• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Forgotten History


maximus otter

Inspired commentary by the two presenters. Really informative.

"Smiling and nodding and if you look carefully you can see she's wearing sunglasses..."

"would have been two hundred, wasun' it two hundred? Would have been two hundred last week"?

"And remarkably good images..."

"Was it snowing?"

Jesus and this is the BBC, you have two presenters who can't string a couple of sentences together and have no idea what they are talking about.
 
A mysterious and surreal landscape on a tin glazed earthenware plate from 1650.
The bell says "hear me". But why? Do you know the story "Ringing the Changes" by Robert Aickman?
emblem hear me.jpg

 
Inspired commentary by the two presenters. Really informative.

"Smiling and nodding and if you look carefully you can see she's wearing sunglasses..."

"would have been two hundred, wasun' it two hundred? Would have been two hundred last week"?

"And remarkably good images..."

"Was it snowing?"

Jesus and this is the BBC, you have two presenters who can't string a couple of sentences together and have no idea what they are talking about.

It's Breakfast news not bloody Newsnight. The conversational style is part of the package. Anyway, what struck me was that you can see Queenie smiling - is that the only image of her doing that?
 
It's Breakfast news not bloody Newsnight. The conversational style is part of the package. Anyway, what struck me was that you can see Queenie smiling - is that the only image of her doing that?

They should be able to talk coherently and interestingly or is that not part of a presenters job these days?

Leslie Judd and Peter Purvis used to manage it on a live kids show I seem to remember. Angela Rippon? Sue Lawley?
 
If you think that's bad, try GMTV. Anyway, I understood what they were saying, it's not as if they were lapsing into Swahili.
 
is that the only image of her doing that?

People say it is. She did seem to take the rôle of widow very seriously for nearly forty years* and all the official portraits reflect that. In earlier film fragments, she is seen at a distance. I do rather like the shades! :ddance:

*That fling with Billy Connolly excepted, of course. And with an Indian gent . . .
 
Last edited:

Close enough.

Another old yarn of mine. (All my yarns are true, this isn't Reddit.)

Back in the day I was working on t'wards, where one of my jobs was to get people walking after joint replacements. They have to exercise as soon as possible to get the circulation going.

It can be painful. I used to warn them so they'd know it was normal and wouldn't panic.

I went to one rather posh old duffer and started the spiel - here's a walking frame, just a little stroll up and down the ward, take your time...
For some reason I added 'It might sting a bit so it's OK to swear, as long as it's in Swahili!' - that being the most unlikely language I could think of.

The elderly gent was delighted. 'How DID you know? I spent twenty years as a major in the Army in Kenya and I am fluent in Swahili! Wait till my family hear about this!'

He set off down the ward on his walking frame at a cracking pace, grinning and laughing about the nurse who could just TELL that he spoke Swahili!

I'd thought Swahili was an Indian sub-continent language. Knew nothing of Kenya. Made my old major smile though.
 
And a caption reminding us that it was the year 1900 in the “Christian Era”, in case viewers thought that Victoria was the Empress of Japan, or the Chief Rabbi.

maximus otter

Never seen that on a UK magazine programme, I must admit. Do you watch TV on one of those 80s-style massive dishes where you can see the weather in Norway or South African football results, just for the hell of it?
 
Quite by coincidence, browsing the Big Bangs thread, I came across a reference to the Soham train explosion. The coincidence being that it was the 75th anniversary yesterday. It's not exactly fair to describe the four main protagonists' very courageous deeds as unsung, at least locally, but I'd never previously heard of it. In a nutshell, one wagon on a bomb train caught fire, the driver noticed, and his fireman uncoupled the burning wagon from the rest of the train. They drove the burning wagon away, thus preventing a major catastrophe: the train had 44 wagons in total... The engine driver's survival is extraordinary: he was at the epicentre as five tons of high explosive bombs went off. Anyway, it's a good save by the wayback machine - that page is well worth ten minutes of your time, I found it full of fascinating detail.
 
Quite by coincidence, browsing the Big Bangs thread, I came across a reference to the Soham train explosion. The coincidence being that it was the 75th anniversary yesterday. It's not exactly fair to describe the four main protagonists' very courageous deeds as unsung, at least locally, but I'd never previously heard of it. In a nutshell, one wagon on a bomb train caught fire, the driver noticed, and his fireman uncoupled the burning wagon from the rest of the train. They drove the burning wagon away, thus preventing a major catastrophe: the train had 44 wagons in total... The engine driver's survival is extraordinary: he was at the epicentre as five tons of high explosive bombs went off. Anyway, it's a good save by the wayback machine - that page is well worth ten minutes of your time, I found it full of fascinating detail.
Thanks for that! I lived at Soham for a short time, years ago. Didn't know anything about the history.
 
