Steam-Power, Horse-Power

On a dull day like today it's good to be able to look back a few weeks to the Bedfordshire Steam And Country Fayre and to have a closer look at some of the exhibits, both mechanical and animal.

I'd never considered just how many of these machines were manufactured, with makers in even small East Anglian towns like Thetford, Leiston, St Ives and Kings Lynn as well as bigger places like Norwich, Ipswich and Colchester; or even the variety of purposes to which the machines were put.

This is "Margaret", a showman's engine from 1922. The role of these great beasts was to tow the fairground rides from town to town and then to power the roundabouts and other amusements. But the first engines were used for agricultural purposes, to power threshing machines and for ploughing. These were nearly all owned by contractors who moved between farms. Then there were steam rollers used for road-building and huge road locomotives that were used for moving large loads along the winding British roads.  

The curious-looking contraption above is a steam-wagon and was built by The Yorkshire Patent Steam Wagon Co. of Leeds in 1905. It has a transverse boiler which as well as saving space was said to avoid problems when climbing steep hills. Below is a 1926 Foden Steam Wagon. I don't know if it was once used for advertising the beer or if the owner just liked drinking it.

Newquay Steam Beer was the brainchild of one Michael Cannon who was much impressed by the Anchor Steam beer from San Francisco. In 1987 he set out to create a similar craft beer in his Redruth brewery. Redruth is not a particularly trendy part of Cornwall, but Newquay is the nearest thing that the county has to California - well, there are a lot of people with long hair and surfboards anyway - so Newquay Steam Beer was born. You might have thought that the American company would have had their lawyers all over this in an instant, but in a preposterously audacious move Cannon succeeded in preventing the San Francisco brewery operating in Britain, claiming that "steam" was an old Cornish word for strong beer, a claim of dubious veracity, to say the least.

An American-made Stanley steam car built in 1910. In 1906 a Stanley steamer set the astonishing world record time for an automobile over a mile course in 28.2 seconds. Yes, that's 127 mph (204 Km/h)! It's a wonder that the internal combustion engine ever caught on.

"Queen Of Hearts" in the foreground built by Aveling & Porter in 1907, is a "convertible engine" in that it can be changed from a conventional engine to a steam-roller. Thomas Aveling was instrumental in the early development of the steam traction engine. Early engines were used as a source of power for agricultural machines but could not move under their own power, having to be towed from one job to another by six horses. Aveling could see the absurdity of the situation, "It's like six sailing vessels towing a steamer!" he exclaimed, and set about making the first road-going machine.

Measuring the horse-power of steam engines has always been a matter for debate. Although manufacturers quoted a "nominal horse power" this is usually considered to be an underestimate. No such problems with the vehicle below.... 

The heavy horses traditionally used in the UK are Shires, Clydesdales and Suffolk Punch. Unlike their mechanical counterparts they don't have a nameplate on the side which makes them harder to sort out! Of the beautiful, matched pair seen above, for example, one is a Clydesdale while the other is a Shire. And no, I can't remember which is which!

A family story about horses:

My maternal grandfather had a coal delivery business in the Kings Cross area of London between the wars. He always kept five draught horses, like the one above, to haul the carts. He was very particular that each horse had a rest day each week as he realised that his livelihood depended on them. However one horse went lame and he gently nursed it back to fitness. 

When he was satisfied it had fully recovered he put it to work and found that though it seemed fine it retained a slight limp when pulling away. Unfortunately for him this was spotted and he was taken to court accused of cruelty to the animal. Now my grandfather, perhaps as a result of the coal dust he encountered every day, had rather watery eyes and had to wipe them frequently. The newspaper reporter who was present saw a chance to conjure up a story, "Man weeps in court", and then went on to say how he was the father of four children and to stress the fact that, though he was a coalman, he wiped his eye with a snow-white handkerchief. When the story was published so many well-wishers sent money, to pay the small fine which the court imposed, that my grandmother had to write to the paper to implore people send no more. 

Take care.

People Are Strange!

My mother was born in London where her grandfather owned four houses. She lived in one of them and her mother used to collect the rent money from the other households. One of these tenants was a particularly awkward and cantankerous lady who came originally from Cambridge. "Oh, Cambridge people are a strange lot!", my grandmother would frequently complain as she returned home from collecting the rent.

