“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”

― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

 

Its my birthday!!! I want to start a tradition where I create a self portrait that reflects how I feel at this point in my life; creating a character that embodies everything I have learnt in this past year, and who I want to be this next coming year.

 

The past year has been filled with many amazing accomplishments: Leaving education, going onto work full time and taking further steps to building my photography business and my audience (who I love so much!!). I have gotten to meet sooo many passionate and inspiring people that warmed my heart with each encounter! I commited to a weekly project I titled the 'fairytale-a-week' project, learning to create consistently every week, with a final image, done collaboratively with other creatives, as well as a video behind the scenes! I learnt so much from this and it helped me grow in confidence and excitement to create! I have gotten to shoot weddings which has been a blast! And I have been able to live. Its such an underated idea as we are doing it all the time, but how often to we really think "wow....Life!" I love them moments where I just feel infinite and life seems so bright, getting to do what I love, limitlessly! So thank you to everyone that has helped make that so this year- family, friends (both new and the classics!) and anyone that has shown love to me in their own ways, I am truly so grateful.

 

This year has also had some loss be an unwelcomed party guest. Loosing a family friend, who we will always hold heavy in our hearts for. As well as leaving my first relationship. These losses taught me what it means to select what life means to you, owning the hurt and turning it into something beautiful that can inspire and bring hope to those who need it (one of my favourite reasons for creating; seeing someone say thank you for my creating of an image or connecting to my words, is one of the greatest achievements I think I could ever acclaim.) I will continue to create hope in the form of magical imagery to harness the pain. I grew a new style filled with embracing darkness, married with my interpretation of beauty, and a car load of flowers! I have loved homing in on what I truly love to create, and have enjoyed every adventure of running onto blooming roundabouts with lorries honking at us, to driving 2 hours to an abandoned manor, to every sunset shoot where I ran out of the house with a crown, hot air ballon, pillow stuffing, my new wooden step ladder, oversized clothes and my camera- worrying a few people on the way! To everything in between!! Each failed moment of not getting the image right or things not coming into place has been absolutely worth it, as the memories I now can cherish from shooting in strangers gardens, to lighting smoke bombs in public places will always stay close and true to me- helping me remember where I have come from, and where I am to go!

 

I believe in the power of kindness, and using that power we harness to bring life to others that feel whiltered- growing the beauty that is hidden by darkness. I want to try and be kinder and put that out in the world.

 

This image was created with my favourite flowers, little gypsophila's, placed in a crown I bought this year with a lovely friend. I used new editing techniques (as well as the ones I have been doing since the very beginning, like using a square format.) I have practised using lightroom which I just got! So this is my first fine art image using lightroom properly with presets and everything! As well as using eyelash glue to stick little gypsophilas to my face and body, thinking more about the little details I can capture in camera- I think this year I have come to love the way I look more, embracing each little part of my body that holds unique value. You can see my heart shaped scar on my cheek, the scars on my arms and hands from when I was working so hard, acting as a reminder to continue in that same mindset, and the lines that have began to form on my skin that I chose not to remove, but instead embrace and love, for they show the days filled with endless laughter, and the moments where I felt, moved and grew. Acting as a reminder of where I have come from, marking this time in my life forever.

 

So thank you to everyone who made this year so special and memorable. I hold you all so close in my heart. I feel like I am ready to go forwards in this new year, not necessarily setting any specific targets, but with the hope that I can just continue in the way I am, and see where I can go and what opportunities may come my way, I just hope to those who made it this far, that you're able to come on this journey with me, and find infinite hope together!

 

Thomas Oscar Miles, Aged 20.

The world is full of mystery and my life is too, for sometimes I study Jojo when she is looking her best and think is that really me. My excuse is I'm well practised at photograthy especially these selfies and I often wonder if I'm a huge dissapointment when people see me in the flesh. I guess they will get a different picture as then I'm no longer just a pin-up and my personality takes over and they either like me or don't Someone on Chix once left some feedback and said I was a Dog which was a bit unfair, maybe I stepped on their toe by mistake.

French postcard by Les Films de Mon Oncle, Paris. Jacques Tati in Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967).

 

French actor, comedian and film director Jacques Tati (1907-1982) was best known as the taciturn, gesticulating, maladjusted Monsieur Hulot, stumbling through the contemporary, mechanised world. He began as a mime in music halls. In his career of 50 years, Tati made only six feature-length and four short films in which he always starred himself. All his films came about after years of meticulous work. The influence of his sophisticated slapstick comedies on international cinema is considerable. In 1958, he received an Oscar for Mon oncle.

 

Jacques Tati was born Jacques Tatischeff in 1907 in Le Pecq, 19 km west of the centre of Paris. He was the son of a Dutch mother and the Russian military attaché at the Russian embassy in Paris. At 18, he entered military service and from the age of 20, he was active as a professional rugby player. Later, he made a living as a pantomime player. He was in variety theatre, where he performed several comic mime acts. Here he learnt the art of the comic movement and gained inspiration for his later films. His comic acts, based on various sports, were a success in the theatre. He made his screen debut in a series of short featurettes, tailored to show off his practised gags, notably Oscar, champion de tennis/Oscar, tennis champion (Jack Forrester, 1932) and Soigne ton gauche/Watch Your Left (René Clément, 1936), a very funny boxing sketch. The Second World War, military service and inherent strictures resulting from the German occupation put a temporary halt to his career. Then, in 1946, through a friend, the writer-director Claude Autant-Lara, Jacques obtained a small role in the whimsical fantasy Sylvie et le fantôme/Sylvie and the Ghost (Claude Autant-Lara, 1946), about a girl (Odette Joyeux) in love with a ghost (Tati). The small township of Sainte-Sévère, where Tati had taken refuge during the occupation, served as inspiration for his first film, the short L'école des facteurs/School for Postmen (Jacques Tati, 1947), in which Tati plays the character of François, a bumbling hyperactive postman. The film was so successful that Tati was offered the chance to make his first feature-length film, starring that same character. Jour de fête (Jacques Tati, 1949) shows a postman in a rural village, Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre, which is isolated and deprived compared to the rest of the modern world. But even the peaceful village does not escape modernity: on the day of the French national holiday on 14 July, a film is shown for the first time, and it is about the efficiency of the US postal service. In this film, postman François (played by Tati himself) sees how his colleagues in the United States deliver their mail by car and even by plane. François does everything by bike and now decides to drive his bike as fast as a car. The result is a whole series of stunts, which Tati himself performed on the bicycle. Jour de fête became a success.

 

Jacques Tati then made the classic Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Jacques Tati, 1953). In this film, Tati played the character of Monsieur Hulot for the first time. Tati took the name of the character from the architect Hulot who lived in the same apartment building as himself. Hulot arrives in a rickety 1924 Amilcar. I.S. Mowis at IMDb: "Tall and reedy, clad in a poplin coat, wearing a crumpled hat, striped socks, trousers which are patently too short, rolled umbrella, a pipe firmly clenched between his teeth and perambulating with an odd stiff-legged gait, Hulot cuts an ungainly, yet hilarious figure. Well-meaning though he is, he invariably leaves disaster in his wake and departs the scene quickly as things go wrong, letting others sort out the mess." Monsieur Hulot would become one of the icons of comic cinematography. Style features of Tati are silent, small jokes hidden in a scene. These scenes are almost always filmed in total shots, keeping the camera and thus the audience at a distance. This makes the films like observations of people's behaviour. Tati shows the viewer an absurd, satirical mirror in which the viewer can recognise his own behaviour, from everyday life. Another feature that made Tati differ from other slapstick actors was his use of sound. In Tati's films, the sound is as important as the image; many strange sound effects, such as footsteps, creaking and squeaking doors and clinking glass, enhance the effect of the jokes. In 1958, Tati made Mon Oncle (Jacques Tati, 1958), a comedy that was awarded the Oscar for best foreign film. This film also sees Tati as Monsieur Hulot. Tati criticises today's modern society in the film. According to Tati, technology, decadence and greed started playing an increasing role in our society. Real human values such as individuality, sociability, helpfulness and exercise are lost as a result. Crowds are central to all of Tati's films, but there is always a character who refuses to adapt, but eventually dissolves into the masses. This individual, played by Tati himself, fights (often unconsciously) against modernity. He understands nothing about machines and this often results in hilarious failures, in which modern technology is destroyed by human nature. The film juxtaposes the good old days with modern technology. Nostalgia clashes with the unimaginative, decadent, massive and impersonal world of modern times.

 

Jacques Tati then started working on an extremely expensive film, Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967), a kind of Sci-Fi comedy in which the world was completely turned into a very large city. Lacking suitable filming locations, Tati had an entire full-scale futuristic city (Tativille) recreated in Joinville-le-Pont. The shooting took almost four years. It was shot on the expensive 70 mm format and the most extraordinary filming techniques were used. Tati experimented with colour and used a very recognisable soundtrack in his films, which is repeated again and again throughout the film. When Playtime was released in 1967, critics' reactions were divided. In France, the film was reasonably successful, but nothing came of the intended American success: the film was not even released there. The picture's total budget had been $3 million and left Tati bankrupt. Tati was now unemployed: no one wanted to invest money in his films. Only in 1972 did he return to the big screen, in the film Trafic (Jacques Tati, 1972), a satire of modern man's love of cars, partly shot in the Netherlands and co-directed by Dutch cinematographer Bert Haanstra. This film was not a success either. Tati then made the television film Parade (Jacques Tati, 1974), a comedy about circus life, for Swedish television. Creditors impounded Tati's films, which were not re-released until 1977, when a canny Parisian distributor expunged his outstanding debts. Jacques Tati died of cancer in 1982 in Paris at the age of 75. Since 1944, he had been married to Micheline Winter with whom he had two children. In 2010, L'Illusionniste was released, a full-length animated film by Sylvain Chomet, based on a script by Tati. The main character in this film, an old, disillusioned magician named Tatischeff, is a cartoon version of Monsieur Hulot. The idea to release Tati's script as a cartoon came from Tati's daughter who did not want another actor to imitate her father. In the film, the protagonist walks into a cinema where Mon Oncle is currently being played. The film is not so much comic as melodramatic and builds on Tati's ideas about alienation and the demise of old trades.

 

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

This seemingly gravity defying shot isn't some fake levitiation Photoshop image but a shot taken during the recent #Nikon100 London #Nikonmeetups Action Photography workshop with Tom Miles ( www.tmphoto.co.uk/ ) and three parkour experts.

 

Having been selected as one of 100 photographers to take part in the Nikon Centenary celebrations the day involved five seperate themed shoots around different locations in London. All in all it was a superbly organised event and I captured a wide variety of shots.

 

Click here to see my other shots from the days workshops : www.flickr.com/photos/darrellg/albums/72157686756184653

 

From Wikipedia : "Parkour (French pronunciation: ​[paʁkuʁ]) is a training discipline using movement that developed from military obstacle course training. Practitioners aim to get from one point to another in a complex environment, without assistive equipment and in the fastest and most efficient way possible. Parkour includes running, climbing, swinging, vaulting, jumping, rolling, quadrupedal movement, and other movements as deemed most suitable for the situation. Parkour's development from military training gives it some aspects of a non-combative martial art.

 

Parkour is an activity that can be practised alone or with others and is usually—but not exclusively—carried out in urban spaces. Parkour involves seeing one's environment in a new way, and imagining the potential for navigating it by movement around, across, through, over and under its features.

 

Parkour was developed in France, primarily by Raymond Belle, and further by his son David and the latter's group of friends, the self-styled Yamakasi, during the late 1980s. The discipline was popularised in the late 1990s and 2000s through films, documentaries, and advertisements featuring the Yamakasi."

 

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© D.Godliman

Plaza de Toros de Santamaria, Bogota, Colombia

 

Bullfighting or tauromachy (from Greek ταυρομαχία - tauromachia, "bull-fight"), is a traditional spectacle of Spain, Portugal, some cities in southern France, and several Latin American countries, in which one or more live bulls are ritually killed as a public spectacle. A nonlethal variant stemming from Portuguese influence is practised on the Tanzanian island of Pemba[1].

 

The tradition, as it is practiced today, involves professional toreros (toureiros in Portuguese; also referred to as toreadors in English), who execute various formal moves with the intent, during various phases of the fight, of distracting, angering, or causing injury to the bull itself. Such maneuvers are performed at close range, and can result in injury or even death of the performer. The bullfight usually concludes with the death of the bull by a sword thrust. In Portugal the finale consists of a tradition called the pega, where men (forcados) try to grab and hold the bull by its horns when it runs at them. Forcados are dressed in a traditional costume of damask or velvet, with long knit hats as worn by the campinos (bull headers) from Ribatejo.

 

Bullfighting generates heated controversy in many areas of the world, including Mexico, Ecuador, Spain, and Portugal. Supporters of bullfighting argue that it is a culturally important tradition, while animal rights groups argue that it is a blood sport because of the suffering of the bull and horses during the bullfight.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullfighting

The cemetery was established in the 1840s by a small group of German Lutheran missionaries who, in 1838, had founded Queensland's first free settlement, at Zion's Hill above Kedron Brook.

 

Only one death had been recorded at the German Station by 1845, but several children died the following year, and the cemetery is indicated on an 1846 sketch by missionary Carl Gerler.

 

Certainly the site had been established as a graveyard before James Warner first surveyed it as a cemetery reserve in 1862. None of the wooden crosses marking the earliest graves has survived, but the oldest headstone dates to March 1855.

 

Although the German Station mission was wound down between 1844 and 1850, several of the missionary families remained in the area. From amongst these settlers the first trustees of the German Station Cemetery were appointed in 1866. Various trustees administered the cemetery until 1930, when the Brisbane City Council took control.

 

In 1914 a small shelter pavilion was erected at the cemetery. It was designed by architect John Henry Burley, who practised in Brisbane from 1886 until 1936. The builder was J MacDonald, and the structure cost £175.

 

In 1963 the cemetery was closed.

 

A sexton resided in the cemetery grounds from at least the 1890s, but since 1975 one sexton based at Lutwyche has cared for the Bald Hills, Lutwyche and Nundah cemeteries. The Nundah sexton's house has been demolished.

 

In 1982 the Nundah Historic Cemetery Preservation Association was formed to help tend and restore the site.

 

Source: Queensland Heritage Register.

www.birdlife.org/datazone/sites/index.html?action=SitHTMD...

 

Site description The site is a National Park covering 36,000 ha of the High Atlas, including the highest mountain in Morocco, Jbel Toubkal (4,167 m). Located only 60 km south of the town of Marrakech, the dramatic mountain scenery attracts thousands of visitors each year, many of whom climb Jbel Toubkal or trek elsewhere in the park. The mountain summits are often only slightly above the level of their surrounding high plateaus, which are separated by deep valleys. The park extends from 1,000 m upwards and therefore encompasses a range of vegetation-types, from forest to alpine meadow. Forest only covers 15% of the park, and consists mainly of the oldest Quercus rotundifolia stands in the High Atlas and Juniperus thurifera. Along the valleys, irrigated agriculture is practised and most of the park is used for extensive livestock-grazing.

 

More than 95 breeding species have been recorded, among them nine species of the Mediterranean North Africa biome. Thirteen raptors are recorded, among them Gypaetus barbatus, which definitely bred in the park until 1980. The Parc National de Toubkal is one of only two areas in Morocco where Apus caffer has been recorded breeding, and also holds several species with quite localized distributions in Africa, such as Rhodopechys sanguinea and Eremophila alpestris.

 

Conservation issues The National Park was created by 'Arrête viziriel' on 19 January 1942. Despite its protected status, the park has been facing growing pressures since the 1960s. Poaching has wiped out some species and overgrazing has destroyed or degraded much of the natural vegetation. Tourism has mushroomed and led to erosion of footpaths—on some days 30-40 tourists may be found together at one time on the summit of Jbel Toubkal, in spite of the long and arduous trek required to reach it. To counter these threats and safeguard wildlife, in the 1950s AEFCS created a reserve for Ammotragus lervia adjacent to the park, and in 1994 enclosed an area of 1,000 ha for the reintroduction of Gazella cuvieri. Both these measures have resulted in the protection of areas of forest habitat which are important for breeding birds. In 1994, a management plan for the park was drawn up under the auspices of AEFCS. Further conservation measures required include the training of local guides; the protection of nest-sites of the rarer bird species, particularly raptors; maintenance of trails to prevent erosion; and the establishment of grazing enclosures to protect endemic plant species.

  

You may view more of my images of Ickworth House, Park and gardens, by clicking "here" !

 

Please do not insert images, of group invite, thank you!

 

Ickworth Park. With over 1,800 acres of parkland designed by Capability Brown, the house and its grounds were created as an homage to Italy, the country so beloved by Frederick Augustus Hervey, the 4th Earl of Bristol. The Earl-Bishop spent his life travelling the continent, gathering together a vast collection of paintings, sculpture and artefacts. Already possessed of several houses, he conceived Ickworth primarily as a museum for his treasures. At his death only the Rotunda - the giant circular structure at the centre of the two wings, described by Hervey's wife as 'a stupendous moment of Folly' - was nearing completion. The house was eventually finished by his son. Although Hervey's treasures, confiscated during the French invasion of Italy, were destined never to occupy Ickworth, his descendants made it their life's work to rebuild what has become an exceptional collection of art and silver. Paintings housed in the galleries include works by Velázquez, Titian and Poussin, while the collection of 18th-century portraits of the family is exceptionally fine, featuring canvases by Gainsborough, Reynolds, Vigée-Lebrun and Hogarth. In addition to one of the very best British collections of Georgian Huguenot silver, Ickworth is also home to an impressive array of Regency furniture, porcelain, and domestic objects. More made a career of producing idealised Italian landscapes. His Landscape with Classical Figures, Cicero at his Villa, painted in 1780 and funded in 1993, is a typical work, the misty soft-focus and pastel light adding to its appeal. Hugh Douglas Hamilton's The Earl Bishop of Bristol and Derry Seated before the Prospect of Rome shows Hervey seated at what is thought to be the southern tip of the Borghese Gardens.

Ickworth's parklands and gardens can provide a day's activity in their own right. The south gardens are modelled on the formal Italian style, while the gardens to the west of the house are more informal. Visitors can walk or cycle out into the park itself and up to the Fairy Lake. Bright and modern, The West Wing Restaurant overlooks the gardens and can be guaranteed to catch any sunlight on offer. It serves everything from hot meals to snacks, and at weekends the restaurant is open for breakfast. If you're after something rather more formal, try Frederick's restaurant at Ickworth Hotel in the grounds.