An atmospheric tour of Halifax in 1902, someone's put a lot of love into this restoration. I like the comedy staged fight two opportunists decided to do at 6:50 for a laugh .. even then, we were playing up for a camera when we spotted one ..




My home town :) Many places still recognisable including Crossley Carpets at Dean Clough Mills, where I served my apprenticeship.
 
My home town

I loved that tour. The opening sequence is unusual, I think, Usually they seem to have fixed a camera to the front or back of the tram, as in the now-famous San Francisco ride from four years later. The Halifax landscape seems to be panned across as the track twists into the town, giving a more interesting shifting scene. I wonder if it was on a tripod or hand-held. Probably the former, as the cameras were heavy. I think they state that the image needed steadying and they have done it well.

I loved the mill-girls in their clogs and shawls in the obligatory factory-exit sequence - a fixture since the Lumières. They say it was to sell tickets for the fair, where workers could pay to see themselves on the screen. The staged fights were very much a cliché and sometimes put on by boxers from the sideshows.

Once we are in town, they seem to have put out a call to central-casting for all the urchins they could rustle up! As some note, sadly, in the Youtube comments, many of those lads were destined for the trenches.

It's nice that a few streets in Halifax have retained the old shops with their elaborate glass windows. I was hoping for a glimpse of the Piece Market to see how it looked in working days. I'm glad they have spent some money on it but its heritage incarnation lacks the atmosphere it had retained even in its days of semi-dereliction. :)
 
Quite by coincidence, browsing the Big Bangs thread, I came across a reference to the Soham train explosion. The coincidence being that it was the 75th anniversary yesterday. It's not exactly fair to describe the four main protagonists' very courageous deeds as unsung, at least locally, but I'd never previously heard of it. In a nutshell, one wagon on a bomb train caught fire, the driver noticed, and his fireman uncoupled the burning wagon from the rest of the train. They drove the burning wagon away, thus preventing a major catastrophe: the train had 44 wagons in total... The engine driver's survival is extraordinary: he was at the epicentre as five tons of high explosive bombs went off. Anyway, it's a good save by the wayback machine - that page is well worth ten minutes of your time, I found it full of fascinating detail.

Am prompted here, to tell of a remarkably similar happening (though in this case, happily occasioning minimal death / injury) some 9 / 10 months later: at the other end of England from Soham, and -- presumably because of the far less human damage done -- much less well-known. I, aged 70 and a keen railway enthusiast (with a greater interest in Britain's railway past, than its present), had known about Soham from childhood -- the other incident, I had never heard of until a few months ago.

It took place late on the evening of March 22nd 1945, at Bootle -- not the district of Liverpool, but the village of that name near the Cumbrian coast some way north of Barrow-in-Furness, on the secondary-main rail line which follows that coast from Barrow to Maryport and on thence to Carlisle. As a long southbound freight train was passing through Bootle station; the signalman stationed there, and the engine crew, noticed "a white glow coming from inside a wagon near the engine" -- one of seven wagons in the train which contained explosives: depth charges for naval use. The signalman set his signals to "danger" and immediately informed the next signalbox southward, so that they would halt any trains heading north toward the dangerous scene. The loco driver, Harold Goodall, brought the train to a standstill a safe distance beyond Bootle station. He and the fireman, Herbert Stubbs, uncoupled the burning wagon from the rest of the train, got back on the loco, and drove it and the remaining wagons onward out of danger.

With their not being aware that the signalman had "aborted" northbound trains; fireman Stubbs then proceeded forward to lay exploding detonators on the track, to warn any northbound train to stop -- while driver Goodall most courageously went back to the burning wagon, seemingly in the hope of tackling the fire. The wagon exploded, killing him instantly, and making a huge crater and destroying about 80 yards of track; but with his death being the incident's only one. (Here, the driver was killed and the fireman survived; at Soham, it was the other way around.) Stubbs subsequently received the George Medal and the Order of Industrial Heroism; Goodall got no decoration, with at that time the George Medal (unlike the George Cross) not being awarded posthumously.

I learned of this event, through recent reading of a book called Tiny Stations, by one Dixe Wills: a travel journalist who has written various "thematic travelogues" re Great Britain. This -- the only book of his which I've read -- I found to contain much interesting material; but, for my taste, to be written in an irritatingly "camp" style, by a seemingly annoyingly "quirky" and "right-on" author.
 