When my mother was just nine years old, war with Germany was declared and the children were evacuated to safer areas of the country. For my mother and her brothers the destination was Cambridgeshire. My mother looked everywhere she went, but was surprised to see that people had just one head each and nothing strange about them at all!

But it's always best to be sure so I checked through some of my old photos......

There you are....nothing strange about us at all!

Take care.

Daisy Roots

A song about a pair of boots ("daisy roots" as my grandfather John Cawdery would have called them in his Cockney rhyming slang). But this is not just about his boots but the boots - and roots - of many of my ancestors and the roads they trod.

Daisy Roots

When these old boots had soles, my boys,

They walked the country round

From Cornwall to Northumberland

And on the Scottish ground

Just like some wayward vagabond 

Or like some Irish rover

They tramped about in search of work

From Liverpool to Dover.*

And they don't make 'em like that any more.

When these old boots had soles, my boys,

They never thought to shirk

Rose early every morning, boys, 

And they tramped their way to work

They carted coal round London town

And navvied on the line**

They walked the ground behind the plough

And down the dark coal mine.

And they don't make 'em like that any more.

When these old boots had soles, my boys,

They marched to foreign lands

With brothers, fathers, uncles

And a mil-i-tary band

The drums were beat so loudly

And the bugles they were blown

Till one rainy April morning

They came limping home alone

And they don't make 'em like that any more.

When these old boots had soles, my boys,

They danced the whole night through

On flagstone floors in many a pub

They beat a fine tattoo

If someone played the fiddle, boys,

These boots would never rest

To a good old Yarmouth hornpipe tune

They stepped it with the best.

But they don't make 'em like that any more.

Now these old boots have holes, my boys,

The leather's worn right through,

The missus says to chuck 'em out

But that I'll never do

They walked a land I'll never know

'cos these old boots ain't mine

No, these are granddad's "daisy roots"

And he's been gone some time.

And they don't make 'em like that any more.

* the last two lines of this verse are lifted directly from an old comic song my mother sings called Paddy And The Rope (And they don't write 'em like that any more.) 

** the men who built the railways and canals in England were known as Navvies or Navigators.

Take care.

Old Boys

Those who travel regularly "by Stargoose and Hanglands" will be aware that the term "old boys" when used in these quarters can mean male persons of any age from little boys at their fathers' heels to ancient worthies leaning on their sticks; it's a local oddity aimed at confusing "folks from foreign parts". But today I'm thinking about the aged men who, their working lives at an end and unsuited to an indoor existence, spent their days wandering around the village or propped against their garden gate offering advice, observations and scandalous fibs to anyone foolish or patient enough to listen.

What started this daydream was the above photo sent to me by my cousin Julie, who is our family historian. On the left is my grandmother who was born in 1894. I only remember her as an old lady even though she could only have been in her sixties when I first became aware of her existence. In later life she complained "if I get any more wrinkles they'll have to iron me to see who it is!" so it's nice to see her fresh-faced and youthful. With her are her mother and, on the right of the photo, Aunt Pozzy, as my Dad called her, though her name was Posthuma, a name which means "born after the death of her father" - which she wasn't! I guess someone just liked the sound of the name.

But seated grandly in the centre of the picture, wearing his white whiskers in what was known as a Chiswick beard, is my great-great-grandfather, John Barnes. I remember Granny telling me about him once. Apparently on Sundays he would go to his front gate and there he would attempt to balance his walking stick in an upright position. Of course he never succeeded in this task but the direction in which his stick fell would determine whether he walked to chapel or to church. Sometimes he carried this novel means of navigation to its logical if lunatic extreme and took long random walks by consulting gravity's effect on his stick at every junction. He would often be gone all day, causing the family endless consternation.

In my childhood I remember old Mr Lander who lived at the Post Office and who must have been the oldest telegram delivery boy in the country. I remember him chiefly for the strong smell of tobacco which hung about him, the extreme hairiness of his ears and for his very elderly dog. This dog, the owner convinced us, could talk; for Mr Lander's party trick was ventriloquism.

Brod's corner

When we moved house to Grantchester the first person I noticed on getting off the bus for the first time was Brod Watts, who was always stationed at the corner in the photo above, for he carried a chair from his house each day so that he might sit and watch the world going about its business.

Bill's gate

A little further along the road stood Old Bill at his garden gate, on constant watch lest Brod should glean a priceless piece of news and become sole owner of this little nugget of truth (or exaggeration!). There were others too in the succeeding years, Perce, One-Legged Roy,
Apple, Mr Muggleton, all willing to talk endlessly on any subject.