  

The sheep is a quadrupedal, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name "sheep" applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries. Numbering a little over one billion, domestic sheep are also the most numerous species of sheep. An adult female sheep is referred to as a ewe (/juː/), an intact male as a ram or occasionally a tup, a castrated male as a wether, and a younger sheep as a lamb. Sheep are most likely descended from the wild mouflon of Europe and Asia. One of the earliest animals to be domesticated for agricultural purposes, sheep are raised for fleece, meat (lamb, hogget or mutton) and milk. A sheep's wool is the most widely used animal fiber, and is usually harvested by shearing. Ovine meat is called lamb when from younger animals and mutton when from older ones. Sheep continue to be important for wool and meat today, and are also occasionally raised for pelts, as dairy animals, or as model organisms for science. Sheep husbandry is practised throughout the majority of the inhabited world, and has been fundamental to many civilizations. In the modern era, Australia, New Zealand, the southern and central South American nations, and the British Isles are most closely associated with sheep production. Sheepraising has a large lexicon of unique terms which vary considerably by region and dialect. Use of the word sheep began in Middle English as a derivation of the Old English word scēap; it is both the singular and plural name for the animal. A group of sheep is called a flock, herd or mob. Many other specific terms for the various life stages of sheep exist, generally related to lambing, shearing, and age. Being a key animal in the history of farming, sheep have a deeply entrenched place in human culture, and find representation in much modern language and symbology. As livestock, sheep are most often associated with pastoral, Arcadian imagery. Sheep figure in many mythologies—such as the Golden Fleece—and major religions, especially the Abrahamic traditions. In both ancient and modern religious ritual, sheep are used as sacrificial animals. Domestic sheep are relatively small ruminants, usually with a crimped hair called wool and often with horns forming a lateral spiral. Domestic sheep differ from their wild relatives and ancestors in several respects, having become uniquely neotenic as a result of selective breeding by humans. A few primitive breeds of sheep retain some of the characteristics of their wild cousins, such as short tails. Depending on breed, domestic sheep may have no horns at all, or horns in both sexes, or in males only. Most horned breeds have a single pair, but a few breeds may have several. Another trait unique to domestic sheep as compared to wild ovines is their wide variation in color. Wild sheep are largely variations of brown hues, and variation within species is extremely limited. Colors of domestic sheep range from pure white to dark chocolate brown and even spotted or piebald. Selection for easily dyeable white fleeces began early in sheep domestication, and as white wool is a dominant trait it spread quickly. However, colored sheep do appear in many modern breeds, and may even appear as a recessive trait in white flocks. While white wool is desirable for large commercial markets, there is a niche market for colored fleeces, mostly for handspinning. The nature of the fleece varies widely among the breeds, from dense and highly crimped, to long and hairlike. There is variation of wool type and quality even among members of the same flock, so wool classing is a step in the commercial processing of the fibre. Depending on breed, sheep show a range of heights and weights. Their rate of growth and mature weight is a heritable trait that is often selected for in breeding. Ewes typically weigh between 45 and 100 kilograms (99 and 220 lb), and rams between 45 and 160 kilograms (99 and 353 lb). When all deciduous teeth have erupted, the sheep has 20 teeth. Mature sheep have 32 teeth. As with other ruminants, the front teeth in the lower jaw bite against a hard, toothless pad in the upper jaw. These are used to pick off vegetation, then the rear teeth grind it before it is swallowed. There are eight lower front teeth in ruminants, but there is some disagreement as to whether these are eight incisors, or six incisors and two incisor-shaped canines. There is a large diastema between the incisors and the molars. For the first few years of life it is possible to calculate the age of sheep from their front teeth, as a pair of milk teeth is replaced by larger adult teeth each year, the full set of eight adult front teeth being complete at about four years of age. The front teeth are then gradually lost as sheep age, making it harder for them to feed and hindering the health and productivity of the animal. For this reason, domestic sheep on normal pasture begin to slowly decline from four years on, and the average life expectancy of a sheep is 10 to 12 years, though some sheep may live as long as 20 years. Sheep have good hearing, and are sensitive to noise when being handled. Sheep have horizontal slit-shaped pupils, possessing excellent peripheral vision; with visual fields of approximately 270° to 320°, sheep can see behind themselves without turning their heads. Many breeds have only short hair on the face, and some have facial wool (if any) confined to the poll and or the area of the mandibular angle; the wide angles of peripheral vision apply to these breeds. A few breeds tend to have considerable wool on the face; for some individuals of these breeds, peripheral vision may be greatly reduced by "wool blindness", unless recently shorn about the face. Sheep have poor depth perception; shadows and dips in the ground may cause sheep to baulk. In general, sheep have a tendency to move out of the dark and into well lit areas, and prefer to move uphill when disturbed. Sheep also have an excellent sense of smell, and, like all species of their genus, have scent glands just in front of the eyes, and interdigitally on the feet. The purpose of these glands is uncertain, but those on the face may be used in breeding behaviors. The foot glands might also be related to reproduction, but alternative reasons, such as secretion of a waste product or a scent marker to help lost sheep find their flock, have also been proposed.

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Course landaise, Estang, Gers, France.

Course landaise is one of the four forms of bullfighting praticed in the world but it differs from the other three by two features, first it is practised exclusevely with cows and not bulls, the other feature it shares with the Camargue races, is that there is no killing, or hurting of the animal, either during the race, or after.

Zu Schloss Biesdorf, dessen bekannteste Bewohner die Familie Siemens war, gehörte ein großes Landgut, das sich unterhalb des erhöht gelegenen Schlosses befand. 'Dort wurde nicht nur Landwirtschaft betrieben, sondern dort gab es am Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts auch die erste drhbare Luftschiffhalle zu Lande, wo Siemens Luftschiffe testete. Diese musste nach dem 1. Weltkrieg gemäß den Bestimmungen des Versailler Vertrags abgerissen werden, weshalb man keine Spuren davon mehr sieht. In den 1950-er Jahren wurde die landwirtschaftliche Nutzung aufgegeben. Jetzt nähert sich auf dem einstigen Gutsgelände ein neues Wohngebiet mit 515 Wohnungen, genannt "Gut Alt-Biesdorf", seiner Vollendung. Gesellschaftliches Zentrum der Anlage soll der historische Kuhstall werden, der zur Zeit noch restauriert wird. Auch die beiden noch erhaltenen anderen Gutsgebäude sollen restauriert werden und neue Funktionen erhalten.

 

Biesdorf Manor, whose best-known residents were the Siemens family, included a large estate located below the elevated castle. Not only was agriculture practised there, but at the beginning of the 20th century there was also the first revolving airship hangar on land, where Siemens tested airships. This had to be demolished after World War I in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, which is why you can no longer see any traces of it. In the 1950s, agricultural use was abandoned. Now a new residential area with 515 flats is nearing completion on the former estate grounds, called "Old Biesdorf Estate". The social centre of the complex is to be the historic cowshed, which is currently still being restored. The two other remaining estate buildings are also to be restored and given new functions.

  

🇬🇧 The school battalions

 

The republicans who undertook the reform of state schools in 1880 were deeply affected by the defeat of 1870. For those who had embodied national defence against the Prussian armies, the democratic and patriotic figure of the citizen-soldier represented an ideal and a hope. As a result, pre-military instruction was added to intellectual and moral training for boys at local schools.

 

The first school battalions appeared in 1882. They consisted of at least two hundred boys over the age of twelve, armed with wooden rifles. But in many schools, pupils practised handling weapons without forming a battalion, because the conditions to be met were restrictive and costly.

 

Municipalities saw the school battalion, equipped with a uniform and a flag, as a demonstration of republicanism. Opponents of the Republic considered these parades to be regrettable childish masquerades.

For the military, such instruction was of little interest: pupils, most of whom left school at thirteen, had forgotten everything by the time they entered military service. The popularity of battalions was therefore short-lived, especially as the republicans were not unanimous. Military exercises soon gave way to a new activity: gymnastics.

 

🇩🇪 Die Schulbataillone

 

Die Republikaner, die 1880 mit der Reform der öffentlichen Schule begannen, waren von der Niederlage von 1870 tief geprägt. Für diejenigen, die die nationale Verteidigung gegen die preußischen Armeen verkörperten, stellte die demokratische und patriotische Figur des Bürgersoldaten ein Ideal und eine Hoffnung dar. So kommt es, dass in der Gemeindeschule für Jungen neben der intellektuellen und moralischen Ausbildung auch die vormilitärische Ausbildung hinzukommt.

Die ersten Schulbataillone entstanden 1882. Sie umfassen mindestens 200 Jungen über 12 Jahre, die mit Holzgewehren bewaffnet sind. In vielen Schulen übten sich die Schüler jedoch im Umgang mit Waffen, ohne ein Bataillon zu gründen, da die zu erfüllenden Bedingungen einengend und kostspielig waren.

Das Schulbataillon am 14. Juli mit Uniform und Fahne aufmarschieren zu lassen, ist für die Gemeinden eine Demonstration des Republikanismus. Die gleichen Paraden werden von den Gegnern der Republik als bedauerliche kindische Maskeraden angesehen.

 

🇪🇸Los batallones escolares

 

Los republicanos que emprendieron la reforma de las escuelas públicas en 1880 estaban profundamente afectados por la derrota de 1870. Para quienes habían encarnado la defensa nacional frente a los ejércitos prusianos, la figura democrática y patriótica del ciudadano-soldado representaba un ideal y una esperanza. En consecuencia, a la formación intelectual y moral de los muchachos en las escuelas locales se añadió la instrucción premilitar.

 

Los primeros batallones escolares aparecieron en 1882. Estaban formados por al menos doscientos chicos mayores de doce años, armados con rifles de madera. Pero en muchas escuelas, los alumnos practicaban el manejo de las armas sin formar un batallón, porque las condiciones que debían cumplir eran restrictivas y costosas.

Los municipios veían en el batallón escolar, equipado con uniforme y bandera, una demostración de republicanismo. Los opositores a la República consideraban estos desfiles como lamentables mascaradas infantiles.

Para los militares, esta instrucción tenía poco interés: los alumnos, que en su mayoría abandonaban la escuela a los trece años, lo habían olvidado todo cuando entraban en el servicio militar. Así pues, la popularidad de los batallones duró poco, sobre todo porque los republicanos no eran unánimes. Los ejercicios militares pronto dieron paso a una nueva actividad: la gimnasia.

 

🇮🇹 I battaglioni scolastici

 

I repubblicani che intrapresero la riforma delle scuole pubbliche nel 1880 furono profondamente colpiti dalla sconfitta del 1870. Per coloro che avevano incarnato la difesa nazionale contro le armate prussiane, la figura democratica e patriottica del cittadino-soldato rappresentava un ideale e una speranza. Di conseguenza, alla formazione intellettuale e morale dei ragazzi nelle scuole locali si aggiunse l'istruzione premilitare.

 

I primi battaglioni scolastici apparvero nel 1882. Erano composti da almeno duecento ragazzi di età superiore ai dodici anni, armati di fucili di legno. Ma in molte scuole gli alunni si esercitavano a maneggiare le armi senza formare un battaglione, perché le condizioni da soddisfare erano restrittive e costose.

 

Le municipalità consideravano il battaglione scolastico, dotato di uniforme e bandiera, come una dimostrazione di repubblicanesimo. Gli oppositori della Repubblica consideravano queste parate come deplorevoli mascherate infantili.

Per i militari, questo tipo di istruzione era di scarso interesse: gli allievi, la maggior parte dei quali lasciava la scuola a tredici anni, avevano già dimenticato tutto quando entravano nel servizio militare. La popolarità dei battaglioni fu quindi di breve durata, soprattutto perché i repubblicani non erano unanimi. Le esercitazioni militari lasciarono presto il posto a una nuova attività: la ginnastica.

 

Tradotto con DeepL.com (versione gratuita)

L’Antiga Farmàcia “Hippodrates” - Casa d’Antoniadi, Plòvdiv, Bulgària.

Музейна аптека "Хипократ", Пловдив.

 

ENGLISH

The house was built in 1872 by Dr. Sotir Antoniadi, one of the first people with medical degree in Plovdiv.

Nowadays, it features the Old pharmacy shop Hippocrates and the Museum of Pharmacy, which are unique for Bulgaria. Here you can have insight of the way medicine and pharmacy were practised during the Bulgarian Revival period, up to the beginning of the 20th century – a period when all the medications and pills used to be made of natural ingredients.

A lot of tools and medical equipment, manufactured mainly in Vienna and Berlin, are displayed inside.

The original book with recipes by the healer St. John of Rila still keeps the memory of the century-old art of making remedies.

 

CATALÀ

La casa va ser construïda el 1872 pel Dr Sotir Antoniadi, una de les primeres persones amb un grau mèdic a Plòvdiv.

Avui en dia, compta amb l'antiga botiga de farmàcia Hipòcrates i el Museu de Farmàcia, únics a Bulgària. Aquí podeu conèixer la manera en què es feien els medicament durant el període de Revival búlgar, fins a principis del segle XX. Període en què tots els medicaments i pastilles solien estar fets d'ingredients naturals.

Moltes eines i equips mèdics, fabricats principalment a Viena i Berlín, es mostren a l'interior.

El llibre original amb receptes del sanador Sant Joan de Rila encara conserva la memòria de l'art centenari de fer remeis.

  

The Highland Clearances (Scottish Gaelic: Fuadach nan Gàidheal, the "eviction of the Gael") was the forced displacement during the 18th and 19th centuries of a significant number of people from traditional land tenancies in the Scottish Highlands, where they had practised small-scale agriculture. It resulted from enclosures of common lands and a change from farming to sheep raising, an agricultural revolution largely carried out by hereditary aristocratic landowners. The Clearances were a complex series of events occurring over a period of more than a hundred years. A Highland Clearance has been defined as "an enforced simultaneous eviction of all families living in a given area such as an entire glen".

 

The Clearances are particularly notorious as a result of the brutality of many evictions at short notice (year-by-year tenants had almost no protection under Scots law), and the abruptness of the change from the traditional clan system, in which reciprocal obligations between the population and their leaders were well recognised. The cumulative effect of the Clearances, and the large-scale "voluntary" emigrations over the same period, devastated the cultural landscape of Scotland in a way that did not happen in other areas of Britain; the effect of the Clearances was to destroy much of the Gaelic culture.

 

The Clearances resulted in significant emigration of Highlanders to the coast, the Scottish Lowlands, and further afield to North America and Australasia. In the early 21st century, more descendants of Highlanders are found in these diaspora destinations than in Scotland.

The Herz-Jesu-Kirche (in English: "Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus") seen from the Blaue Brücke (in English: "Blue Bridge"), Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany

 

Some background information:

 

The Herz-Jesu-Kirche is a Roman-Catholic church in the Stuehlinger, a district of the city of Freiburg. It was built between 1892 and 1897 by Max Meckel, the former master builder of the cathedral of Limburg. From 1885 to 1886, Meckel had also constructed the Blue Bridge, in whose alignment the twin towers of the Herz-Jesu-Kirche were erected. The church was planned in the style of historism resp. neo-romanticism to distinguish the building significantly from the Freiburg Minster, which was mainly constructed in the French Gothic style.

 

In 1897, the Herz-Jesu-Kirche was consecrated. It has the status of a basilica and consists of a nave, a transept and the front façade with its twin towers. The name was chosen because the devotion of the "Most Sacred Heart of Jesus" was widely practised by the Catholic Church in the second half of the 19th century. In this devotion the heart of Jesus is viewed as a symbol of "God's boundless and passionate love for mankind". Although the devotion is much older, it was consecrated by Pope Pius X only in 1899, and hence, two years after the consecration of the Herz-Jesu-Kirche.

 

The Blaue Brücke, whose actual name is Wiwilíbrücke (in English: "Wiwili Bridge"), was dedicated after its completion in 1886. At that time it was named Kaiser-Wilhelm-Brücke (in English: "Emperor Wilhelm Bridge"). Because of its blue coating it is best known as the Blaue Brücke today, although it was renamed Wiwillibridge in 2003 after Freiburg’s twin city Wiwili in Nicaragua. By the way, the bridge is closed for all motor traffic. Hence, only pedestrians and cyclists are allowed to cross it.

 

Freiburg im Breisgau, commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. With a population of about 230,000, it is the fourth largest city in Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, and Mannheim. The town is located in the very southwest of Germany, in the tri-state-area near the French and Swiss border. It is also situated on the southwestern edge of the Black Forest and traversed by the Dreisam River.

 

Freiburg is a famous old German university town and archiepiscopal seat. It was founded by Konrad and Duke Berthold III of Zaehringen in 1120 as a free market town. This town was strategically located at a junction of trade routes between the Mediterranean Sea and the North Sea regions, as well as the Rhine and Danube rivers. In 1200, Freiburg's population numbered approximately 6,000 people. At about that time, under the rule of Bertold V, the last duke of Zaehringen, the city began construction of its Freiburg Minster on the site of an older parish church.

 

At the end of the thirteenth century there was a feud between the citizens of Freiburg and their lord, Count Egino II of Freiburg. Egino II raised taxes and sought to limit the citizens' freedom, after which the locals used catapults to destroy the count's castle atop the Schlossberg (in English: "Castle Hill"), a hill that overlooks the city centre. The furious count called on his brother-in-law the Bishop of Strasbourg, Konradius von Lichtenberg, for help, who responded by marching with his army to Freiburg.

 

According to an old Freiburg legend, a butcher named Hauri stabbed the Bishop of Strasbourg to death. But it was a Pyrrhic victory, since henceforth the citizens of Freiburg had to pay an annual expiation of 300 marks in silver to the count of Freiburg until 1368. In that year the citizens were fed up with their lords, and the town purchased its independence from them. Freiburg turned itself over to the protection of the Habsburg dynasty, which allowed the city to retain a large measure of freedom.

 

The silver mines in the neighbourhood of Freiburg provided an important source of capital for the town and the silver even made Freiburg one of the richest cities in Europe. In 1377, the cities of Freiburg, Basel, Colmar, and Breisach entered into a monetary alliance known as the Rappenpfennig Collective. This alliance facilitated commerce among the cities and lasted until the end of the 16th century.

 

In 1457, Albrecht VI, Regent of Further Austria, established the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, one of Germany's oldest universities. In 1520, Freiburg decided not to take part in the Reformation and became an important centre for Catholicism on the Upper Rhine. Erasmus of Rotterdam moved here after Basel had accepted the Reformation. Being in need of finding a scapegoat for calamities such as the Black Plague, the city became a centre of witch-hunt in the 16th century.

 

The 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries were turbulent times for Freiburg: At the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, Freiburg had 10,000 to 14,000 residents, but by its end only 2,000 remained. During this war and other conflicts, the city belonged at various times to the Austrians, the French, the Swedes, the Spaniards, and various members of the German Confederation.

 

Between 1648 and 1805, when the city was not under French occupation it was the administrative headquarters of Further Austria, the Habsburg territories in the southwest of Germany. In 1805, the city, together with the Breisgau and Ortenau areas, finally became part of Baden. In 1827, when the Archdiocese of Freiburg was founded, Freiburg became the seat of a Catholic archbishop.

 

During World War II, Freiburg was heavily bombed. In May 1940, aircraft of the German Luftwaffe mistakenly dropped approximately 60 bombs on Freiburg near the railway station, killing 57 people. And on 27th November 1944, a raid by more than 300 bombers of the RAF Bomber Command destroyed a large portion of the city centre, with the notable exception of the minster, which was only lightly damaged. However, after the war, the city was rebuilt judiciously on its medieval plan.