An unusual - local (to me) railway tragedy revolves around a man called Ludovic Berry and his engine named Dorothy, i dont want to just post it up here due to copyright issues? but there is plenty of info on the net using the names above. Quite tragic end for a heroic man. I have tried to find his memorial but not managed yet - too overgrown sadly
 
The re-enactment of the Battle of Orgreave took place 18 years ago today. More time has passed between then and now than between the re-enactment and the events it sought to portray. There is a tremendous documentary by Mike Figgis available on YouTube, showing among other things the sometimes uneasy relationship between the miners and the re-enactors. It also alludes indirectly to the rumours that the director lost control of the action - perhaps no surprise.

But one of the lines that sticks with me is from the ex-copper who says he joined the force to serve his community, only to end up helping to destroy it.

Wherever you stand on the politics of the strike - and its failure had long-lasting, wide-ranging ramifications - this was an intriguing attempt at commemoration.
 
An unusual - local (to me) railway tragedy revolves around a man called Ludovic Berry and his engine named Dorothy, i dont want to just post it up here due to copyright issues? but there is plenty of info on the net using the names above. Quite tragic end for a heroic man. I have tried to find his memorial but not managed yet - too overgrown sadly

You'd be better able to search in the depths of winter, maybe January, when the vegetation's thinnest.

Aren't local railway/historical groups interested? They might get involved as there's a local hero to honour.

For example, a railwayman who died in heroic circumstances and received a posthumous George Cross was finally given a headstone a couple of years ago -

AFTER 52 YEARS, GEORGE CROSS HERO STEAM DRIVER TO BE HONOURED WITH MEMORIAL

A steam train driver who received fatal burns while saving his passengers from a potential catastrophic accident and was awarded a posthumous George Cross for his heroism will be honoured with a churchyard memorial, after lying in an unmarked grave for 52 years.

The recognition of Wallace Oakes’ bravery comes after an appeal by Heritage Railway for funds to pay for a headstone at his grave, at St Matthew’s Church in Haslington, Cheshire, where he was buried after an incident on the footplate of Britannia No. 70051 Firth of Forth on June 5, 1965.
 
An unusual - local (to me) railway tragedy revolves around a man called Ludovic Berry and his engine named Dorothy, i dont want to just post it up here due to copyright issues? but there is plenty of info on the net using the names above. Quite tragic end for a heroic man. I have tried to find his memorial but not managed yet - too overgrown sadly

I'm not sure what you've already found. Have you seen this photo of the memorial plaque?


This other PDF file - a pamphlet on the history of the Low Hall nature reserve:

http://www.friendsoflowhall.co.uk/images/Low Hall LNR history booklet.pdf

... shows a not particularly crisp photo (page 13) of a different memorial plaque or marker stone.

NOTE: The Low Hall documentation refers to Berry's locomotive as 'Dorothy'. Other railway documentation refers to it as 'Dolly'.

This webpage at the Friends of Low Hall site:

http://friendsoflowhall.co.uk/index.php/news-and-events/244-ludovic-berry-memorial

... claims the coordinates of the memorial are:

Latitude 53.51847, Longitude 2.58808

The two photos mentioned above may indicate there's more than one memorial / marker out there.

Sorry if you'd already seen all this, but like I said - I couldn't tell what you'd already found.
 
I'm not sure what you've already found. Have you seen this photo of the memorial plaque?


This other PDF file - a pamphlet on the history of the Low Hall nature reserve:

http://www.friendsoflowhall.co.uk/images/Low Hall LNR history booklet.pdf

... shows a not particularly crisp photo (page 13) of a different memorial plaque or marker stone.

NOTE: The Low Hall documentation refers to Berry's locomotive as 'Dorothy'. Other railway documentation refers to it as 'Dolly'.

This webpage at the Friends of Low Hall site:

http://friendsoflowhall.co.uk/index.php/news-and-events/244-ludovic-berry-memorial

... claims the coordinates of the memorial are:

Latitude 53.51847, Longitude 2.58808

The two photos mentioned above may indicate there's more than one memorial / marker out there.

Sorry if you'd already seen all this, but like I said - I couldn't tell what you'd already found.

Wiganer's done all that, he knows where the memorial is, but it's overgrown and hidden. Nothing a merciless strimming and a severe raking wouldn't cure.

(I own an industrial trimmer, great fun.)
 
Back
Top