2002 as a way to celebrate the club's heritage, with a host of famous names suggested for immortality.
Mr Warrilow said: "In the end it was a unanimous decision to nominate McGregor, because he was the man who had the biggest worldwide influence on football.
"It was his idea that, rather than playing friendly games which had a tendency to get cancelled, people should play in a league which made clubs commit to playing matches."
Back in 1886, because of a lack of regular competition clubs were finding it difficult to attract crowds who had grown tired of those meaningless and regularly postponed friendlies.
When Villa fan Joe Tillotson forcefully argued this point with club director McGregor, the man from Braco in Perthshire vowed to do something about it.
He won the support of first his own club, then 11 of the other leading names, and in September 1888 his Football League kicked off.
From the outset he bombarded the press with information on the League, as well as providing them with facilities and regular columns, to ensure the competition received the publicity needed to attract ever-growing crowds.
It worked, and continues to, in ways even the visionary McGregor could not have foreseen.
In English football alone, McGregor's concept has grown to include more than 7,000 clubs playing in 480 divisions, and the league system has been adopted by most sports across the world.
Surprisingly, given his pivotal role in football, McGregor has never been commemorated in such a grand way.
There is a bust of him at the Football League headquarters and his image can be seen in photographs and paintings around Villa Park, but he remains an unknown figure to most.
"His founding role is one of those things that got lost over time," Mr Warrilow said.
"It should have been done a long, long, time ago, but it's having someone who wants to do it to make it happen."
The supporters' trust contacted all the league football clubs in England as well as businesses in the Midlands for donations, but received very little response.
The project went ahead after six years of fundraising with help from private individuals and two bucket collections held at Villa Park.
Lee Preece, Aston Villa's Secretary, said: "Without the supporter's trust this statue project would not have happened.
"On behalf of everyone at the club we are extremely excited to be involved.
"In 50 years to come, when we are gone, people will say, I'll meet you by the McGregor statue... that will be our legacy."
Sculptor Sam Holland copied McGregor's likeness from a few photographs taken of him and a painting of him at a meeting with other directors that hangs in the McGregor Suite at Villa Park.
It depicts him standing with a letter in his hand, proposing his vision for the system of future football competitions.
etc...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west ... 377219.stm
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2003
- Messages
- 2,306
God, I love having access to JSTOR. Randomly scrolling through Irish history journals I found a reference to this...
http://www.limericksoviet.com/
Never heard of it before. It seems as though the Irish history that I was taught started with partition and ended with the Good Friday Agreement.
http://www.limericksoviet.com/
Never heard of it before. It seems as though the Irish history that I was taught started with partition and ended with the Good Friday Agreement.
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2003
- Messages
- 2,306
This was news to me as well. The Tyneside IRA.
http://www.donmouth.co.uk/local_history ... _isdl.html
http://www.donmouth.co.uk/local_history ... _isdl.html
Spookdaddy
Cuckoo
- Joined
- May 24, 2006
- Messages
- 7,951
- Location
- Midwich
Cavynaut said:
Limerick has another not so well-known, and much more unpleasant, skeleton in it's closet.
The last anti-Jewish pogrom in the British Isles and the only such event on Irish soil.
Full article here.
Given the type of events that the word is normally associated with, the use of 'pogrom' is undeniably emotive, a fact which is pounced upon by those who try to detract from the seriousness of the issue. (See, for example here.)
The events in Limerick were far less murderous than those in Eastern europe - as far as I know, there were no actual deaths - but there were dozens of attacks and had the RIC been less prompt, or more partisan, in their response, the outcome might have been very different. Given the intent of the mob and that a subsequent two year boycott of Jewish businesses saw most of them fail and the majority of the Jewish population leave the city, arguments over the word 'pogrom' seem academic, or at least a distraction (and in some cases, it seems to me - as in the second link provided above - a distraction from the individual's own prejudices).