The Mute Swan is a well known bird in the British Isles, often frequenting public parks, and being tame are a favourite with people of all ages who like to feed them. This tameness has found them a special place in the hearts of many people in Britain, thus ensuring that it is treated with fondness and respect.

The Mute Swan is one of 7 species of swan worldwide and is the largest British bird. Adult females weigh around 9kg, with males around 11kg, although weights of up to 15kg have been recorded. The Male is known as a Cob, the female as a Pen and the young as cygnets.

British Mute Swans are normally found in low lying areas and are are fairly sedentary, Movements of over 100 km being uncommon due to the general availability of food. In some other countries they do migrate considerable distances in search of food during the winter months.

 

History and Customs

For many centuries, Mute Swans in Britain were domesticated for food, with individuals being marked by nicks on their webs (feet) or beak to indicate ownership. These marks were registered with the Crown and a Royal Swanherd was appointed. Any birds not so marked became Crown property, hence the swan becoming known as the "Royal Bird". It is quite possible that this domestication saved the swan for being hunted to extinction in Britain.

The swans were rounded up at a swan-upping, and although they have not been kept as a food source since the beginning of this century, the tradition is still practised by The Worshipful Companies of the Vintners and Dyers on the River Thames in London. At Abbotsbury in Dorset there is a large colony of swans which has existed for 600 years with the swans being managed in a similar way as they have been for the last few centuries.

As well as being a source of food other parts of the bird were used; feathers as quills for writing; the leathery web for making purses and wing bones for making whistles.

 

Life Cycle

Mute Swans do not normally start to breed until they are at least 3 years old. Between March and May a huge nest is constructed, in which the pen lays a clutch of normally between 3 and 7 eggs (although as many as 13 have been recorded). The eggs are laid at 2 day intervals, with incubation starting with the last egg and taking 35 days. During the breeding season the male becomes very territorial and aggressive to any intruders. This behaviour has been known to extend to swans fighting to the death. They often threaten humans who venture too close to their nests while issuing a warning call (au.file), but, although they can inflict a painful blow with their wings, contrary to popular belief they do not bite.

    

The cygnets when hatched are grey and downy, but this down is soon replaced by brown feathers, which gradually turn white during the next 12 months. The parent birds strongly protect their offspring for the first few months but will drive them away by the following breeding season.

The cygnets will normally join flocks of other non breeding swans, especially during the moulting season in July-August when they moult all their feathers and for a short time become flightless. Over the next two years the immature swans may start to form a pair bond with a mate and will look for a suitable territory on which to breed.

It is a popular misconception that Mute Swans pair for life and that a bird will pine to death when its partner dies. This is far from true, with some birds having as many as 4 mates in a life time, and in some cases actually 'divorcing' a mate in favour of a new one. There have even been incestuous relationships reported. However research does show that well established pairs tend to be more successful at raising their young.

Mute Swans have been known to live for over 25 years, but most only survive to 5 or 6 years old. Many cygnets die in their first 12 months, often due to flying accidents.

 

Lead Poisoning

In the 1960s the Swan population in some areas of Great Britain decreased dramatically. Investigations into the causes of death revealed that a high proportion of birds were dying from lead poisoning. Many birds that were post-mortemed were found to contain lead shot, similar to that used by anglers, in their gizzards (a bird's stomach). It was assumed that swans were picking the shot up as they ingested the grit with which they grind down food. The lead, being soft, is ground down by the gizzard and absorbed into the bloodstream, causing muscular problems. This gives swans the appearance of having a kinked neck, as the muscles weaken and the bird is unable to support its neck correctly.

One of the puzzling questions however was why after centuries of anglers using lead shot did the population suddenly start to decrease?

One theory was that the quantity of lead shot discarded had built up over the years to a high level, this was not accepted by many anglers or conservationists. In their book The Mute Swan, Birkhead & Perrins suggest that it was due to the change in angling techniques and materials. Until the 1950s anglers had used cotton line along with a "hook length", a piece of catgut in turn attached to the hook, which was reused as often as possible. With the advent of nylon monofilament line, there was a greater tendency for anglers to discard the line between float and hook, to which the shot is attached, often into the water where it would become entwined in aquatic vegetation and could then easily be ingested by a swan whilst feeding.

This seems a more likely explanation of the sudden increase in the deaths caused by lead poisoning. Indeed, in the few years prior to the banning of the use of lead shot in Britain, the number of lead related deaths in the North West decreased, possibly due to the growing number of anglers "pole fishing", whereby the nylon line is reused in much the same way as catgut was.

Death by lead poisoning is no longer a major problem (only 6 in the study area since 1988), but it is suspected that lower levels of lead poisoning may be contributing to deaths caused by flying accidents, as agility and eyesight may be affected, although further research is still required

  

Mit Fischerstechen wird ein alter Fischerbrauch bezeichnet. Der gleiche Brauch ist auch als Schifferstechen bekannt, der seinen Ursprung meist in der Fluss-Transportschifffahrt hat, z.B. der Salzschifffahrt

 

. Es stellt einen Wettkampf zwischen zwei Mannschaften dar, die auf (Ruder-) Booten gegeneinander antreten. Ziel ist es in der Regel, die Mitglieder der anderen Mannschaften mit Hilfe eines Speers von ihren Booten ins Wasser zu stoßen.

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Water jousting is a sport practised principally in France and also Switzerland and Germany. It is a form of jousting where the adversaries carrying a lance and protected only by a shield stand on a platform on the stern of a boat. The boat is propelled by oarsmen or, in some cases, a motor may be used. The aim of the sport is to send the adversary into the water whilst maintaining one's own balance on the platform.

 

The jousters stand on a wooden platform on their boats. As the two competing boats draw level with each other, each jouster, protected by their shield, uses their lance to push his opponent off the platform and into the water. The exact rules of the contest vary from region to region and country to country.

Digitally composed image

The original craft is exposed in Technical Museum of Vedim Zadorozhny, Moscow.

www.tmuseum.ru/en/collection/catalog_5/135.htm

 

The Yakovlev Yak-38 (Russian: Як-38, NATO reporting name: Forger) was Soviet Naval Aviation's first and only operational VTOL strike fighter aircraft.

Design and development

The first drawings showed a supersonic aircraft strongly resembling by the Hawker P.1154 in study in the United Kingdom but with two R27-300 engines. Supersonic performances would have implied many difficulties of development, and it was decided to initially develop a relatively simple aircraft limited to Mach 0.95. Although the Yak-38 and Yak-38M were developed from the land-based Yakovlev Yak-36, the aircraft had almost nothing in common.

 

The Prototype VM-01 was finished on April 14, 1970. Though outwardly similar to the British Harrier Jump Jet, it followed a completely different configuration. Apart from having a vectorable engine in the rear used for flight, two smaller, less powerful engines were housed in the front portion of the aircraft and used purely for take-off and landing. (The Harrier uses only one engine, vectoring its thrust through four nozzles.) The aircraft used a similar layout to the German experimental VTOL strike fighter, the VFW VAK 191B, which began development in 1961, and the contemporary Dassault Mirage IIIV.

  

A diagram showing the lift forces on a Yak-38 in VTOL modeThe Yak 36 was sent for tests in May and June 1970. Mikhail Deksbakh carried out the first flight of the VM-02 in conventional mode on January 15, 1971. The VM-03 made its first flight in short takeoff mode on May 25, 1971. Sea trials aboard the aircraft carrier ("aviation cruiser") Kiev were observed in 1975. 231 Yak-38 aircraft were produced, including 38 two-seat trainers (Yak-38U). These were based on the four Kiev class aircraft carriers.

 

The Yak-38 used a hands-free landing system. The aircraft could negotiate a telemetry/telecommand link with a computer system in the aircraft carrier which would allow it to be guided onto the deck with no interaction from the pilot.

Markings

The initial colour scheme worn by the AV-MF Yak-38 consisted of dark green anti-corrosion paint on the undersides of the aircraft, with dark blue upper surfaces. This was later replaced by a light grey over dark grey scheme, frequently associated with the Yak-38M. An unusual green-over-silver "tiger" camouflage scheme, reportedly seen on an aircraft onboard Leningrad in 1986, was probably applied for one cruise only. Special camouflage schemes may also have been applied to aircraft involved in the Romb-1 trials in Afghanistan in 1980.

Operational history

The majority of Yak-36M initial production deliveries were to the 279 OKShAP (Otdelnyi Korabelnyi Shturmovoi Aviatsionnyi Polk, Independent Shipboard Attack Air Regiment) initially based at Saki, the AV-MF’s training centre in Crimea. Pilots for this unit were drawn from the Yakovlev OKB and the LII at Zhukovskii, as well as from the AV-MF. Established as early as December 1973, the 279 OKShAP of the Black Sea Fleet made use of a dummy Kiev class aircraft carrier deck, and also operated a pair of MiG-21UMs (and, briefly, Ka-25s) for training. The first AV-MF squadron embarked on Kiev in July 1976. On the conclusion of acceptance tests for the Yak-36M initial series in August 1976 (Kiev was underway in the Atlantic at this point), the aircraft was formally accepted by the AV-MF in October, under the new designation Yak-38.

 

On its arrival in Murmansk, the 279 OKShAP was transferred to the Northern Fleet, with subsequent flying operations mainly being conducted from Severomorsk-3. The 299 IIAP (Issledovatlesko-Instruktorskiy Aviatsionnyi Polk, Research and Instructor Air Regiment) had been formed as a training unit at Saki in September 1976 to replace the previous unit within the Black Sea Fleet.

 

The February 1978 entry into service of Minsk, the second Kiev class ship, was accompanied by a further series of Yak-38 shipboard trials, beginning in April 1978, and with the emphasis now placed on developing procedure for STOL operations. The passage of Minsk out of the Black Sea in February 1979 was duly followed by a major exercise involving the first two ships of the Project 1143 class in the Mediterranean. On this occasion, five aircraft from each vessel conducted formation exercises in proximity to NATO observers.

 

The Yak-38’s limited useful payload was always its Achilles’ heel, but the high ambient temperatures that had been encountered in the Black Sea during the summer 1976 trials frequently prevented the aircraft from carrying any external stores at all, despite a reduced fuel load. Similar problems were then encountered when Minsk sailed off the coast of West Africa and then in the Indian Ocean; in these instances the lift jets proved unwilling to start under hot and humid conditions. (An oxygen-boosting intake system[clarification needed] helped alleviate the problem, and was installed from September 1979 during routine overhauls.) In July 1979, Minsk arrived in the Sea of Japan, where the vessel was home-ported at Strelok Bay, the Yak-38 component of its air wing thereafter being provided by the 311 OKShAP subordinate to the Pacific Fleet. The 311 OKShAP was the second AV-MF Yak-38 unit, and had been established in March 1976.

 

During its first few years of ship-borne operations the Yak-38 was not cleared to make rolling take-offs and run-on landings, leading some Western observers[who?] to believe that the fundamentals of its propulsion design restricted the type to VTOL operations.[citation needed] In fact, shipboard short take-off trials had begun by December 1979, while experiments with run-on landings followed onboard Minsk between September 1980 and February 1981. V/STOL operations were made easier by the addition of a refined automatic flight-control system, linked to a thumb switch on the pilot’s stick. Rolling take-offs were conducted with the lift engines deflected aft, the main engine nozzles being rotated automatically from 60° to 25° during the take-off run, before being slowly returned to the horizontal as the lift engines were shut down.

 

The Kiev class ships normally embarked a total of 12 single-seat Yak-38s, supplemented by two or three two-seat Yak-38Us, as part of an independent aviation regiment that also included two squadrons of (mainly anti-submarine warfare) helicopters. Of the seven landing pads available on the deck of each of the Project 1143s, all but one could accommodate the Yak-38.

 

During April and May 1980 four Yak-38s and four AV-MF pilots were deployed to Afghanistan as part of a 50-day trial codenamed Romb-1, although the ‘hot and high’ conditions prevented any meaningful combat missions from being undertaken – in total, 12 combat sorties were made, but only two 100 kg (220 lb) bombs could be carried. In the event, any involvement would have been further limited by the ‘near-operational’ nature of the Romb-1 deployment (which also involved the first and third prototype Su-25s). The aircraft involved were not intended to be subject to combat, but rather tested under conditions that simulated the battlefield to a high degree. Despite their official non-operational nature, aircraft involved in the Romb trials could be requested to undertake combat sorties by local divisional commanders, on an ad hoc basis. The Yak-38s and prototype Su-25s operated out of a specially prepared air base near Shindand. Even with a much-reduced fuel and weapons load, the Yak-38 proved incapable of operating during the hot daylight hours (after around 0500 hrs).

 

In September 1982, Novorossiysk - the third Kiev class vessel - was commissioned. By now the V/STOL technique had been well practised, and the resulting increase in the Yak-38’s overall performance and capability was exploited during the passage of Novorossiysk from Severomorsk to join the Pacific Fleet. In a maritime context, the Yak-38 was not limited to the decks of the Kiev class. In September 1983, AV-MF pilots operated from the civilian ‘Ro-Ro’ vessel Agostinio Neto, and NII-VVS pilots conducted further tests from another ‘Ro-Ro’, Nikolai Cherkasov. In both cases, use was made of a heat-resistant landing platform; further land-based trials tested the practicality of dispersed landing platforms, in a similar concept to the RAF’s Harrier operations in West Germany.

General characteristics

 

Crew: One

Length: 16.37 m (50 ft 1 in)

Wingspan: 7.32 m (24 ft 0 in)

Height: 4.25 m (14 ft 5 in)

Wing area: 18.5 m² (199 ft²)

Empty weight: 7,385 kg (16,281 lb)

Loaded weight: kg (lb)

Max takeoff weight: 11,300 kg (28,700 lb)

Powerplant: 1 x Tumansky R-28 V-300 turbojet, 66.7 kN (15,000 lbf)

Powerplant: 2× Rybinsk RD-38 turbojets, 31.9 kN (7,870 lbf>) each

Performance

 

Maximum speed: 1 280 km/h (795 mph)

Range: 1,300 km[3] (807 miles)

Service ceiling: 11,000 m (36,089 ft)

Rate of climb: 4,500 m/min (14,760 ft/min)

Wing loading: kg/m² (lb/ft²)

Thrust/weight: 1+

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yak-38

The driver of West Midlands Travel's 6404 makes a spirited run for the short, steep incline into Stourbridge Bus Station in June 1989.

 

In the backdrop, the framework of a new car showroom is well advanced, this standing on what had been the former Midland Red/West Midlands bus garage at Stourbridge that had closed in January 1985.

 

A note I made on the slide frame at the time records 6404 as being the last Fleetline working out of Hartshill Bus Garage. I stand to be corrected and welcome further information.

 

Hartshill garage was a former Midland Red bus garage that would be closed by West Midlands Travel in September 1993. The eventual closure of all the former Midland Red bus garages operated by WMPTE and its successors, was seen by the company as the only method available to rid themselves of the costly '5 from 7' days working practises. 5 from 7 working was practised in all former Midland Red garages, and had been part of the guaranteed terms and conditions carried over from the takeover of Midland Red's Birmingham & Black Country operations in December 1973.

 

The closure of the last ex Midland Red garages in the Black Country in 1993 led to the buyout of Black Country independent Metrowest. This was an intermediary low-cost solution until the company established a new operational garage at Pensnett that conformed to standard working practises.

 

Formerly a Wolverhampton based bus, 6404 had originally been powered by a Leyland 680 diesel engine, but this was later changed out for a standard Gardner 6LXB diesel engine. As far as I am aware, 6404 met with a scrap yard ending following withdrawal from service.

 

Photo: 17th June 1989. Re scanned and re posted to replace a much earlier posting.

This two-storeyed stone residence was constructed in 1865 - 1868 for Edward Tufnell, the first Anglican Bishop of Brisbane (1860 - 1874), as his See house. It remained the home of the Anglican primates of Brisbane until 1964.

 

In 1862 Tufnell, on behalf of the Anglican Church, received from Emmeline Leslie a gift of 16 acres (6.5 hectares) of eucalypt woodland along the Milton Road. The site was earmarked for a See house.

 

During a short sojourn in England, Tufnell raised £4,400 for the Brisbane Diocese. Despite popular opposition to the expense, £3,000 of this was spent constructing Bishopsbourne.

 

The architect was Benjamin Backhouse, who had practised in Geelong, Ballarat, and London, before arriving in Brisbane in 1861. Backhouse left Brisbane for Sydney in 1868, but in the short time he was resident in Queensland, his work was prolific, ranging from houses to churches to school to hotels to commercial and warehouse premises. Among these works were a number of substantial Brisbane residences - such as Cintra at Bowen Hills in 1863 - 1864, Fernberg at Bardon 1865, and Baroona at Rosalie in 1866 - and several ecclesiastic buildings, including the first All Saints Church on Wickham Terrace, erected in 1861 - 1862; St Stephen's School and convent in 1862; St Mary's Convent at Ipswich in 1863 - 1863; the second St Stephen's Cathedral, commenced in 1863 - 1864, and St Mary's Catholic Church at Warwick, erected 1863-65. In the mid-1860s he designed National Schools at Toowoomba, Warwick, Condamine, Laidley, Goondiwindi, Nanango, Bald Hills, Bowen, Maryborough, and the Fortitude Valley for the Queensland Board of Education. He also designed the first Brisbane Grammar School in Roma Street, constructed 1868 - 1869.

 

During construction of the residence, much of the indigenous woodland was cleared. Remnants have survived, but most of the eucalypts are secondary growth. Garden beds for flowers, vegetables and fruit were established in the 1870s. Hoop and Bunya pines, staghorns, and elkhorns were introduced at this period as well. Pencil pines were planted after 1912.

 

In the 1870s, porphyry and sandstone gateposts were erected on Milton Road, defining the entrance to the carriage approach to the See house. A timber chapel designed by diocesan architect Richard George Suter was constructed in the grounds 1870, but was replaced in 1912 by the current stone building.

 

In 1886 Brisbane architects Banks and Carandini designed a two-storeyed brick and stone kitchen/service wing to replace an earlier wooden structure.

 

During the 1930s a number of significant changes were made to the grounds of Bishopsbourne. Land fronting Milton and Baroona Roads and Heussler Terrace was subdivided and sold, reducing the area to 12 acres. Stone terraces along the eastern and western slopes were constructed, using relief labour. These were planted with shrubs, annuals and a bougainvillea hedge, but have been largely grassed over since.

 

In 1936 St Francis' Theological College was transferred from Nundah to the grounds of Bishopsbourne, where a wooden dormitory and classroom building was constructed. Two brick and concrete structures were erected for the College in 1959, one being the vice-principal's residence and the other an award-winning library.

 

Some restoration work at Bishopsbourne was undertaken in 1962, particularly of the cedar joinery. However, in 1964 Archbishop Strong moved to Eldernell at Hamilton, which became the new Bishopsbourne, and the former See house at Milton became part of St Francis' Theological College. The 1860s core was refurbished as the principal's residence, and the 1880s service wing was converted into quarters for the vice-principal.