And it came to pass that the council decided to put in a new sewer. Sage old heads shook wisely in the street and in the pub. "They'll 'ave trouble there," they confidently and cheerfully predicted, "There's an underground stream 'long there somewheres 'n' if they hits it there'll be water everywhere, you mark my words". It seemed pretty unlikely; the geology was all wrong for it,  it was midsummer and the surveyor from the council seemed to know his business.

After the pumps had been running day and night for a week trying to empty the trench, the prophets of doom enlightened us further, "The water runs through the gravel, it does, 'long the Coton Road then be'ind Charter'ouse Terrace. Used ter be wells at the back a them houses an' the womenfolk used ter take in washin' from the colleges in Cambridge, dry it on long old lines in the Meadows."

Back a Charter'ouse Terrace

Since  then I've always tried to heed the words of the "old boys" and hope that quite soon I'll be able to join their illustrious ranks. My Uncle Basil has made me a stick so I'm all set to venture on my first walk....

Take care.

Gran's Old Banjo

On special nights back in the late 1940s the landlady of The Fox Inn on the Old North Road would take down the case from the shelf and take out her banjo. Then she'd sit up on the bar and play for the customers till closing time. That lady was my maternal grandmother.

My grandparents had taken on the pub having moved out of London during the Second World War. They didn't have the pub long before my grandfather passed away at the age of 49. Gran never played the banjo much after that.

The musicians among you may have noticed that it's not the usual 5-string or even a tenor banjo but a mandolin-banjo or as it was more often called at the time a banjo-mandolin. This particular one, so the story goes was made for Pasquale Troise, an Italian player of the mandolin (the kind shown on the right above) who led his own very popular and successful band who played all the London music halls in the pre-war years. The band was known as Troise and his Mandoliers and played an astonishing mixture of music - Italian melodies, of course, but also Russian folk melodies, odd bits of classical music, tunes from Eastern Europe, Hawaiian pieces and cowboy songs. All this was topped off with an Irishman who called himself Don Carlos on vocals.

Gran

Troise also led a second band, Troise and his Banjoliers, essentially the same musicians swapping to play a wide variety of banjos. This band broadcast regularly on the BBC's "Workers' Playtime"** radio programme, the louder sound of the banjos being more audible in noisy factories. It was for this configuration of the band that Gran's banjo-mandolin was made. 

** it was "Music While You Work" not "Workers' Playtime" as pointed out by the comment below. Thanks to Brian Reynolds for pointing out my mistake.

My uncle now has Gran's old instrument and has had it repaired. As you can see his interest in the mandolin has expanded to other forms, the one on the left is the kind favoured by bluegrass players. And there's a fourth kind, also owned by my uncle, which is the flat-backed mandolin that Irish folk musicians tend to play.

A story often told by my mother:
    One New Year's Eve Gran made a phone call to her brother Arthur, a very fine banjo player himself. After the usual greetings Arthur says " Hey, 'ave you 'eard this one?" and proceeded to play a tune over the phone. " That's a new one to me, Arthur, but how about this one?" and Gran played a tune. Thus they went on exchanging tunes until Gran said, "Look, this call's going to cost me a fortune, I'll have to hang up." At this point the telephone operator from the exchange interrupted "That's alright, keep playing. All the telephonists here are enjoying the music. We won't charge you a penny for the call, just keep playing!"

To hear Troise and his Banjoliers try this link or this one. 

Take care.

Jubilee

"She's a wonderful woman, the Queen."

"Ar, I know...wonderful"

"Still looks smart an' got all 'er facilities, she 'as."

"I r'members I saw 'er once. Long whiles back. I were at school. 'Ad the day orff, we did, so's we could watch the Royal car go by 'long the main road. Big owd grey motor, an' the driver ad on a uniform an' a big m'stosh too. An' the Queen - only she weren't the Queen then, she were just a little gal, Princess 'Lizbeth - she looked right at us and we waved our little owd flags and she waved right back at us 'n' all. That were years ago, mind."

"Yes, wonderful woman, she is."

"Anyways I see'd her again a few years back. She come by in 'er car with the owd Dook o' Hedinbra. Well, 'e 'ad 'is nose up in the air, the Dook, like a right owd toff. Never looked at us. But 'er Majesty she looked right t'wards us an' waved at me again. Wonderful woman..... R'membered me arter all them years!"