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
Popular carols 'have folks roots'
The Christmas carol While Shepherds Watched their Flocks was originally sung to the tune of folk song On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at, an academic claims.
Durham University hymnologist Prof Jeremy Dibble said it was one of the most popular versions of the 300-year-old carol.
The original version is still sung at traditional carol sessions in pubs in parts of Yorkshire, said Prof Dibble.
He is carrying out research into carols for a new hymnology dictionary.
Prof Dibble said his research had shown that one of the most popular versions of the carol was to the tune Cranbrook - better known as On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at.
He said: "While shepherds watched their flocks was the first carol to cross over from secular traditions to the church.
"It was the only Christmas hymn to be approved by the Church of England in the 18th Century and this allowed it to be disseminated across the country with the Book of Common Prayer.
"Only at the end of the 18th Century was it joined by other well-known texts such as Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
"The most surprising and rather forgotten version is sung to the famous Ilkley Moor tune by Thomas Clark."
According to Prof Dibble carols were considered too secular for inclusion in church services.
They were not sung in churches until the end of the 18th Century even though prior to that they were popular around the fire at Christmas time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8412999.stm
And do the kids still sing "While shepherds washed their socks by night.."?
The Christmas carol While Shepherds Watched their Flocks was originally sung to the tune of folk song On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at, an academic claims.
Durham University hymnologist Prof Jeremy Dibble said it was one of the most popular versions of the 300-year-old carol.
The original version is still sung at traditional carol sessions in pubs in parts of Yorkshire, said Prof Dibble.
He is carrying out research into carols for a new hymnology dictionary.
Prof Dibble said his research had shown that one of the most popular versions of the carol was to the tune Cranbrook - better known as On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at.
He said: "While shepherds watched their flocks was the first carol to cross over from secular traditions to the church.
"It was the only Christmas hymn to be approved by the Church of England in the 18th Century and this allowed it to be disseminated across the country with the Book of Common Prayer.
"Only at the end of the 18th Century was it joined by other well-known texts such as Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
"The most surprising and rather forgotten version is sung to the famous Ilkley Moor tune by Thomas Clark."
According to Prof Dibble carols were considered too secular for inclusion in church services.
They were not sung in churches until the end of the 18th Century even though prior to that they were popular around the fire at Christmas time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8412999.stm
And do the kids still sing "While shepherds washed their socks by night.."?
OneWingedBird
Beloved of Ra
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lol doubtlessly, and
good king wensleslas looked out, of his bedroom window
silly bugger he fell out, on a red hot cinder
brightly shone his arse that night, although the frost was cruel
then a poor man came in sight, shovelling shit for fuel.
but back OT, i'd have to confess to having managed to have lived in Yorkshire for 41 years without hearing the 'Ilkley Moor' version of that song, but i guess that doesn;t mean that someone somewhere hasn't been or isn;t singing it.
might tag along with my next door neighbour to the carol service at the local church this sunday, so if they do that one, i will watch out for what tune it is. and maybe sing the line about socks too
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I'd never heard of this before, despite having a long standing interest in railways. I only found out about it while researching for a seminar on ancient Greek and Roman technology.
http://rail-history.suite101.com/articl ... nt_railway
http://rail-history.suite101.com/articl ... nt_railway
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Cornish mines used tramways to move minerals to the ports, or supplies of pit props etc. to the the mines, even before the coming of steam. The wagons were hauled by horses, although steam locos did eventually come in.
Because of the low gradients some old tramways have now become cycle ways. The longest runs from Porteath on the north coast, through the central mining belt, and on to Devoran on the Fal estuary in the south.
http://www.cornwallinfocus.co.uk/history/tramway.php
Because of the low gradients some old tramways have now become cycle ways. The longest runs from Porteath on the north coast, through the central mining belt, and on to Devoran on the Fal estuary in the south.
http://www.cornwallinfocus.co.uk/history/tramway.php
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BlackRiverFalls said:
Speaking of, how does Good King Wenceslas like his pizzas?
Deep pan, crisp and even...