 

During the 1980s, pressure for increased student accommodation resulted in the construction of a number of two-storeyed, brick, semi-detached townhouses in the grounds of St Francis' Theological College. A new timber administration building and a set of timber townhouses were constructed in the early 1990s.

 

Source: Queensland Heritage Register.

Museum École de Nancy, France

 

Entirely dedicated to the Nancy Art nouveau movement, this villa houses some of the most beautiful examples of work by Gallé, Majorelle, Vallin, etc., recreating the atmosphere of a residential home from 1900. the collection give a good idea of the diversity of techniques practised by Ecole de Nancy artists: furniture, glassware, stained glass, leatherwork, ceramics. The garden contains the plants favoured by the Ecole de Nancy artists and its pavillon.

I love doing sensual stocking teases and over the years I practised stocking adjustments so often that I can easily do them without even looking. So here is the training result: the no-look stocking adjustment, as always executed with a joyous smile. Clearly I am able to do this on my own, yet a sweet bit of help is much more fun and always much appreciated.

Masai people in Tanzania.

 

The Masai tribe: this warrior tribe of nomadic pastoralists are descendants of Nilotic and Cushitic people originally from north of Lake Turkana over 10 centuries ago. Their life is dominated by their herds of their cattle and livestock. They often move hundreds of kilometers with large herds of livestock in search of water and rich pastures. Their diet is based on fresh / curdled milk and meat from their livestock. Centuries ago the Masai were feared as ruthless conquerors and cattle rustlers who invaded other tribal areas in search of bigger grazing land and more cattle. The Masai are also famous for drinking a mixture of cattle blood and milk during ceremonial rites. An arrow is shot at close range to punture the jugular vein of the cow. The blood is drawn into a skin gourd and later mixed with milk to be drunk by the gathering. The animal is not left to bleed but is carefully tended to, till it fully heals.Their rites and traditional ceremonies are taken very seriously, and it is not common to allow outsiders to attend. Elders play a very important role in the community and society at large. There is then the 'moran' or warrior age group, men who have been circumcised and been initiated into this group and are expected to safeguard the herds of cattle from theft or attack.

Cattle are the mainstay of the traditional Masai way of life, and their importance is embedded deep into the hearts and minds of these peoples. So much so that one of the traditional Maasai beliefs was that God sent all the cattle down to earth only for the Masai. This long justified their cattle rustling activites on surrounding tribes, who they believed had 'stolen' any cattle they had from the Maasai. Social structures in the traditional way of life reflect the principles of a male dominated society with polygamy being a norm. Wife inheritance subject to certain conventions, was also practised. The traditional Masai dwelling , known as the 'manyatta', was infact constructed by the women, using a wooden structure and a plaster made of cowdung and mud. Several of these manyattas could form a household for a maasai family headed by the man. Although remnants of the traditional Masai way of life still remain, there are inevitable changes on a large scale. There are several eminent members of the Masai community in different spheres of life in Kenya. The more traditional and conservative members of the tribe still do live almost like they used to say 80 years ago, but the majority of the community is accepting change and are embracing education. Permanent settlement is also becoming a normal way of life for many Masai.

   

+++++++++ FROM WIKIPEDIA +++++++

  

The pointe de Pen-Hir (Breton - Beg Penn Hir) is a promontory of the Crozon peninsula in Brittany, to the south-west of Camaret-sur-Mer. On a clear day there are views to the Pointe du Raz and the islands of Sein and Ouessant and to Pointe Saint-Mathieu. The cliffs are as tall as 70 metres (230 ft) high.[1]

 

It is the site of the Monument to the Bretons of Free France, known as the Cross of Pen-Hir and inaugurated by General Charles de Gaulle in 1960. It is intended to bear witness to the group of Free French Bretons who founded Sao Breiz in Great Britain during the Second World War. It was created in 1949-1951 by architect Jean-Baptiste Mathon and sculptor Victor-François Bazin

 

« Aux Bretons de la France Libre - MCMXL - MCMXLV - La France a perdu une bataille, mais la France n'a pas perdu la guerre. Dans l'univers libre des forces immenses n'ont pas encore donné. Un jour ces forces écraseront l'ennemi. »

 

"To the Bretons of Free France - MCMXL - MCMXLV - France has lost a battle, but France has not lost the war. In the free world immense forces have not yet given up. One day these forces will crush the enemy."

 

On the back of the cross is an inscription in Breton, "Kentoc'h mervel eget em zaotra", taken from the motto of Brittany: "death rather than defilement".

 

Brittany (/ˈbrɪtəni/; French: Bretagne [bʁətaɲ] (About this soundlisten); Breton: Breizh, pronounced [bʁɛjs] or [bʁɛx];[1] Gallo: Bertaèyn [bəʁtaɛɲ]) is a peninsula, historical country, and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period of Roman occupation. It became an independent kingdom and then a duchy before being united with the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province governed as a separate nation under the crown.

 

Brittany has also been referred to as Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain, with which it shares an etymology).[2] It is bordered by the English Channel to the north, Normandy to the northeast, eastern Pays de la Loire to the southeast, the Bay of Biscay to the south, and the Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its land area is 34,023 km2 (13,136 sq mi).

 

Brittany is the site of some of the world's oldest standing architecture, home to the Barnenez, the Tumulus Saint-Michel and others, which date to the early 5th millennium BC.[3][4] Today, the historical province of Brittany is split among five French departments: Finistère in the west, Côtes-d'Armor in the north, Ille-et-Vilaine in the northeast, Morbihan in the south and Loire-Atlantique in the southeast. Loire-Atlantique now belongs to the Pays de la Loire region while the other four departments make up the Brittany region.

 

At the 2010 census, the population of historic Brittany was estimated to be 4,475,295. In 2017, the largest metropolitan areas were Nantes (934,165 inhabitants), Rennes (733,320 inhabitants), and Brest (321,364 inhabitants).[5] Brittany is the traditional homeland of the Breton people and is one of the six Celtic nations,[6][7][8][9] retaining a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history. A nationalist movement seeks greater autonomy within the French Republic.[10]

 

Etymology

The word Brittany, along with its French, Breton and Gallo equivalents Bretagne, Breizh and Bertaèyn, derive from the Latin Britannia, which means "land of the Britons". This word had been used by the Romans since the 1st century to refer to Great Britain, and more specifically the Roman province of Britain. This word derives from a Greek word, Πρεττανικη (Prettanike) or Βρεττανίαι (Brettaniai), used by Pytheas, an explorer from Massalia who visited the British Isles around 320 BC. The Greek word itself comes from the common Brythonic ethnonym reconstructed as *Pritanī, itself from Proto-Celtic *kʷritanoi (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷer- 'to cut, make').

 

The Romans called Brittany Armorica. It was a quite indefinite region that extended along the English Channel coast from the Seine estuary, then along the Atlantic coast to the Loire estuary and, according to several sources, maybe to the Garonne estuary. This term probably comes from a Gallic word, aremorica, which means "close to the sea". Another name, Letauia (in English "Litavis"), was used until the 12th century. It possibly means "wide and flat" or "to expand" and it gave the Welsh name for Brittany: Llydaw.

 

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, many Britons settled in western Armorica, and the region started to be called Britannia, although this name only replaced Armorica in the sixth century or perhaps by the end of the fifth.[13]

 

Breton-speaking people may pronounce the word Breizh in two different ways, according to their region of origin. Breton can be divided into two main dialects: the KLT (Kerne-Leon-Tregor) and the dialect of Vannes. KLT speakers pronounce it [brɛjs] and would write it Breiz, while the Vannetais speakers pronounce it [brɛχ] and would write it Breih. The official spelling is a compromise between both variants, with a z and an h together. In 1941, efforts to unify the dialects led to the creation of the so-called Breton zh, a standard which has never been widely accepted.[1] On its side, Gallo has never had a widely accepted writing system and several ones coexist. For instance, the name of the region in that language can be written Bertaèyn in ELG script, or Bertègn in MOGA, and a couple of other scripts also exist.

 

History

Brittany has been inhabited by humans since the Lower Palaeolithic. This population was scarce and very similar to the other Neanderthals found in the whole of Western Europe. Their only original feature was a distinct culture, called "Colombanian".[15] One of the oldest hearths in the world has been found in Plouhinec, Finistère.

 

Homo sapiens settled in Brittany around 35,000 years ago. They replaced or absorbed the Neanderthals and developed local industries, similar to the Châtelperronian or to the Magdalenian. After the last glacial period, the warmer climate allowed the area to become heavily wooded. At that time, Brittany was populated by relatively large communities who started to change their lifestyles from a life of hunting and gathering, to become settled farmers. Agriculture was introduced during the 5th millennium BC by migrants from the south and east. However, the Neolithic Revolution in Brittany did not happen due to a radical change of population, but by slow immigration and exchange of skills.[16]

 

Neolithic Brittany is characterised by important megalithic production and sites such as Quelfénnec, it is sometimes designated as the "core area" of megalithic culture.[17] The oldest monuments, cairns, were followed by princely tombs and stone rows. The Morbihan département, on the southern coast, comprises a large share of these structures, including the Carnac stones and the Broken Menhir of Er Grah in the Locmariaquer megaliths, the largest single stone erected by Neolithic people.

 

Gallic era

During the protohistorical period, Brittany was inhabited by five Celtic tribes:[18]

 

The Curiosolitae, who lived around the present town of Corseul. Their territory encompassed parts of Côtes-d'Armor, Ille-et-Vilaine and Morbihan départements.

The Namnetes, who lived in the current Loire-Atlantique département (in today's administrative région of Pays de la Loire), north of the Loire. They gave their name to the city of Nantes. The south bank of the river was occupied by an allied tribe, the Ambilatres,[19] whose existence and territory remain unsure.[18]

The Osismii, who lived in the western part of Brittany. Their territory comprised the Finistère département and the western extremity of Côtes-d'Armor and Morbihan.

The Redones (or Rhedones), who lived in the eastern part of the Ille-et-Vilaine département. They gave their name to the city of Rennes (Roazhon in Breton language, in the center of the département) and to the town of Redon (in the south of the département, bordering the département of Loire-Atlantique in the administrative région of Pays de la Loire, where its suburb town of Saint-Nicolas-de-Redon is located; however the city of Redon was founded around AD 832 under the initial name of Riedones, long after the Redones people were assimilated to Bretons; the cultural link between Riedones and the former Redones people is highly probable but difficult to recover and the name of Riedones may have been written from a local usage preserving the name of the former people in the vernacular oral language from a reading of an ancient Greek orthography).

The Veneti, who lived in the present Morbihan département and gave their name to the city of Vannes. Despite confusion by the classical scholar Strabo, they were unrelated to the Adriatic Veneti.

 

Those people had strong economic ties to the Insular Celts, especially for the tin trade[citation needed]. Several tribes also belonged to an "Armorican confederation" which, according to Julius Caesar, gathered the Curiosolitae, the Redones, the Osismii, the Unelli, the Caletes, the Lemovices and the Ambibarii.[20] The last four peoples mentioned by Caesar were respectively located in Cotentin (Lower-Normandy), pays de Caux (Upper-Normandy), Limousin (Aquitany) and the location of the Ambibarii is unknown. The Caletes are sometimes also considered as Belgians and ″Lemovices″ is probably a mistake for ″Lexovii″ (Lower-Normandy).[citation needed]

 

Gallo-Roman era

The region became part of the Roman Republic in 51 BC. It was included in the province of Gallia Lugdunensis in 13 BC. Gallic towns and villages were redeveloped according to Roman standards, and several cities were created. These cities are Condate (Rennes), Vorgium (Carhaix), Darioritum (Vannes) and Condevincum or Condevicnum (Nantes). Together with Fanum Martis (Corseul), they were the capitals of the local civitates. They all had a grid plan and a forum, and sometimes a temple, a basilica, thermae or an aqueduct, like Carhaix.

 

The Romans also built three major roads through the region. However, most of the population remained rural. The free peasants lived in small huts, whereas the landowners and their employees lived in proper villae rusticae. The Gallic deities continued to be worshiped, and were often assimilated to the Roman gods. Only a small number of statues depicting Roman gods were found in Brittany, and most of the time they combine Celtic elements.[21]

 

During the 3rd century AD, the region was attacked several times by Franks, Alamanni and pirates. At the same time, the local economy collapsed and many farming estates were abandoned. To face the invasions, many towns and cities were fortified, like Nantes, Rennes and Vannes.[21]

A French map of the traditional regions of Brittany in Ancien Régime France. The earlier state of Domnonia or Domnonée that united Brittany comprised the counties along the north coast

 

Immigration of Britons

Toward the end of the 4th century, the Britons of what is now Wales and the South-Western peninsula of Great Britain began to emigrate to Armorica.[citation needed]

The Romano-Britons

 

The history behind such an establishment is unclear, but medieval Breton, Angevin and Welsh sources connect it to a figure known as Conan Meriadoc. Welsh literary sources assert that Conan came to Armorica on the orders of the Roman usurper Magnus Maximus,[a] who sent some of his British troops to Gaul to enforce his claims and settled them in Armorica. This account was supported by the Counts of Anjou, who claimed descent from a Roman soldier[b] expelled from Lower Brittany by Conan on Magnus's orders.[citation needed]

The Refugee-Britons

 

Regardless of the truth of this story, Brythonic (British Celtic) settlement probably increased during the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries.[citation needed]

 

Scholars such as Léon Fleuriot have suggested a two-wave model of migration from Britain which saw the emergence of an independent Breton people and established the dominance of the Brythonic Breton language in Armorica.[22] Their petty kingdoms are now known by the names of the counties that succeeded them—Domnonée (Devon), Cornouaille (Cornwall), Léon (Caerleon); but these names in Breton and Latin are in most cases identical to their British homelands. (In Breton and French, however, Gwened or Vannetais continued the name of the indigenous Veneti.) Although the details remain confused, these colonies consisted of related and intermarried dynasties which repeatedly unified (as by the 7th-century Saint Judicaël) before splintering again according to Celtic inheritance practices.[citation needed]

Resistance

 

The area was finally consolidated in the 840s under Nominoe in resistance to Frankish control.[23] Among the immigrant Britons, there were some clergymen who helped the evangelisation of the region, which was still pagan, particularly in rural areas.[citation needed]

The Brythonic community around the 6th century. The sea was a communication medium rather than a barrier.

Battle of the Catalaunian Plains

 

The army recruited for Flavius Aetius to combat Attila the Hun at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains included Romans, Visigoths, Franks, Alans and Armoricans, amongst others. The Alans were placed front and centre, opposite the Huns. The Armoricans supplied archers who attacked the Huns' front lines during the main battle and thwarted Attila's night assault on the Roman camp with a hail of arrows "like rain". After the battle was won, Aetius sent the Alans to Armorica and Galicia.

Riothamus

 

The late 5th century Brittonic leader Riothamus received correspondence from the eminent Roman jurist Sidonius Apollinaris and was called "King of the Britons" by Jordanes. Some suggest that he was a Breton, though others believe that he was from Britain, pointing to the passage that he arrived in the land of the Biturges "by way of Ocean", which would hardly have been efficient or required for a Breton. Both historians describe Riothamus's losing battle against King Euric of the Visigoths at Déols around the year 470.

 

In response to a plea from the Roman Emperor Anthemius, Riothamus had led twelve thousand men to establish a military presence in Bourges in central Gaul, but was betrayed by Arvandus, the Praetorian Prefect of Gaul, and subsequently ambushed by Euric's army.[c] After a long battle, the Armorican survivors escaped to Avallon in Burgundy, after which they are lost to history. According to Breton king-lists, Riotham survived and reigned as Prince of Domnonia until his death sometime between 500 and 520, though this may have been a different person.

 

Middle Ages

The Kingdom of Brittany

At the beginning of the medieval era, Brittany was divided among three kingdoms, Domnonea, Cornouaille and Broërec. These realms eventually merged into a single state during the 9th century.[24][25] The unification of Brittany was carried out by Nominoe, king between 845 and 851 and considered as the Breton Pater Patriae. His son Erispoe secured the independence of the new kingdom of Brittany and won the Battle of Jengland against Charles the Bald. The Bretons won another war in 867, and the kingdom reached then its maximum extent: It received parts of Normandy, Maine and Anjou and the Channel Islands.

Viking occupation

 

Brittany was heavily attacked by the Vikings at the beginning of the 10th century. The kingdom lost its eastern territories, including Normandy and Anjou, and the county of Nantes was given to Fulk I of Anjou in 909. However, Nantes was seized by the Vikings in 914. At this time Brittany was also called Lydwiccum.[26]

 

The Duchy of Brittany

Nantes was eventually liberated by Alan II of Brittany in 937 with the support of his god-brother King Æthelstan of England.

 

Alan II totally expelled the Vikings from Brittany and recreated a strong Breton state. For aiding in removing the problem, Alan paid homage to Louis IV of France (who was Æthelstan's nephew and had returned from England in the same year as Alan II) and thus Brittany ceased to be a kingdom and became a duchy.

Norman allies

 

Several Breton lords helped William the Conqueror to invade England and received large estates there (e.g. William's double-second cousin Alan Rufus and the latter's brother Brian of Brittany). Some of these lords were powerful rivals.

Internal disputes

 

Medieval Brittany was far from being a united nation. The French king maintained envoys in Brittany, alliances contracted by local lords often overlapped and there was no specific Breton unity. For example, Brittany replaced Latin with French as its official language in the 13th century, 300 years before France did so, and the Breton language didn't have formal status.

 

The foreign policy of the Duchy changed many times; the Dukes were usually independent, but they often contracted alliances with England or France depending on who was threatening them at that point. Their support for each nation became very important during the 14th century because the English kings had started to claim the French throne.

 

The Breton War of Succession, a local episode of the Hundred Years' War, saw the House of Blois, backed by the French, fighting with the House of Montfort, backed by the English. The Montforts won in 1364 and enjoyed a period of total independence until the end of the Hundred Years' War, because France was weakened and stopped sending royal envoys to the Court of Brittany.

 

English diplomatic failures led to the Breton cavalry commanders Arthur, Comte de Richemont (later to become Arthur III, Duke of Brittany) and his nephew Peter II, Duke of Brittany playing key roles on the French side during the deciding stages of the war (including the battles of Patay, Formigny and Castillon and the Treaty of Arras).

 

Brittany importantly lost the Mad War against France in 1488, mostly because of its internal divisions that were exacerbated by the corruption at the court of Francis II, Duke of Brittany. Indeed, some rebel Breton lords were fighting on the French side.

Union with the French Crown and modern period

Main article: Union of Brittany and France

Anne of Brittany is regarded in Brittany as a conscientious ruler who defended the duchy against France.