"Marvellous......arter all them years.....!"


Take care.

Poinsettia And Carmania

On the twelfth day of Christmas......all the decorations have to be taken down, so that was how I spent Friday afternoon. Everything was stowed away in an old suitcase which has since been transferred to the attic.

But what has been left behind are these, Euphorbia pulcherrima, more commonly known as Poinsettia. To the average Englishman - me, anyway - they were nothing to do with Christmas but, gradually, over the last couple of decades they've crept into the picture through the efforts of garden centres and Christmas card designers. My feelings towards them were further damaged by their tendency to drop dead almost as soon as I got them home.

How wrong can you be?
First of all the name - apparently named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, one time United States Minister to Mexico, who first introduced the plant to the USA. He went on to become Minister of War during the presidency of Martin Van Buren. There can't be too many Ministers of War with flowers named after them!

The Christmas connection -  In the plants native Mexico it's called Noche Buena, meaning "Christmas Eve". It's said to owe it's name to a 16th century legend of a young girl who was too poor to celebrate the birth of Jesus but was inspired by an angel to gather roadside weeds and take them to the church. However the adoption of the plant as a symbol of Christmas in the US seems to have required an intensive publicity effort by one Paul Ecke, Jr. who just happened to own the company who grew and sold the plants!

What I've also found out this year is that the huge flowers are not flowers at all but coloured leaves which change colour in order to attract insects to pollinate the true flowers which are insignificant little things in the centre of the red leaves. If you want a Poinsettia to flower for a long time then it's these tiny true flowers that you need to look at; the smaller they are when you buy them the longer your display will last. They tend not to mention that at the garden centre.

Oh, and while I was lifting the decorations into the loft I noticed this sticker on the old suitcase containing them. A reminder of times past.....

....when my Granny went sailing off across the Atlantic in 1965, courtesy of Cunard Lines, to see her daughters and their families, some of whom, by the wonders of our modern world, are  followers of this blog.

Take care.

The Lighthouse And The Lady

Hunstanton lighthouse

OK, I've been tinkering again, trying to make a straightforward photo look something like a painting. You probably need to click on the image to see it properly.

Meanwhile those of you who read my recent post entitled "Stuff" may recall that I mentioned Aunt Sarah Radford, who gave my mother an antique plate as a gift on her wedding day. In amongst my e-mails yesterday came a photo of Aunt Sarah, sent to me by my cousin, who is the authority on family history. So here is her photo:

Aunt

Sarah

Radford

Take care. 



Stuff

We all collect lots of stuff on our passage through life. Most of it is useless junk that we could easily do without. But, oh, it's so hard to part with any of it! Amongst it all there are just a few items which have value beyond usefulness, beyond monetary worth and really beyond all logical evaluation. For these are items which carry memories, a story or connect us with our past.

When the last cart left the harvest field adorned with the "horkey branch" it was a sign that the harvest was over for another year - but was it? For the end of the men's labour was also the start of the gleaning season for the womenfolk. Young girls and women could then go out into the fields to collect any grain which had been left behind. The two vases above were bought by my great-grandmother from money earned in this way when she was a girl. Somehow they caught her eye and she just had to have them. They must be at least 120 years old, probably of no great value, but they charm everyone who sees them, just as they must have charmed a young girl all those years ago.

The old copper kettle was unearthed in the wood by my grandmother. She spent hours polishing it up, as has my own mother (and I must have spent an hour or two on it myself). When I was a boy the back of it was black from being heated on the fire but gradually even that part has become shiny. Dad always thought that his mother had probably thrown it out there herself years before but then thought better of it and retrieved it from its grave.

Sixty years ago my mother got married, an old lady turned up at the wedding that my mother had never seen before. She later learned that it was Dad's aunt, Aunt Sarah Radford as he always referred to her. The old lady told my mother that she made a beautiful bride then went home. She returned later with the plate above saying that she wanted my parents to have it as a wedding present. I have no idea of its age though it certainly looks ancient.

My mother's family came from London where my grandfather had a coal-delivery business. The photo shows the family on their way to a show in the inter-war years. My grandfather's horses often won prizes at such shows. He lost his father at an early age and had to deliver coal before going to school each morning, with the result that he often fell asleep at his desk. Despite being born and bred in the heart of the city he was something of a country man at heart. After the war he moved out of London and took over a country inn. Sadly he died before he had much time to enjoy it. He was only 49. 