 

As a result of the Mad War, the Duke Francis II could not have his daughter Anne married without the king of France's consent. Nonetheless, she married the Holy Roman Emperor in 1490, leading to a crisis with France. Charles VIII of France besieged Rennes and had the marriage cancelled. He eventually married Anne of Brittany. After he died childless, the duchess had to marry his heir and cousin Louis XII. Anne unsuccessfully tried to preserve Breton independence, but she died in 1514, and the union between the two crowns was formally carried out by Francis I in 1532. He granted several privileges to Brittany, such as exemption from the gabelle, a tax on salt that was very unpopular in France.[27] Under the Ancien Régime, Brittany and France were governed as separate countries but under the same crown, so Breton aristocrats in the French royal court were classed as Princes étrangers (foreign princes).

 

From the 15th to the 18th century, Brittany reached an economic golden age.[d] The region was located on the seaways near Spain, England and the Netherlands and it greatly benefited from the creation of a French colonial empire. Local seaports like Brest and Saint-Brieuc quickly expanded, and Lorient, first spelled "L'Orient", was founded in the 17th century. Saint-Malo then was known for its corsairs, Brest was a major base for the French Navy and Nantes flourished with the Atlantic slave trade. On its side, the inland provided hemp ropes and canvas and linen sheets. However, Colbertism, which encouraged the creation of many factories, did not favour the Breton industry because most of the royal factories were opened in other provinces. Moreover, several conflicts between France and England led the latter to restrain its trade, and the Breton economy went into recession during the 18th century.

The Centralisation Problem

 

Two significant revolts occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries: the Revolt of the papier timbré (1675) and the Pontcallec conspiracy (1719). Both arose from attempts to resist centralisation and assert Breton constitutional exceptions to tax.[28]

Breton exodus

 

Many Bretons crossed the Atlantic to support the American War of Independence.[29] These included many sailors such as Armand de Kersaint and soldiers such as Charles Armand Tuffin, marquis de la Rouërie.

Since 1789

The mutineers of Fouesnant arrested by the National Guard of Quimper in 1792

 

The Duchy was legally abolished during the French Revolution, in 1789, and divided into five departments. Brittany also lost all its privileges. Three years later, the area became a centre of royalist and Catholic resistance to the Revolution during the Chouannerie. During the 19th century, Brittany remained in economic recession, and many Bretons emigrated to other French regions, particularly to Paris. This trend remained strong until the beginning of the 20th century. Nonetheless, the region was also modernising, with new roads and railways being built, and some places being industrialised. Nantes specialised in shipbuilding and food processing (sugar, exotic fruits and vegetables, fish...), Fougères in glass and shoe production, and metallurgy was practised in small towns such as Châteaubriant and Lochrist, known for its labour movements.

 

The region remained deeply Catholic, and during the Second Empire, the conservative values were strongly reasserted. When the Republic was re-established in 1871, there were rumours that Breton troops were mistrusted and mistreated at Camp Conlie during the Franco-Prussian War because of fears that they were a threat to the Republic.[30]

A Royal Air Force attack on Saint-Malo in 1942

 

During the 19th century, the Breton language started to decline precipitously, mainly because of the Francization policy conducted under the Third Republic. On one hand, children were not allowed to speak Breton at school, and were punished by teachers if they did. Famously, signs in schools read: "It is forbidden to speak Breton and to spit on the floor" ("Il est interdit de parler Breton et de cracher par terre").[31]

The Amoco Cadiz oil spill in 1978 significantly affected the Breton coast

 

At the same time, the Celtic Revival led to the foundation of the Breton Regionalist Union (URB) and later to independence movements linked to Irish, Welsh, and Scottish and Cornish independence parties in the UK, and to pan-Celticism. However, the audience of these movements remained very low and their ideas did not reach a large public until the 20th century. The Seiz Breur movement, created in 1923, permitted a Breton artistic revival[32] but its ties with Nazism and the collaborationism of the Breton National Party during World War II weakened Breton nationalism in the post-war period.

 

Brittany lost 240,000 men during the First World War.[33] The Second World War was also catastrophic for the region. It was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1940 and freed after Operation Cobra in August 1944. However, the areas around Saint-Nazaire and Lorient only surrendered on 10 and 11 May 1945, several days after the German capitulation. The two port towns had been virtually destroyed by Allied air raids, like Brest and Saint-Malo, and other towns, such as Nantes and Rennes, had also suffered.

 

In 1956, Brittany was legally reconstituted as the Region of Brittany, although the region excluded the ducal capital of Nantes and the surrounding area. Nevertheless, Brittany retained its cultural distinctiveness, and a new cultural revival emerged during the 1960s and 1970s. Bilingual schools were opened, singers started to write songs in Breton, and ecological catastrophes such as the Amoco Cadiz oil spill or the Erika oil spill and water pollution from intensive pig farming favoured new movements to protect the natural heritage.

Government and politics

See also: Politics of France

Traditional subdivisions

 

Brittany as a political entity disappeared in 1790, when it was divided into five départements. The Breton départements more or less correspond to the nine Catholic dioceses that appeared at the beginning of the Middle Ages. They were often called "pays" or "bro" ("country" in French and Breton) and they also served as fiscal and military districts.[34] Brittany is also divided between Lower Brittany ("Basse Bretagne" and "Breizh Izel"), corresponding to the western half, where Breton is traditionally spoken, and Upper Brittany ("Haute Bretagne" and "Breizh Uhel"), corresponding to the eastern half, where Gallo is traditionally spoken. The historical Breton dioceses were:

 

Upper Brittany:

The Pays nantais, around Nantes, corresponding to the Loire-Atlantique département.

The Pays rennais, around Rennes, forming part of the Ille-et-Vilaine département.

The Pays de Dol, around Dol-de-Bretagne, corresponding to the northern part of the Ille-et-Vilaine département.

The Pays de Saint-Brieuc, around Saint-Brieuc, forming part of the Côtes-d'Armor département.

The Pays de Saint-Malo, around Saint-Malo, divided between Ille-et-Vilaine, Côtes-d'Armor and Morbihan.

Lower Brittany:

The Pays vannetais, around Vannes, corresponding to the Morbihan département.

The Cornouaille, around Quimper, divided between Finistère and Côtes-d'Armor.

The Léon, around Saint-Pol-de-Léon, corresponding to the northern part of the Finistère département.

The Trégor, around Tréguier, forming part of the Côtes-d'Armor département.

 

During the French Revolution, four dioceses were suppressed and the five remaining ones were modified to have the same administrative borders as the départements.

Capital cities

The Château des ducs de Bretagne in Nantes, permanent residence of the last dukes

 

Brittany has several historical capital cities. When it was an independent duchy, the Estates of Brittany, which can be compared to a parliament, met in various towns: Dinan, Ploërmel, Redon, Rennes, Vitré, Guérande, and, most of all, Vannes, where they met 19 times, and Nantes, 17 times. The Court and the government were also very mobile, and each dynasty favoured its own castles and estates. The dukes mostly lived in Nantes, Vannes, Redon, Rennes, Fougères, Dol-de-Bretagne, Dinan and Guérande. All these towns except Vannes are located in Upper Brittany, thus not in the Breton speaking area.

 

Among all these towns, only Nantes, Rennes and Vannes, which were the biggest ones, could really pretend to the capital status. The dukes were crowned in Rennes and they had a large castle there; it was however destroyed during the 15th century. Vannes, on its side, was the seat of the Chamber of Accounts and of the Parliament until the union with France. The Parliament was then transferred to Rennes, and the Chamber of Accounts to Nantes. Nantes, nicknamed "the city of the Dukes of Brittany", was also the permanent residence of the last dukes. The Château des ducs de Bretagne still stands in the city centre. Nowadays, Rennes is the only official capital of the region of Brittany. It is also the seat of an ecclesiastical province encompassing Brittany and the Pays de la Loire region.

Present subdivisions

See also: Administrative divisions of France, Brittany (administrative region), and Loire-Atlantique

The region Brittany comprises four historical Breton départements. Loire-Atlantique, in light blue, is part of the Pays de la Loire region.

 

During the French Revolution, Brittany was divided into five départements, each made up of three or four arrondissements. The arrondissements are further divided in cantons, which are themselves made up of one or several communes. The communes and the départements have a local council elected by their citizens, but arrondissements and cantons are not run by elected officials. The cantons serve as an electoral district for the election of the département councils and arrondissements are run by a subprefect appointed by the French president. The president also appoints a prefect in each département.

 

Because the départements are small and numerous, the French government tried to create wider regions during the 20th century. For the Breton nationalists, it was an occasion to recreate Brittany as a political and administrative entity, but the new region had to be economically efficient. Nantes and its département, Loire-Atlantique, raised concerns because they were off-centered, more integrated with the Loire Valley than with the Breton peninsula. The French government and local politicians also feared that Nantes, because of its population and its former Breton capital status, would have maintained a harmful competition with Rennes to get the regional institutions and investments.

 

Several drafts for French regions had been proposed since the 1920s, and the definitive regions were drawn in 1956. The new Brittany had four départements, and Loire-Atlantique formed the Pays de la Loire region together with parts of Anjou, Maine and Poitou. In 1972, the regions received their present competencies, with an elected regional council. Since then, the region of Brittany has had its own council and administrative bodies.

Reunification

See also: Bretagne Réunie

This Loire-Atlantique road sign reads "welcome to historical Brittany".

 

When the region of Brittany was created, several local politicians opposed the exclusion of Loire-Atlantique, and the question still remains.

 

The obstacles to reunification are the same as in 1956: having Nantes in Brittany could harm the position of Rennes and create an economic imbalance between Lower and Upper Brittany. Moreover, the Pays de la Loire region could not exist without Loire-Atlantique, because it would lose its political and economic capital. Without Loire-Atlantique, the other départements would not form an efficient region any more, and would have to integrate neighbouring regions such as the Centre-Val de Loire and Poitou-Charentes.

 

However, several institutions have backed the reunification, such as the regional council of Brittany since 2008 and the Loire-Atlantique council since 2001. Some politicians like Jean-Marc Ayrault, the French prime minister and former mayor of Nantes, favour instead the creation of a "Greater West region", which would encompass Brittany and the Pays de la Loire region. Polls show that 58% of the Bretons and 62% of the inhabitants in Loire-Atlantique favour the reunification.[35]

Political tendencies

Main article: Politics of Brittany

 

Until the end of the 20th century, Brittany had been characterised by a strong Catholic and conservative influence. However, some areas such as the industrial region around Saint-Nazaire and Lorient and the surroundings of Tréguier are traditional Socialist and Communist strongholds. Left-wing parties, mainly the Socialist party and the Greens, have become more and more powerful after the 1970s and they have formed a majority in the Regional Council of Brittany since 2004. The Loire-Atlantique and Ille-et-Vilaine councils have also been held by the left since 2004.

 

The Socialist party has held the Côtes-d'Armor council since 1976, and the Finistère council since 1998. On its side, Morbihan remains a right-wing stronghold. The local parties have a very small audience, except the Union Démocratique Bretonne which has seats at the Regional Council and in other local assemblies. It advocates more autonomy for the region and its positions are very close to the Socialist parties. It also has a strong ecological orientation. The audience of far-right parties is lower in Brittany than in the rest of France.[36]

Geography and natural history

The Pink Granite Coast around Trégastel

 

Brittany is the largest French peninsula. It is around 34,030 km2 (13,140 sq mi) and stretches toward the northwest and the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered to the north by the English Channel, to the south by the Bay of Biscay and the waters located between the western coast and Ushant Island form the Iroise Sea.

 

The Breton coast is very indented, with many cliffs, rias and capes. The Gulf of Morbihan is a vast natural harbour with some forty islands that is almost a closed sea. In total, around 800 islands lie off the mainland; the largest being Belle Île, in the south. Brittany has over 2,860 km (1,780 mi) of coastline; it represents a third of the total French coastline.

 

The region is generally hilly because it corresponds to the western end of the Armorican Massif, a very old range that also extends in Normandy and the Pays de la Loire region. Because of this continuity, the Breton border with the rest of France is not marked by any strong geographical landmark, apart from the river Couesnon, which separates Brittany from Normandy.

A bog around the Monts d'Arrée

 

The Armorican Massif reaches its maximum elevation outside of Brittany, in neighbouring Mayenne, at 417 m, and slopes towards the west before straightening on its western extremity, with the Montagnes Noires and the Monts d'Arrée. The highest hill in Brittany is the Roc'h Ruz in the Monts d'Arrée, at 385 m (1,263 ft). It is closely followed by several neighbouring hills culminating at around 384 m above sea level.[37]

 

Coastal areas are usually named Armor or Arvor ("by the sea" in Breton), and the inland is called Argoat ("by the forest"). The best soils were primitively covered by large forests which had been progressively replaced by bocage during the Middle Ages. The Breton bocage, with its small fields enclosed by thick hedgerows, has almost disappeared since the 1960s to fit the modern agricultural needs and methods, particularly mechanisation.

 

Several forests still exist, such as the Paimpont forest, sometimes said to be the Arthurian Brocéliande. The poor and rocky areas are covered by large heathland and moorlands, and Brittany has several marshes, like the Brière, included in a regional natural park. Another regional park encompasses the Monts d'Arrée and the Iroise seacoast. The Iroise Sea is also a UNESCO biosphere reserve.

Geology

The Pointe du Raz, one of the westernmost extents of both Brittany and Metropolitan France

 

The Breton peninsula appeared during the Cadomian Orogeny, which formed its northern coastline, between Guingamp and Fougères. The southern part emerged during the Hercynian orogeny. At the same time, an intense volcanic activity left large quantities of granite. Between the Cadomian and Hercynian periods, the region was submerged several times and the sea left fossils and sedimentary rocks, mostly schist and sandstone. Because of the absence of limestone, soils in Brittany are usually acid.

 

The Armorican massif straightened and flattened several times during the formation of the Pyrenees and the Alps. Changes in sea levels and climate led to a strong erosion and to the formation of more sedimentary rocks. Metamorphism is responsible for the distinctive local blue schist and for the rich subsoil of the Groix island, which comprises glaucophane and epidote.[38]

 

During the Quaternary glaciations, Brittany was covered by loess and rivers started to fill the valleys with alluvial deposits. The valleys themselves were a result of a strong tectonic activity between the African and the Eurasian plate. The present Breton landscape did not acquire its final shape before one million years ago. The Breton subsoil is characterised by a huge amount of fractures that form a large aquifer containing several millions square meters of water.[38]

Climate

 

Brittany lies within the north temperate zone. It has a changeable, maritime climate, similar to Cornwall. Rainfall occurs regularly but sunny, cloudless days are also common. In the summer months, temperatures in the region can reach 30 °C (86 °F), yet the climate remains comfortable, especially when compared to the French regions located south of the Loire. The temperature difference between summer and winter is about fifteen degrees, but it varies depending on the proximity of the sea. The weather is generally milder on the seacoast than inland but rainfall occurs with the same intensity on both. The Monts d'Arrée, despite their low elevation, have much more rainfall than the rest of the region. The south coast, between Lorient and Pornic, enjoys more than 2,000 hours of sunshine per year.[39]

Flora and fauna

An ocean sunfish exhibiting its characteristic horizontal basking behaviour several miles off Penmarch

 

Brittany's wildlife is typical of France with several distinctions. On one hand, the region, due to its long coastline, has a rich oceanic fauna, and some birds cannot be seen in other French regions. On the other hand, the species found in the inland are usually common for France, and because Brittany is a peninsula, the number of species is lower in its western extremity than in the eastern part.

 

A variety of seabirds can be seen close to the seaside, which is home to colonies of cormorants, gulls, razorbills, northern gannets, common murres and Atlantic puffins. Most of these birds breed on isolated islands and rocks and thus are hard to observe. The inland is home to common European species including pheasants, barn swallows, woodcocks, common swifts, partridges...[40]

A Breton horse

 

Like Cornwall, Wales and Ireland, the waters of Brittany attract marine animals including basking sharks, grey seals, leatherback turtles, dolphins, porpoises, jellyfish, crabs and lobsters. Bass is common along the coast, small-spotted catsharks live on the continental shelf, rattails and anglerfish populate the deep waters. River fish of note include trout, Atlantic salmon, pikes, shades and lampreys. The Breton rivers are also home to beavers and otters and to some invasive American species, such as the coypu which destroys the ecosystem and accelerated the extinction of the European mink.[41]

 

Among the invertebrates, Brittany is notably home to the escargot de Quimper, the freshwater pearl mussel and the white-clawed crayfish.[42] The larger Breton mammals died out during the modern period, including the wolf. Today, mammals of note include roe deer, wild boar, foxes, hares and several species of bat.[43]

 

Brittany is widely known for the Breton horse, a local breed of draft horse, and for the Brittany gun dog. The region also has its own breeds of cattle, some of which are on the brink of extinction: the Bretonne Pie Noir, the Froment du Léon, the Armorican and the Nantaise.

 

The Breton forests, dunes, moorlands and marshes are home to several iconic plants, such as endemic cistus, aster and linaria varieties, the horseshoe vetch and the lotus maritimus.[44]

Education

See also: Education in France

A battalion of the Saint-Cyr-Coëtquidan military academy

 

Brittany has the same education system as the rest of France. As in other French regions, formal education before the 19th century was the preserve of the elite. Before 1460, Brittany did not have a university, and Breton students had to go to Angers, Poitiers or Caen. The University of Nantes was founded under the duke Francis II, who wanted to affirm the Breton independence from France. All the traditional disciplines were taught here: arts, theology, law and medicine. During the 17th century, it had around 1,500 students. It declined during the 18th century, mostly because Nantes was flourishing with the Atlantic slave trade and paid no attention to its cultural institutions.

 

A mayor eventually asked the university to be relocated to Rennes, more devoted to culture and science, and the faculties progressively moved there after 1735.[45] The transfer was interrupted by the French Revolution, and all the French universities were dissolved in 1793.

 

Napoleon reorganised the French education system in 1808. He created new universities and invented two secondary education institutions: the "collèges" and the "lycées" which were opened in numerous towns to educate boys and form a new elite. A new University of Rennes was progressively recreated during the 19th century. In the meantime, several laws were promoted to open schools, notably for girls. In 1882, Jules Ferry succeeded in passing a law which made primary education in France free, non-clerical (laïque) and mandatory. Thus, free schools were opened in almost every villages of Brittany. Jules Ferry also promoted education policies establishing French language as the language of the Republic, and mandatory education was a mean to eradicate regional languages and dialects. In Brittany, it was forbidden for the pupils to speak Breton or Gallo, and the two were strongly depreciated. Humiliating practices aimed at stamping out the Breton language and culture prevailed in state schools until the late 1960s.[46] In response, the Diwan schools were founded in 1977 to teach Breton by immersion. They have taught a few thousand young people from elementary school to high school, and they have gained more and more fame owing to their high level of results in school exams.[47] A bilingual approach has also been implemented in some state schools after 1979, and some Catholic schools have done the same after 1990. Besides, Brittany, with the neighbouring Pays de la Loire region, remains a stronghold for Catholic private education with around 1,400 schools.[48]

 

During the 20th century, tertiary education was developed with the creation of the École centrale de Nantes in 1919, the University of Nantes in 1961, the ESC Bretagne Brest in 1962, the University of Western Brittany in 1971, the École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne in 1977 and the University of Southern Brittany in 1995. The Catholic University of the West, based in Angers, also opened classes in several Breton towns. In 1969, the University of Rennes was divided between the University of Rennes 1 and the University of Rennes 2 – Upper Brittany. After the Second World War, the Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, the foremost French military academy, settled in Coëtquidan.

Economy

RMS Queen Mary 2, once the world's largest passenger ship, was built in Saint-Nazaire.

 

Brittany, apart from some areas such as Lorient, Nantes and Saint-Nazaire, has never been heavily industrialised. Today, fishing and agriculture remain important activities. Brittany has more than 40,000 farms, mostly oriented towards cattle, pig and poultry breeding, as well as cereal and vegetable production. The number of farms tends to diminish, but as a result, they are merged into very large estates. Brittany is the first producer in France for vegetables (green beans, onions, artichokes, potatoes, tomatoes...). Cereals are mostly grown for cattle feeding. Wine, especially muscadet, is made in a small region south of Nantes. Brittany is the first region in France for fishing. The activity employs around 9,000 people, and more than 60 firms work in fish and seafood processing.[49]

A fishing trawler from Le Guilvinec

 

Although relatively new, the Breton industry has been constantly growing since 1980. Food processing (meat, vegetables...) represents a third of the industrial jobs, but other activities are also important for the local economy. Shipbuilding, both commercial and military, is implanted in Saint-Nazaire (Chantiers de l'Atlantique), Lorient and Brest; Airbus has plants in Saint-Nazaire and Nantes; and Peugeot has a large factory in Rennes. Brittany is the second French region for telecommunication and the fifth for electronics, two activities mainly developed in Rennes, Lannion and Brest. Tourism is particularly important for the seacoast and Brittany is one of the most visited regions in France.[49] In April 2019, The Guardian's travel section included two Brittany locations in its list of 20 of the most beautiful villages in France. The two were Rochefort-en-Terre with "its covered market, 12th-century church, medieval castle, 19th-century chateau, and 16th- and 17th-century mansions" and Locronan, where "East India Company's offices still stand on the village square, as well as 17th-century merchants' dwellings".[50]

 

The unemployment rate in Brittany is lower than in other French regions and it is usually around 6 or 7% of the active population.[51] Because of the global financial crisis started in 2007, unemployment rose to 8.7% in the Region Brittany and 8.4% in Loire-Atlantique in late 2012. However, these figures remain under the French national rate (9.9% at the same period).[52][53] Some industries, such as construction, industry, catering or transport, usually have difficulties finding employees.[51]

 

In 2009, Region Brittany's gross domestic product reached 82 billion euros. It was the seventh richest region in France and it produced 4.4% of the national GDP. The Breton GDP per capita was around 25,739 euros in 2009.[54] It was lower than the French result, 29,897 euros, but higher than the European one, 23,500 euros. The GDP of the Loire-Atlantique département is around 26 billion euros, and the GDP of the five historical Breton départements would be at around 108 billion euros.[55]

Demographics

See also: Demography of France

Rennes, the most populated city in Region Brittany and the second in historical Brittany, behind Nantes

 

In 2017, the population in Region Brittany was estimated to 3,318,904 and Loire-Atlantique had around 1,394,909 inhabitants, thus historical Brittany's population can be estimated at 4,713,813, the highest in its history.[56] The population in Region Brittany had grown by 0.9% between 1999 and 2000, and the growth rate reached more than 1% in Ille-et-Vilaine and Morbihan. The region around Rennes and the south are the more attractive areas, whereas the population is declining in the centre and in the westernmost parts. While most of the metropolitan areas are growing, the cities themselves tend to stagnate or regress, such as for Brest, Lorient, Saint-Brieuc and Saint-Malo. In 2017, Ille-et-Vilaine had 1,060,199 inhabitants, it was followed by Finistère 909,028 inhabitants, Morbihan 750,863 inhabitants, and Côtes-d'Armor, with 598,814 inhabitants.[57]

 

The largest cities in Region Brittany as of 2017 were Rennes, with 216,815 inhabitants, Brest 140,064, Quimper 62,985, Lorient 57,149, Vannes 53,352, Saint-Malo 46,097 and Saint-Brieuc 44,372. All the other communes had under 25,000 inhabitants.[57] Brittany is also characterised by a great number of small towns, such as Vitré, Concarneau, Morlaix or Auray. Loire-Atlantique has two major cities, Nantes, with 309,346 inhabitants and an urban area encompassing 972,828, and Saint-Nazaire, with 69,993 inhabitants.[57] Loire-Atlantique's population is more rapidly growing than Region Brittany's and it is the 12th most populated French département.[58] Nevertheless, since the 1990s, Rennes has consistently ranked as one of France's fastest growing metropolitan areas.

 

In 1851, Brittany had around 2.7 million inhabitants and the demographic growth stayed low until the second half of the 20th century, mainly because of an important emigration. Brittany had 3.2 million inhabitants in 1962 and the growth was mainly due to Loire-Atlantique and the steady growth of Nantes. Without the Loire-Atlantique's figures, the Breton population only numbered 2.4 million in 1962, nearly unchanged from its population of 2.3 million in 1851.[59][60] After the 1960s, the whole region has had a strong demographic growth because of the decline of the traditional emigration to richer French regions. Instead, Brittany has become attractive, particularly for families, young retired persons and active people over 35 years old.[61]

Regional identity

Breton women wearing the Bigouden distinctive headdress, one of the symbols of Breton identity

 

Breton political parties do not have wide support and their electoral success is small. However, Bretons have a strong cultural identity. According to a poll made in 2008, 50% of the inhabitants of the Region Brittany consider themselves as much Breton as French, 22.5% feel more Breton than French, and 15.4% more French than Breton. A minority, 1.5%, considers themselves Breton but not French, while 9.3% do not consider themselves to be Breton at all.[62]

 

51.9% of the poll respondents agreed that Brittany should have more political power, and 31.1% thought that it should stay the same. Only 4.6% favoured independence, and 9.4% were undecided.[62]

 

A 2012 poll taken in the five departments of historical Brittany showed that 48% of the respondents considered themselves belonging first to France, 37% to Brittany, and 10% to Europe. It also showed that Breton identity is stronger among people younger than 35. 53% of them considering themselves to belong first to Brittany. 50% of the older respondents considered themselves belonging first to France. Primary Breton identity is at its lowest among the respondents over 65: 58% consider themselves to belong first to France, with European identify secondary. 21% of the respondents over 65 considering themselves to be European first. Breton self-identification is stronger among people who vote left-wing. It is stronger among employees than employers.[63]

Regional languages

Lower Brittany (in colours), where the Breton language is traditionally spoken and Upper Brittany (in shades of grey), where the Gallo language is traditionally spoken. The changing shades indicate the advance of Gallo and French, and retreat of Breton from 900 AD.

Main article: Linguistic boundary of Brittany

 

French, the only official language of the French Republic, is spoken today by the vast majority in Brittany, and it is the mother tongue of most people. Nonetheless, French was not widely known before the 19th century, and two regional languages exist in Brittany: Breton and Gallo. They are separated by a language border that has constantly moved back since the Middle Ages.

 

The current border runs from Plouha on the English Channel to the Rhuys Peninsula on the Bay of Biscay. Because of their origins and practice, Breton and Gallo can be compared to Scottish Gaelic and Scots language in Scotland[citation needed]. Both have been recognised as "Langues de Bretagne" (languages of Brittany) by the Regional Council of Brittany since 2004.

Breton

Main article: Breton language

Bilingual road signs can be seen in traditional Breton-speaking areas.

 

Breton is a Celtic language derived from the historical Common Brittonic language, and is most closely related to Cornish and Welsh. It was imported to Western Armorica during the 5th century by Britons fleeing the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. Breton remained the language of the rural population, but since the Middle Ages the bourgeoisie, the nobility, and the higher clergy have spoken French.

File:WIKITONGUES- Iain William speaking Breton.webmPlay media

A Breton speaker, recorded in Canada.

 

Government policies in the 19th and 20th centuries made education compulsory and, at the same time, forbade the use of Breton in schools to push non-French speakers into adopting the French language. Nevertheless, until the 1960s Breton was spoken or understood by many of the inhabitants of western Brittany. During the 1970s, Breton schools were opened and the local authorities started to promote the language, which was on the brink of extinction because parents had stopped teaching it to their children.

 

Having declined from more than one million speakers around 1950 to about 200,000 in the first decade of the 21st century, of whom 61% are more than 60 years old, Breton is classified as "severely endangered" by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. However, the number of children attending bilingual classes has risen 33% between 2006 and 2012 to 14,709.[64][65]

 

The Breton language has several dialects which have no precise limits but rather form a continuum. Most of them are very similar to each other, with only some phonetic and lexical differences. The three main dialects spoken in the western end of Brittany are:

 

the 'Cornouillais, around Quimper,

the Léonard, around Saint-Pol-de-Léon, and

the Trégorrois, around Tréguier, are grouped into the KLT group (Kerne-Leon-Treger),

 

in opposition to the Vannetais, spoken around Vannes, which is the most differentiated Breton dialect.

 

According to a 1999 INSEE survey, 12% of the adults of Brittany speak Breton.[66]

Gallo

Main article: Gallo language

Signs in Gallo are very rare and the writing systems they use are unknown by most of the speakers.

 

Gallo is spoken on the eastern half of Brittany. It is not itself a Celtic language. Like French, it is also descended from Latin (and is classified in the Langues d'oïl branch), but has some Celtic influences, particularly in its vocabulary, whereas French has influences from both Celtic (Gaulish) and Frankish (the Germanic language which arrived after Latin in much of the rest of France).

 

Unlike Breton, Gallo does not have a long promotion history and it is still often perceived as a poor rural dialect. Moreover, because of its linguistic relationship with Gallo, French imposed itself more easily as the main language in Upper Brittany than in Breton speaking areas. Gallo was simply felt to be an incorrect way of speaking French rather than a separate language. Gallo transmission from parents to children is extremely low and efforts to standardise and publish books in Gallo did not reverse the decline of the language and its lack of prestige.[67]

 

Gallo is also threatened by the Breton language revival, because Breton is gaining ground in territories that were not previously part of the main Breton-speaking area, and most of all because Breton appears as the national language of Brittany, thus leaving no place for Gallo.[67]

 

Gallo had never been written before the 20th century, and several writing systems were created. They are however rarely known by the population and signs in Gallo are often unreadable, even for fluent speakers. In Loire-Atlantique, where Gallo is not promoted at all by the local authorities, many people do not even know the word "Gallo" and have no idea that it has writing systems and publications.[67]

 

The Gallo community is estimated at between 28,300[68] and 200,000[67] speakers. The language is taught on a non-compulsory basis in some schools, high-schools and universities, particularly in Ille-et-Vilaine.[67]

Religion

Sculpted "calvaries" can be found in many villages in Lower Brittany.

 

Bretons are mainly Catholic and the Christianisation occurred during the Roman Gaul and Frank era. During the Briton emigration to Brittany, several Christian missionaries, mostly Welsh, came in the region and founded dioceses. They are known as the "Seven founder saints":

 

Paol Aoreliann, at Saint-Pol-de-Léon,

Tudwal, at Tréguier,

Brieg, at Saint-Brieuc,

Maloù, at Saint-Malo,

Samsun of Dol, at Dol-de-Bretagne,

Padarn, at Vannes,

Kaourintin, at Quimper.

 

Other notable early missionaries are Gildas and the Irish saint Columbanus. In total, Brittany numbers more than 300 "saints" (only a few recognised by the Catholic Church) and, since the 19th century at least, it has been known as one of the most devoutly Catholic regions in France, together with the neighbouring Pays de la Loire region. The proportion of students attending Catholic private schools is the highest in France. The patron saint of Brittany is Saint Anne, the Virgin's mother, but Ivo of Kermartin, a 13th-century priest, called Saint-Yves in French and Sant-Erwan in Breton, can also be considered as a patron saint. His feast, 19 May, is Brittany's national day.

A chapel and a calvary in Locronan, Finistère

 

Many distinctive traditions and customs have also been preserved in Brittany. Among them, the "Pardons" are one of the most traditional demonstrations of popular Catholicism. These penitential ceremonies occur in some villages in Lower Brittany on the feast day of the parish's saint. The penitents form a procession and they walk together to a shrine, a church or any sacred place. Some Pardons are reputed for their length, and they all finish by large meals and popular feasts.

A sculpted Ankou in Ploudiry

 

There is a very old pilgrimage called the Tro Breizh (tour of Brittany), where the pilgrims walk around Brittany from the grave of one of the seven founder saints to another. Historically, the pilgrimage was made in one trip (a total distance of around 600 km) for all seven saints. Nowadays, however, pilgrims complete the circuit over the course of several years. In 2002, the Tro Breizh included a special pilgrimage to Wales, symbolically making the reverse journey of the Welshmen Sant Paol, Sant Brieg, and Sant Samzun.[69]

 

The most powerful folk figure is the Ankou or the "Reaper of Death". Sometimes a skeleton wrapped in a shroud with the Breton flat hat, sometimes described as a real human being (the last dead of the year, devoted to bring the dead to Death), he makes his journeys by night carrying an upturned scythe which he throws before him to reap his harvest. Sometimes he is on foot but mostly he travels with a cart, the Karrig an Ankou, drawn by two oxen and a lean horse. Two servants dressed in the same shroud and hat as the Ankou pile the dead into the cart, and to hear it creaking at night means you have little time left to live.[70]

 

As official religious statistics are forbidden in France, there are no official figures about religious practices in Brittany. However, successive polls show that the region tends to be more and more nonreligious. Catholic religion has started to decline after the Second World War, during the urbanisation of Brittany. A poll conducted in 2006 showed that Morbihan was the only département to have a strong Catholic population, around 70% of its inhabitants belonging to that religion. Loire-Atlantique and Côtes-d'Armor were among the least Catholic French départements, with only 50% of Catholics, while Ille-et-Vilaine and Finistère were at around 65%. Other religions are almost non-existent, apart from Islam which gathers between 1 and 3% of the inhabitants in Ille-et-Vilaine and Loire-Atlantique.[71]

Culture

Architecture

Josselin Castle

 

Brittany is home to many megalithic monuments; the words menhir and dolmen come from the Breton language. The largest menhir alignments are the Carnac stones. Other major sites include the Barnenez cairn, the Locmariaquer megaliths, the Menhir de Champ-Dolent, the Mane Braz tumulus and the Gavrinis tomb. Monuments from the Roman period are rare, but include a large temple in Corseul and scarce ruins of villas and city walls in Rennes and Nantes.

 

Brittany has a large number of medieval buildings. They include numerous Romanesque and French Gothic churches, usually built in local sandstone and granite, castles and half-timbered houses visible in villages, towns and cities. Several Breton towns still have their medieval walls, such as Guérande, Concarneau, Saint-Malo, Vannes, Fougères and Dinan. Major churches include Saint-Pol-de-Léon Cathedral, Tréguier Cathedral, Dol Cathedral, Nantes Cathedral and the Kreisker chapel. Most of the Breton castles were rebuilt between the 13th and the 15th century, such as the Château de Suscinio, the Château de Dinan, the Château de Combourg, the Château de Largoët, the Château de Tonquédec, the Josselin Castle and the Château de Trécesson. The most impressive castles can be seen along the border with France, where stand the Château de Fougères, the Château de Vitré, the Château de Châteaubriant and the Château de Clisson.

A traditional house in Plougoumelen

 

The French Renaissance occurred when Brittany lost its independence. The Renaissance architecture is almost absent in the region, except in Upper Brittany, close to the border with France. Major sites include the Château des ducs de Bretagne, the last permanent residence of the dukes, which displays the transition from late Gothic to Renaissance style. The Château de Châteaubriant, a former fortress, was transformed into a vast palace in the Italian style.

An Art Deco villa in Bénodet

 

In Lower Brittany, the medieval style never totally disappeared. However, local innovations permitted some changes and the birth of a particular style. Its most distinctive feature is the parish close, which displays an elaborately decorated church surrounded by an entirely walled churchyard. Many villages still have their closes, they date from the 16th and 17th centuries and sometimes include an elaborately carved calvary sculpture.

 

During the 17th and the 18th centuries, the main seaports and towns obtained a typical French look, with baroque and neoclassical buildings. Nantes, which was at the time the biggest French harbour, received a theatre, large avenues and quays, and Rennes was redesigned after a fire in 1720. At the same period, the wealthy ship-owners from Saint-Malo built many mansions called "Malouinières" around their town. Along the coast, Vauban and other French architects designed several citadels, such as in Le Palais and Port-Louis. In rural areas, Breton houses remained simple, with a single floor and a longhouse pattern. They were built with local materials: mostly granite in Lower Brittany and schist in Upper Brittany. Slates and reeds were usually used for roofing. During the 19th century, the Breton architecture was mainly characterised by the Gothic Revival and Eclecticism. Clisson, the southernmost Breton town, was rebuilt in an Italian Romantic style around 1820. The Breton lighthouses were mostly built during the 19th century. The most famous are Ar Men, Phare d'Eckmühl, La Vieille and La Jument. The lighthouse on the Île Vierge is, with 77 meters, the highest in Europe.

 

At the end of the 19th century, several seaside resorts were created along the coast and villas and hotels were built in historicist, Art Nouveau, and later in the Art Deco styles. These architectures are particularly present in Dinard, La Baule and Bénodet. Architecture from the 20th century can be seen in Saint-Nazaire, Brest and Lorient, three cities destroyed during the Second World War and rebuilt afterwards, and in the works of the Breton nationalist architects like James Bouillé and Olier Mordrel.

Fine arts

The Beautiful Angèle by Paul Gauguin

 

Until the 19th century, Catholicism had been the main inspiration for Breton artists. The region has a great number of baroque retables, made between the 17th and the 19th century. Breton sculptors were also famous for their ship models that served as ex-votos and for their richly decorated furniture, which features naïve Breton characters and traditional patterns. The box-bed is the most famous Breton piece of furniture. The Breton style had a strong revival between 1900 and the Second World War and it was used by the Seiz Breur movement. The Seiz Breur artists also tried to invent a modern Breton art by rejecting French standards and mixing traditional techniques with new materials. The leading artists of that period were the designer René-Yves Creston, the illustrators Jeanne Malivel and Xavier Haas, and the sculptors Raffig Tullou, Francis Renaud, Georges Robin, Joseph Savina, Jules-Charles Le Bozec and Jean Fréour.

 

Brittany is also known for its needlework, which can be seen on its numerous headdress models, and for its faience production, which started at the beginning of the 18th century. Quimper faience is known worldwide for its bowls and plates painted by hand, and other towns, such as Pornic, also maintain a similar tradition. The potteries usually feature naïve Breton characters in traditional clothing and daily scenes. The designs have a strong traditional Breton influence, but Orientalism and Art Deco have also been used.