My dad's old penknife. He carried it in his back pocket for years. The blade used to get sharpened on any handy wall or post. It reminds me of the time we worked together on the
farm.

Take care.

Late September

A song for my Granny, who passed away in 1993 at the age of 99. She lived quite near to my parents and one of us would visit her for an hour or so each evening.

When I'm feeling down

 and my head is full of worry

People that I'd like to talk to

 seem in too much hurry

When the dark clouds hide the sun

 and threaten to bring rain

I always know where I can go

 to make it shine again

And she...

Takes me back down leafy ways

Across the fields to distant days

And secret places she alone remembers

Things the world has left behind

Are painted clearly on her mind

In golden-yellow shades of late September

She talks about the war,

 times of grief and trouble

Times it seemed that life was simply

 years of endless struggle

Then she talks of better days

 that made it all worthwhile

Simple things remembered then

 come shining through her smile

And she...

Takes me back down leafy ways

Across the fields to distant days

And secret places she alone remembers

Things the world has left behind

Are painted clearly on her mind

In golden-yellow shades of late September

Then it's time for me to go

I'm working in the morning

I get up to say goodnight

I think she saw me yawning

"You must think I'm crazy", she says,

"Going on this way"

But it's the nearest thing to sanity

that I have heard all day,

When she...

 Takes me back down leafy ways

Across the fields to distant days

And secret places she alone remembers

Things the world has left behind

Are painted clearly on her mind

In golden-yellow shades of late September

One evening I was having a moan about someone that I considered stupid. Granny said, "When God was dishing out the brains He wasn't very even-handed, was He; we should just be thankful that we got our share."

Take care.

They Said It....

These snippets of conversation have all been heard by me over the years or told to me by friends. No phone-hacking was involved!

While descending in the lift at Addenbrooks Hospital in Cambridge I overheard this conversation from two ladies who'd been visiting their sick husbands:
"How's your husband today?"
"Oh, much better today, how's yours?"
"He's lookin' a lot better too. They're goin' to move 'im out of the Insensitive Care Ward tomorrow"
Everyone in the lift stared at their shoes and tried to stifle their giggles as their minds conjured up images of jack-booted nurses turfing patients out of their beds with cries of "Come on, there's nothing wrong with you!"

For many years I was a walks leader for HF Holidays. After dinner it was customary for the leaders to describe the walks they would be leading the next day. One time I was due to lead the easy walk, it was very short as it allowed time to look around a castle in the afternoon. I described the walk in some detail and was surprised when a Scottish lady asked, "Whereaboots?" I started to explain again...."Och, no no no," she cried, "I meant 'Shall we wear...our...boots?"

On another evening at HF I was due to lead the longer walk. I explained that the coach would drop us off in the morning at a mountain pass so that we had a relatively short uphill walk to the summit but that people should be aware that there then followed a long, long descent back to the house. I summed up at the end by saying "...so there's just over one thousand feet of ascent but more than two thousand feet of descent." "I say!" said an elderly gentleman, "We're going underground!"

The first time my grandmother visited a supermarket we asked her what she thought of the experience. She answered, "I'm sure more people would go if it wasn't so crowded."

My Grandpa went blind in one eye in his later years. He came back from the hospital to tell us that the doctor had told him that nothing could be done as it was just the result of old age. "I knew that was wrong", he told my father, "the other eye's the same age and there's nothing wrong with that one!"

New teacher: "Can everybody hear me OK?"

Boy near the front of class: "Yes, Sir, but I don't mind swapping places with someone who can't".

Old Bert used to do odd jobs around the farm and often went out shooting rabbits or pigeons. One day I pointed out a rather distant rabbit to him, "Too far away", explained Bert, "'Twould strain the gun!"

On another occasion Bert took off his boots to reveal one blue sock and one brown one. "Nice pair of socks!" we quipped. Bert looked thoughtfully at his feet, "Arr, I got another pair like that somewhere."

One day in the special school where I worked we had a new teacher. Admittedly it's always difficult to find age-appropriate material for teenagers with learning difficulties but we all cringed when she proceeded to tell them the story of the Pied Piper. When she finished she asked one of the boys if he thought it was a happy story or a sad story. "Oh, I should think it's a happy story" he replied mischievously.
"But how did those parents feel when their children disappeared into the mountain?" she prompted.
"Rich!" came the reply.

Take care.