 

Because of its distinct culture and natural landscape, Brittany has inspired many French artists since the 19th century. The Pont-Aven School, which started to emerge in the 1850s and lasted until the beginning of the 20th century, had a decisive influence on modern painting. The artists who settled in Pont-Aven wanted to break away from the Academic style of the École des Beaux-Arts and later from Impressionism when it began to decline. Among them were Paul Gauguin, Paul Signac, Marc Chagall, Paul Sérusier and Raymond Wintz. Before them, Brittany had also been visited by Academic and Romantic painters like Jean Antoine Théodore de Gudin and Jules Achille Noël who were looking for dramatic seascapes and storms.

Music

Main articles: Music of Brittany and Breton dance

The Lann-Bihoué bagad

 

Since the early 1970s, Brittany has experienced a tremendous revival of its folk music. Numerous festivals were created, along with smaller fest-noz (popular

I think this may have been my first interaction with Evan. Our mutual friend had been talking up his work for the longest time and he finally had a show to release the EP he had invested so much time into. I loved it. I loved the whole show. It was funny, this photo was actually taken during the openers I believe. On top of learning his own set, Evan had also practised and performed with the openers of his CD release as well.

 

Only two years later and the powerhouse claimed first place in the last year of the Peak Performance Project. I'm glad to say I was able to meet him when I did and get to watch the progress from then until now.

 

Kodak Disposable - June, 2013

Guitar Harmony: Lead, Rhythm, and Bass

 

During my university days, I used to play the guitar on the right (of 1976) heavily. Four years of Western music education at Tharanga Nissari School of Music (of KJ Yesudas) and two years at Cochin Arts & Communications (CAC of Jerry Amaldev), and St. Cecilia Music Academy in Panjim Goa made me practice so many late nights that might be given sleepless nights to my neighbors but nobody complaint ever. Though I practised softly at night, unlike the daytime the fixation might hurt them, if that was so, my sincere apology to my loving neighbors.

 

However, music brought me some kind of peace, happiness, motivation, and challenge for decades. But today, I found the truth, the way, and the life.

 

This photo grabs many awards:

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The Galaxy Hall of Fame

 

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++++++ from wikipedia +++++++++

 

Biarritz (UK: /bɪəˈrɪts, ˈbɪərɪts/ beer-ITS, BEER-its,[2][3] US: /ˌbiːəˈrɪts, ˈbiːərɪts/ BEE-ə-RITS, -rits,[2][4] French: [bjaʁits], Basque: [bi.arits̻]; Basque also Miarritze [mi.arits̻e]; Gascon: Biàrritz [ˈbjarits]) is a city on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the French Basque Country in southwestern France. It is located 35 kilometres (22 mi) from the border with Spain. It is a luxurious seaside tourist destination known for the Hôtel du Palais (originally built for the Empress Eugénie circa 1855), its casinos in front of the sea and its surfing culture.

 

Geography

Biarritz is located in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. It is adjacent to Bayonne and Anglet and 35 kilometres (22 mi) from the border with Spain. It is in the traditional province of Labourd in the French Basque Country.

 

Etymology

In Basque, its name is Biarritz or Miarritze. Its current Gascon name is Biàrrits. The name for an inhabitant is Biarrot in French and Biarriztar or Miarriztar in Basque. The suffix -itz, as in Isturitz, is a Basque locative. The name appears as Bearriz in 1170, Bearids in 1186 and Bearritz in 1249.

 

Biarritz appears as Bearids and Bearriz in 1150, Beiarridz in 1165, Bearriz and Beariz in 1170, Bearidz (1186), Bearriz and Beariz (12th century), lo port de Beiarriz and Bearridz in 1261 (cartulaire de Bayonne). Other forms include Beiarid (1199), Bearritz (1249), Beiarriz and Beiarrids (1261), Bearridz (1281), Bearrits (1338), (rôles gascons), Bearritz (1498, chapitre de Bayonne38), Sanctus Martinus de Biarriz (1689, collations du diocèse de Bayonne, mearritcen (1712), Biarrits (1863, Dictionnaire topographique Béarn-Pays basque) and Biarritze and Miarritze.

 

History

Prehistory

Analysis of stones from the Middle Paleolithic show that the Biarritz area was inhabited at that time.

 

Middle Ages

The oldest mention of the city appears in a cartulary, Bayonne's Golden book, from 1186, where it is named Bearids; some years later the name used was Beiarrids. The first urban development was to the south, at the top and at the interior. Today this is near the location of the church of San Martin, the oldest church in Biarritz.

 

In 1152, Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henry II of England, who became suzerain of the Duchy of Aquitaine. Prince Edward, oldest son of Henry III of England, was invested with the duchy, and betrothed to Eleanor of Castile, who brought him rights over Gascony.

 

Two population centers are attested in the Middle Ages. On the one hand, the église Saint-Martin was active in the neighborhoods in the territory's interior, which were:[5]

 

Gardague (mentioned en 1233)

Legure (lac Mouriscot)

Larrepunte and the domains of Silloete-de-Bas and Silloete-de-Haut,

Arretegui,

Chabiague,

Castera,

Suhy,

Itçar (mentioned in 1342),

Monsegur (1335),

Martin Petit,

Chohy,

Maron,

Catalina

Harausta (which would become La Négresse).

On the other hand, the château of Belay (first mentioned in 1342), also called château de Ferragus, protected the coast and the current Port-Vieux (old port), while religious life and community assemblies took place at Notre-Dame-de-Pitié (a chapel mentioned in 1498), dominating the Port-des-Pêcheurs, or fishing port.

 

A document dated May 26, 1342 attested to this fishing activity, authorising les Biarrots to "(…) remit to Bayonne all the fresh fish that we and succeeding inhabitants of Biarritz can fish from the salt sea".

 

Construction of the château de Ferragus was decided by the English, on the foundations of a Roman work, at the summit of the promontory overlooking the sea, named Atalaye, used as a whale-observation post. This château had a double crenulated wall two meters thick, a drawbridge and four towers. Mentions of this château occur as late as 1603, in the letters patent of Henry IV. One tower remained as of 1739, when a daymark was established there, called de la Haille, then de la Humade. The tower disappeared in 1856.

 

Whaling

Further information: History of Basque whaling

Most of the documents, records and official agreements gathered in the archives from Biarritz mention whaling. This was the principal local industry. Consequently, the town's coat of arms features the image of a whale below a rowing boat manned by five sailors wearing berets, one of whom is preparing to throw a harpoon. This inscription is written on it: Aura, sidus, mare, adjuvant me (The air, the stars and the seas are helping me).

 

Biarritz has long made its living from the sea: from the 12th century onwards, it was a whaling town. In the 18th century, doctors claimed that the ocean at Biarritz had therapeutic properties, inspiring patients to make pilgrimages to the beach for alleged cures for their ailments. After the 7th century, Biarritz had many confrontations with Bayonne, with the Kingdom of England – Lapurdi was under its control – and with the Bishop of Bayonne. Almost all of the disputes were about whale hunting. In 1284, the town's right to hunt whales was reinstated by the authorities of Lapurdi and the Duchy of Aquitaine.

 

From the Middle Ages and Early modern period a watchtower has looked down over the sea at Biarritz, from "La Humade", waiting for the sight of a whale. Whenever those keeping watch saw a whale, they would burn wet straw, to create a large amount of smoke and thus communicate the news to their fellow countrymen. Eventually, however, the tower disappeared.

 

In the 16th century, as a consequence of the attacks suffered in this area, or for other reasons, the whales migrated to other places. Whale hunters from Lapurdi therefore crossed the Atlantic Ocean in pursuit of them, and they spent over a century in the Labrador Peninsula and on Newfoundland. Later, instead of hunting whales, they started cod fishing in Newfoundland. A century later,[when?] due to the ban on fishing off the coasts of North America[citation needed] and the steely competence of English and Dutch fishermen, the number of fishing boats from Biarritz diminished and nowadays,[when?] the Biarritz fishing industry in these areas has come to an end.

 

Even though the population from Biarritz was originally Basque, it is hard to assert whether the main language of the village was Basque or French.[citation needed]

 

The first lighthouse of the village was built in 1650.[citation needed]

 

18th century

 

The Cape of Biarritz.

Biarritz was an independent municipality, until 1784, a clergyman, four sworn and the city was governed by twelve deputies. Deputies were democratically chosen: there were four neighbourhoods (Portua, Bustingorri, Hurlaga and Alto), and three deputies had to be chosen from each of them. However, deputies were chosen by the abbot and sworn. Since they had no Town House, they gathered in a ward near the church. As they did not have place for all the attending people, they made their meetings in the cemetery. That time, Biarritz was composed of around 1,700 citizens.

 

In the mid-18th century, the city began to change into a worldwide known bath-city.

 

19th century

From 1784 onwards, after the French Revolution, taking a bath at the sea was no longer a behaviour of those who were fools; sea-baths were fashionable. In 1808, Napoleon himself broke prejudices and took a bath on the Basque Country's coastal water.

 

In 1840, the Town House or Municipality of Biarritz started to organize an initiative in order to promote and attract those who loved most the sea.

 

From the 11th century, Biarritz was a village dedicated to whale hunting, until Victor Hugo, found it in 1843. This writer made to Biarritz the following compliments on his book "Alpeak eta Pirinioak" :

 

« I have not met in the world any place more pleasant and perfect than Biarritz. I have never seen the old Neptune throwing joy and glory with such a force in the old Cybele. All this coast is full of humming. Gascony's sea grinds, scratches, and stretches on the reefs its never ending whisper. Friendly population and white cheerful houses, large dunes, fine sand, great caves and proud sea, Biarritz is amazing. My only fear is Biarritz becoming fashionable. Whether this happens, the wild village, rural and still honest Biarritz, will be money-hungry. Biarritz will put poplars in the hills, railings in the dunes, kiosks in the rocks, seats in the caves, trousers worn on tourists. »

 

Either for good or for bad, Victor Hugo's prophecy was fulfilled. Biarritz planted poplars, tamarinds, hydrangeas, roses and pitosforuses on the slopes and the hills, set railings on the dunes, covered moats with elegant stairs... and polluted with the speculation of the land and the money-hunger.

 

Humble and proud tourists praise Biarritz's coast, from the beach at the limit of Bidarte (Plage des Basques), to the cape of San Martin. There it can be found a white lighthouse 44 metres (144 feet) tall, built in 1834 replacing the one Louis XIV ordered to build. Various hotels were made, as well as a municipal casino, the club Belleuve and the casino were opened in 1857, the thalassotherapy house, and wonderful luxury houses. Luxurious store shops from London and Paris were also set up in Biarritz, and 36 small newspapers were published in the village.

 

Hôtel du Palais, Biarritz, France(2).JPG

Hôtel du Palais, Biarritz, France (2)

Biarritz became more renowned in 1854 when Empress Eugenie (the wife of Napoleon III) built a palace on the beach (now the Hôtel du Palais). European royalty, including British monarchs Queen Victoria and King Edward VII (who caused a minor scandal when he called H. H. Asquith to kiss hands at Biarritz in 1908 rather than return to London for the purpose),[6] and the Spanish king Alfonso XIII, were frequent visitors.

 

Biarritz's casino (opened 10 August 1901) and beaches make the town a notable tourist centre for Europeans and East Coast North Americans. The city has also become a prime destination for surfers from around the world, developing a nightlife and surf-based culture.

 

Originally, there were two settlement sites: the neighbourhood that was around the church of San Martin, and the fishing-port defended by Belay or Ferragus Castle. The coat of arms was a whaler, which was a symbol of the town.

 

Opened in June 1893, Biarritz's salt-baths were designed and built by the architect Lagarde. From the gatzagas of Beskoitz and after passing through a 20-kilometre (12 mi) pipe, water ten times saltier than the sea was used. The baths were closed in 1953 and demolished in 1968.

 

The presence of French Republic's authorities and the fact of having launched the Paris-Henday train led Biarritz to become one of the most outstanding tourist areas all over Europe. The queen of the beaches became the beach of the kings: Oskar II from Sweden, Leopoldo from Belgium, tireless traveller, the empress of Russia, Nikolas II's mother, Elisabeth from Austria, Natalia from Serbia, and her ill son Alexandro, Jurgi V from England, Eduardo VII and England's Queen Victoria, Alfonso XIII from Spain, aristocrats, rich people, actors, from Europe and South America... In the summer-time, high-status people gathered in Biarritz. Therefore, the number of population remarkably increased, from 5,000 to 18,000. At the end of the 19th century, 50,000 vacationers were gathering in Biarritz.

 

Belle Époque

 

Biarritz market.

The department store called Biarritz Bonheur, created in 1894, enlarged twice (in 1911 and 1926), and still operating, became the temple of luxury and fashion. At the start of the 20th century, most of its workers spoke in English.

 

After World War II

At the end of World War II in Europe, the U.S. Army's Information and Educational Branch was ordered to establish an overseas university campus for demobilized American service men and women in the French resort town of Biarritz. Under General Samuel L. McCroskey, the hotels and casinos of Biarritz were converted into quarters, labs, and class spaces for U.S. service personnel. The University opened 10 August 1945 and about 10,000 students attended an eight-week term. This campus was set up to provide a transition between army life and subsequent attendance at a university in the US, so students attended for just one term. After three successful terms, the G.I. University closed in March 1946 (see G. I. American Universities).[7]

 

The arrival of surfing in Europe

 

Surfers participate in a demonstration for the 2019 G7 Summit

In 1957, the American film director Peter Viertel was in Biarritz with his wife Deborah Kerr working on the film The Sun Also Rises. One of his Californian friends came for a visit, and his use of a surfboard off Biarritz is recognized as the first time surfing was practised in Europe. Biarritz eventually became one of the most popular European surfing spots.

 

Main sights

Sights in Biarritz include:

 

The Asiatica Museum houses a significant collection of Asian art primarily from India, Nepal, Tibet, and China.

The Museum of the Sea has 24 aquaria containing sharks and seals.

The Historical Museum of Biarritz, housed in the deconsecrated Anglican Church, St Andrew's.[8]

The annual Biarritz Surf Festival, founded in 1993 at the Côte des Basques, is one of the premier surf events in Europe and longboarding events in the world.[9]

St-Martin's Church, constructed in the 12th century, restored in the mid-16th century.

The Russian Orthodox Church, built in the 19th century for visiting Russian aristocrats, has a famous blue dome.

The Chapelle Imperiale built for Empress Eugenie has an intricately decorated roof interior and elegant wall tiling. She also built a palace on the beach which is now the Hôtel du Palais.

The Museum of Chocolate explains the history and manufacture of chocolate.

Two large casinos, the Barrière and the Bellevue, sit on the waterfront near the Grande Plage.

Cliffs and lookouts lie to the west of the main beach.

 

Climate

Biarritz has a temperate oceanic climate, Cfb in the Köppen climate classification. It is one of the wettest cities in Metropolitan France.

 

Politics

Mayors

MandateName

1788–1789Pierre Moussempès

1813–1814Pierre Moussempès

1864–1881Pierre-Paul Jaulerry

1881–1884Alcide Augey

1884–1888Alexandre Larralde-Diustegi

1888–1895Alcide Augey

1895–1904Félix Moureu

1904–1919Pierre Forsans

1919–1929Joseph Petit

1929–1941Ferdinand Hirigoien

1941–1944Henri Cazalis

1945–1977Guy Petit

1977–1991Bernard Marie

1991–2008Didier Borotra

2008–2014Didier Borotra

2014–2020Michel Veunac

  

Economy

Although Biarritz's economy was based on fishing before, nowadays it has a modern economy due to the metropolitan location of Bayonne-Anglet-Biarritz. Together with Bayonne and Anglet, Biarritz takes part in the management of the BAB Airport. The most important economic activities are:

 

Spa tourism

Sport (golf, surf and rugby)

Thalassotherapy

Industry. The most important industries are the following:

Séguier, French publishing house

Dassault Aviation, manufacturer of fuselage for Falcon planes.

Culture

Languages

As in the cases of Anglet and Bayonne, also located in the approximate cultural border between Gascony and the Basque Country, it is uncertain if the historic language of Biarritz was Basque or Gascon.

 

According to the book Atlas Linguistique de Gascogne, Biarritz is considered a Gascon town. But in 1863, Luis Luciano Bonaparte located the northern frontier of Basque in Biarritz, and in some neighborhoods it was without any doubt the most used language. However, over the course of the 20th century French became the main language. Beginning in the 1990s, the municipal government of Biarritz has promoted the Basque language and culture. At the same time, Gascon has been promoted by various private institutions, for instance the group of Gascon culture Ací Gasconha. [19]

 

Museums

Sea Museum. Constructed in 1993 in the rock of Atalaia, it is an Art Déco building. It has a huge collection of sea animals and birds.

Museum of Chocolate

Asiatica, museum of the Eastern art. Art from India, Tibet, Nepal and China can be found

Museum of the History of Biarritz. Located in the Angelican Church of Saint Andrew in the 1980 decade

Cité de l'Ocean et du Surf, opened in 2011.

Music and dance

The city has the Ballet of Biarritz, which is the choreography location of France. Furthermore, it has the cultural centre Atabal and the chorus Oldarra, created in 1946.

 

Theatre

The emperors Napoleon III and Eugene of Montijo pusieron de moda the sea-theater on the Old Port neighborhood. Nowadays, the light works made by Pierre Bideau can be seen at night in the clift.

 

Cinema

Two film festivals of cinema are celebrated in Biarritz:

 

Festival of Latinoamerican Cinema of Biarritz.

International Festival of Audio-Visual Programs (FIPA)

Civil buildings

Hôtel du Palais or Eugénie House

Building of the Hotel of England, built in 1870 by Louis Moussempés

Natasha House

Sacchino or Castel Biarritz, house of Natalia of Serbia

Plaza Hotel

Casino of Biarritz, of "Art déco" style

Lighthouse, built in 1834 in San Martin cape

Villa Black or Black House. Built by Alphonse Bertrand between 1880 and 1895

Goëland House, which from 2003 on is a hotel

Françon Castle

Boulard Castle

Pavilion of England

Fishermen House, in the port

The formerly health resort in the Old Port

Miremont sweet shop

Religious buildings

Imperial Chapel

Saint Martin church

Saint Eugene church, built between 1898 and 1903

San Alexandro Nevski [fr] and God's Mother Protection Church

Synagogue of Biarritz

Rocks

The Rocks of Biarritz are an important part of the city's attractions. Every year they erode by an estimated 70 centimeters.

Beaches

Biarritz has six beaches: Miramar, Big, Old Port, Coast of the Basque, Marbella and Milady

Gardens and Parks

Biarritz has 120 hectares of parks and two recreational lakes (Marion and Muriskot)

In the city centre there are three gardens: the Pierre Forsans public garden (across from the Gare du Midi performance centre) and two others nearby (Lahouze Garden and Parc Mazon). The center of town also includes a number of open-air sports fields.

Infrastructures

Sport

Surfing in Biarritz is of a world-class standard and first appeared in 1957. The town has a strong surfing culture, and is known worldwide for its surfing scene and the competitions it hosts yearly, including the Quiksilver/Roxy Jam tournament. In July 2011, Biarritz also hosted the Roxy Pro event, a tournament part of the ASP Women's World Tour.

 

The town is home to a prominent rugby union club, Biarritz Olympique.

 

Basque pelota is a very popular sport of the Basque country. Several local and international competitions take place in Biarritz.

 

The golf course near the lighthouse (Le Phare) was created in 1888 by British residents. In addition, the town has a large circular golf range area on the border with illbaritz.

 

Education

Schools

The city has two public schools (Villa Fal and Jean Rostand) and one private (Immaculée-Conception).

 

High schools

Malraux High Schools is the only one in Biarritz. There is also a tourism high school in the border of the Western neighborhood of La Négresse.

 

Transport

Biarritz is easily accessible from Paris by France's high-speed train, the TGV, and more regionally from Bordeaux, by TGV or TER. Trains are also available to travel east towards Nice. Night trains regularly depart from Irun, south of Biarritz and pass through the city before heading to Paris during an overnight trip. Many tourists and regulars to the city have begun using the night train to take weekend trips to Biarritz and saving travel time by traveling at night. The Biarritz – Anglet – Bayonne Airport is located about four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the city. It is near N10 road towards Anglet and is served by airlines from France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland and Germany.

 

Notable people and popular culture

 

Fishing port, beach, and lighthouse

Biarritz was the birthplace of:

 

Yannick Bellon (born 1924), film director

Jacques Bergerac (1927 - 2014), actor

Jean Borotra (1898–1994), tennis player

Léopold Eyharts (born 1957), astronaut

Ernest Fourneau (1872–1949), chemist

Maurice Hankey, 1st Baron Hankey (1877–1963), British civil servant

Maurice Journeau (1898–1999), composer

Arnaud Massy (1877–1950), professional golfer

Other notable people associated with Biarritz:

 

Aaron Bank (1902–2004), World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS) agent and co-founder of the U.S. Army's Special Forces Group (later, Green Berets), a lifeguard and medical (physical) therapist's aide at Biarritz before he enlisted in the army in the late 1930s

Aimée de Heeren, born Soto-Maior de Sá (1903–2006) mistress of President Getúlio Vargas, owned the villa La Roseraie, 12 rue Martias, where she spent summers for half a century, receiving kings, heads of state, and many famous guests

Eugénie de Montijo (1826–1920), the wife of Napoléon III, who built the villa Eugénie, today the Hôtel du Palais

Pablo de Sarasate (10 March 1844 – 20 September 1908), a well known Romantic Era Spanish composer born in Pamplona, Spain, who died in this city

International relations

See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in France

Twin towns/sister cities

Biarritz is twinned with:

 

United States Augusta, Georgia, United States, since 1992

Portugal Cascais, Portugal, since 1986

Belgium Ixelles, Belgium, since 1958

Spain Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, since 1996

Spain Zaragoza, Spain, since 1986

Argentina Mar del Plata, Argentina since 1996

  

Festivities

The major festivities are celebrated in November 11, for Saint Martin. That day, the new gentleman of the Confrérie de l'Operne de Biarritz are proclaimed. Barnacle is their logotype and people who work in favor of ecology are chosen Since Biarritz is a city based in tourism, there are acts during the whole summer, such as pelota festivity, equestrian competition, concerts and recitals, folklore festivals, water acrobatic ski, sea trips, performances, rugby competitions, bullfights and night parties.

 

Since summer 2018, Biarritz hosts the festival of pop music "Biarritz en été" whose second edition will take place on July 19, 20 and 21, 2019.

Winkworth Arboretum exhibits large collections of azalea, rhododendron, and holly on slopes leading down to landscaped garden lakes. Gertrude Jekyll explored the woods in the early 20th century. The exotic trees were planted from 1938 by Wilfrid Fox.

 

Wilfrid Fox (1875–May 22, 1962[1]) was a dermatologist in the United Kingdom.[2] He practised at St George's Hospital, London.

 

He became passionately interested in the environment.[citation needed] He founded the Roads Beautifying Association in 1928. wikipedia

 

He lived at Winkworth Farm, Busbridge, Surrey. In 1937, he acquired part of the adjoining Thorncombe Estate, and proceeded to create an arboretum.[citation needed]

 

In 1948, he was awarded the highest honour of the Royal Horticultural Society, the Victoria Medal of Honour. He gave part of the arboretum to the National Trust in 1952, and the trust later acquired more of the land. This is now open to the public as Winkworth Arboretum.[

Anston Stones Wood a Local Nature Reserve and a biological site of Special Scientific Interest in South Yorkshire.

 

The valley sides are covered in deciduous woodland but show signs of planting, with sycamore and beech being the dominant canopy trees in places. However, it is recognised by botanists as one of the finest remaining fragments of native woodland in northern England. The crags are magnesian limestone, a rock which provides an exceptionally fertile and well-drained soil.

 

The valley is not only interesting for its natural history but also for its archaeology. Ice Age cave deposits and Roman artefacts have been found throughout the valley. It appears that the ancient woodland was been saved from felling in the past because the banks of the Anston Brook are steep and unsuitable for cultivation. It was managed as a coppice with standards as long ago as 1553 and appears to have remained continuously wooded since that time. Anston Stones Wood supplied the Royal Navy with some of its 'hearts of oak' in the 18th century. This management continued until the early 19th century, when planting either for ornament or game began to be practised.

 

The wood was purchased from the Duke of Leeds by Kiveton Park Rural District Council in July 1947, with the intention that it be safeguarded & preserved as a local amenity for the benefit of local inhabitants. It was transferred to Anston Parish Council in April 1973.

 

Little Darcy loves chasing squirrels. She never gets anywhere near them before they scamper up a tree, but it's often hilarious watching the expression on her face as she stares upwards to where they mock her from the safety of the branches high above.

 

I don't know why (apart from being a bit weird) but I wondered if there might be any interesting quotes regarding squirrel hunting that Google might throw up. Well, it rarely fails to turn up something you didn't know or expect, and this is the pick of the bunch. Did you know that according to the

Grose 1811 Dictionary, "Hunting the Squirrel" is

 

1) "An amusement practised by postboys and stage-coachmen, which consists in following a one-horse chaise, and driving it before them, passing close to it, so as to brush the wheel, and by other means terrifying any woman or person that may be in it".

 

2) "A man whose turn comes for him to drink, before he has emptied his former glass, is said to be hunted".

 

Definitions taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose

One of the four forms of bullfighting praticed in the world but it differs from the other three by two features, first it is practised exclusevely with cows and not bulls, the other feature it shares with the Camargue races, is that there is no killing, or hurting of the animal, either during the race, or after.

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Jallikattu also known as eru thazhuvuthal and manju virattu, is a traditional spectacle in which a Bos indicus bull, such as the Pulikulam breed,Kangayam breed is released into a crowd of people, and multiple human participants attempt to grab the large hump on the bull's back with both arms and hang on to it while the bull attempts to escape. Participants hold the hump for as long as possible, attempting to bring the bull to a stop. In some cases, participants must ride long enough to remove flags on the bull's horns.

 

Jallikattu is typically practised in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu as a part of Pongal celebrations on Mattu Pongal day.

Charles Gesner van der Voort's (1916-1991) employer, Holland-China Trading Company (HCHC), was founded by several people, including Albert Hotz, through Hotz, s'Jacob & Co (Albertus Paulus Hermanus Hotz, born in Rotterdam in 1855, died in Italy in 1930).

 

When I searched the internet for more information on Albert Hotz, I was in for a surprise. There was a newspaper article, mentioning that he was an early photographer:

"Een lid der Rotterdamsche firma S.C.P. Hotz & Zoon, de heer A. Hotz, heeft een reis naar Perzië gemaakt en is daarvan nu teruggekeerd. Hij brengt, schrijft men uit Londen aan de "N. R. Ct." geen ongunstig nieuws uit Teheran mede.

Door hem zijn ernstige pogingen in het werk gesteld om den handel tusschen Nederland en Perzië, vroeger, naar men weet, van groot belang, weer te verlevendigen. Met dat doel is een kleine vennootschap opgericht, waarbij eenige Nederlandsche fabrikanten van naam betrokken zijn. Deze vennootschap beoogt het invoeren van Europeesche fabrikaten, inzonderheid Nederlandsche, te Teheran, waar een Hollandsche bazaar met den afzet zal worden belast.

De vertegenwoordiger van Nederland in de Perzische hoofdstad, de heer Knobel, heeft groote belangstelling voor dit plan aan den dag gelegd en stelt zich veel voor van de te verkrijgen inkomsten.

De heer Hotz is een ernstig liefhebber der photographische kunst en heeft met zijnen Kodak een groot aantal landschappen in Perzië afgebeeld. Deze afdrukken, vermenigvuldigd, vergroot en duurzaam gemaakt door het platinotypische proces, zijn ten deele vereenigd in een smaakvol album, dat een getrouw beeld geeft van het hedendaagsche en ook van het oude Perzië.

Van bijzondere waarde zijn de kleurige platen van de bouwvallen van Persepolis en van Ispahan, vooral die waarop de graven der "opperhoofden" van de Oost-Indische Compagnie op het Armenische kerkhof te Julfa zijn weergegeven."

(Royal Dutch Library, Delpher.nl, Haagsche Courant, 31 July 1893)

 

Would any of these photo have survived? And, were any photos of China to be found, A. Hotz being a founder of Holland-China Trading Company. Soon, I found reference to the Hotz collection at Leiden University. Indeed, there were Chinese images to be found, and a wonderful portrait of Albert Hotz and his wife Lucy Helen Woods.

 

Hotz was also mentioned in Mattie Boom's thesis. She wrote that Hotz traveled from Persia to China, via the old Silk Road, still in use in the 1890s. In London, well-known China-photographer John Thomson printed Hotz' photographs. He may have also sold Hotz a collection of Chinese photographs, currently held at Leiden University Library.

"De Rotterdammer Albert Paul Herman Hotz (1855-1930) was zo’n reizende ondernemer die graag fotografeerde. Hij trok in 1874 voor het eerst naar Perzië waar hij ging handelen in tapijten, textiel en olie. In Teheran had hij vanaf 1890 zijn zogeheten ‘Tehran Toko’ waar hij zijn handelswaar doorverkocht. Teheran was de standplaats, maar vandaaruit deed het bedrijf ook zaken met China. De zijderoute was in de late 19de eeuw nog steeds dezelfde levendige weg als in de eeuwen daarvoor. Via deze route werden handelsbetrekkingen met China onderhouden. Hotz ondernam de tocht verschillende malen."

"Er zijn meer dan twintig fotoalbums van Hotz met zijn eigen foto’s bewaard gebleven (afb. 132). Deze foto’s werden door de bekende China-fotograaf John Thomson voor Hotz afgedrukt op het fraaie platinapapier. Mogelijk maakte Thomson ook de albums. Hotz had, toen hij in Londen woonde, Thomson ontmoet op een van de bijeenkomsten van de Royal Geographical Society. De mannen raakten in gesprek toen Thomson een van zijn voordrachten over China met projectie van lantaarnplaatjes hield. Ook Hendrik Dunlop die als vertegenwoordiger bij de firma Hotz werkte, ging via Teheran en Shiraz langs de zijderoute naar China. Achterin Dunlops album Shiraz zitten een paar kleine foto’s die hij rond 1895 in China maakte, waaronder een van de theefabriek van Fuzhou."

(Mattie Boom 2017, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Kodak in Amsterdam. De opkomst van de amateurfotografie in Nederland 1880-1910, p. 113)

There is an exhibition in Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam) by Mattie Boom, about amateur photography in the Netherlands, 15 February - 10 June 2019.

www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/press/rijksmuseum-exhibition-traces...

 

Original caption reads:

"No. 231 Canton.

Temporary constructions of this sort are erected by wealthy Chinese for entertaining their friends. Celestial amusements are not so boisterous or active as those practised by outside barbarians and hence a quiet cool nook to smoke and sip tea in is the great desideratum, upon occasions of extra festivity female singers or a theatrical company are engaged who dance and sing for the pleasure of the guests.

The Chinese have remarkable ingenuity in the construction of these temporary mat buildings the site selected for the one given in our view is the centre of a pond."

 

Courtesy Leiden University Library, Special Collections, Or. 26.590 Hotz album 27, Or. 26.591 Hotz album 28, Or. 27.133 (1) Aktetas van Haccius.

  

The Brugse Poort was mainly created by the industrial expansion of the 19th century. In 1821, the entrepreneur Huyttens-Kerreman founded a workshop for metal working and construction on Kettingstraat, later transformed into N.v. Le Phoenix. From 1860, things went very fast in this district. This was mainly due to the textile industry as practised, for example, by Société Linière La Lys.

A bell house is actually a group of inferior working-class houses grouped around a courtyard, a street or an alley. General feature is being enclosed, as most beluges are accessible through only one entrance.

  

Within a period of thirty years (+/-1860-1890), this district was completely built up. The Brugse Poort grew without urban planning conditions, hence the chaotic street pattern and crowded development.

 

Tel Aviv

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White City of Tel-Aviv – the Modern Movement

Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 and developed as a metropolitan city under the British Mandate in Palestine. The White City was constructed from the early 1930s until the 1950s, based on the urban plan by Sir Patrick Geddes, reflecting modern organic planning principles. The buildings were designed by architects who were trained in Europe where they practised their profession before immigrating. They created an outstanding architectural ensemble of the Modern Movement in a new cultural context.

Some of the carvings on the pews in the chapel, which dates from the 14th century but underwent major refurbishment in the 1860s. I imagine the design was by Thomas Garner, as architects in those days practised a whole design concept, and they were carved locally by Farmer and Skidmore. Born not far from Warwick in 1838, Thomas Garner was articled to Sir George Gilbert Scott at the age of 17. Once qualified, Garner undertook various small works as a representative of Scott, including the repair of the Lord Leycester Hospital chapel. One of the leading English Gothic revival architects of the Victorian era, his crowning work was the choir of Downside Abbey, near Bath, where he is buried, having become Catholic in 1898. Each of the seats in the pews has a carved angel with quite extravagant wings (though on the closest they turn into flowers) and below, a chained bear, a lion and a crouching man.

Anston Stones Wood a Local Nature Reserve and a biological site of Special Scientific Interest in South Yorkshire.

 

The valley sides are covered in deciduous woodland but show signs of planting, with sycamore and beech being the dominant canopy trees in places. However, it is recognised by botanists as one of the finest remaining fragments of native woodland in northern England. The crags are magnesian limestone, a rock which provides an exceptionally fertile and well-drained soil.

 

The valley is not only interesting for its natural history but also for its archaeology. Ice Age cave deposits and Roman artefacts have been found throughout the valley. It appears that the ancient woodland was been saved from felling in the past because the banks of the Anston Brook are steep and unsuitable for cultivation. It was managed as a coppice with standards as long ago as 1553 and appears to have remained continuously wooded since that time. Anston Stones Wood supplied the Royal Navy with some of its 'hearts of oak' in the 18th century. This management continued until the early 19th century, when planting either for ornament or game began to be practised.

 

The wood was purchased from the Duke of Leeds by Kiveton Park Rural District Council in July 1947, with the intention that it be safeguarded & preserved as a local amenity for the benefit of local inhabitants. It was transferred to Anston Parish Council in April 1973.

 

Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia and, as of 2010, the world's most recent nation to become a republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India. With an area of 147,181 square kilometres (56,827 sq mi) and a population of approximately 30 million, Nepal is the world's 93rd largest country by land mass and the 41st most populous country. Kathmandu is the nation's capital and the country's largest metropolitan city.

 

Nepal is a country of highly diverse and rich geography, culture, and religions. The mountainous north has eight of the world's ten highest mountains, including the highest, Sagarmatha, known in English as Mount Everest. The fertile and humid south is heavily urbanized. It contains over 240 peaks more than 6,096 metres (20,000 ft) above sea level.

 

By some measures, Hinduism is practised by a larger majority of people in Nepal than in any other nation. Buddhism, though a minority faith in the country, is linked historically with Nepal as the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama, who as the Gautam Buddha gave birth to the Buddhist tradition.

 

A monarchy throughout most of its history, Nepal was ruled by the Shah dynasty of kings from 1768, when Prithvi Narayan Shah unified its many small kingdoms. In 2006, however, decade-long People's Revolution by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) along with several weeks of mass protests by all major political parties of Nepal culminated in a peace accord, and the ensuing elections for the constituent assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of the abdication of the last Nepali monarch Gyanendra Shah and the establishment of a federal democratic republic in May 28, 2008. The first President of Nepal, Ram Baran Yadav, was sworn in on 23 July 2008.

 

The word "Nepal" is believed by scholars to be derived from the word "Nepa:" which refers to the Newar Kingdom, the present day Kathmandu Valley. With Sanskritization, the Newar word Nepa became Nepal. The Newars of present day Nepal, refer to all the inhabitants of Kathmandu valley and its peripheries (called "Nepa:") before the advent of Shah dynasty.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepal

 

Bonsai is an art form practised in Japan and China. A tree is grown in a flower pot, and properly nourished pruned so that it does not grow beyond the desired size but retains all characteristics like bearing fruit etc., everything in miniature size. This tree was planted in 1939.

An easy and conveniently close cycling environment for trying out the "trap focus" techniques I practised with Zac. I'm becoming more reliable with the 80-200mm so I'll try this with the mountain bikers at Innertleithen tomorrow!

French postcard by Les Films de Mon Oncle, Paris. Jacques Tati in Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967).

 

French actor, comedian and film director Jacques Tati (1907-1982) was best known as the taciturn, gesticulating, maladjusted Monsieur Hulot, stumbling through the contemporary, mechanised world. He began as a mime in music halls. In his career of 50 years, Tati made only six feature-length and four short films in which he always starred himself. All his films came about after years of meticulous work. The influence of his sophisticated slapstick comedies on international cinema is considerable. In 1958, he received an Oscar for Mon oncle.

 

Jacques Tati was born Jacques Tatischeff in 1907 in Le Pecq, 19 km west of the centre of Paris. He was the son of a Dutch mother and the Russian military attaché at the Russian embassy in Paris. At 18, he entered military service and from the age of 20, he was active as a professional rugby player. Later, he made a living as a pantomime player. He was in variety theatre, where he performed several comic mime acts. Here he learnt the art of the comic movement and gained inspiration for his later films. His comic acts, based on various sports, were a success in the theatre. He made his screen debut in a series of short featurettes, tailored to show off his practised gags, notably Oscar, champion de tennis/Oscar, tennis champion (Jack Forrester, 1932) and Soigne ton gauche/Watch Your Left (René Clément, 1936), a very funny boxing sketch. The Second World War, military service and inherent strictures resulting from the German occupation put a temporary halt to his career. Then, in 1946, through a friend, the writer-director Claude Autant-Lara, Jacques obtained a small role in the whimsical fantasy Sylvie et le fantôme/Sylvie and the Ghost (Claude Autant-Lara, 1946), about a girl (Odette Joyeux) in love with a ghost (Tati). The small township of Sainte-Sévère, where Tati had taken refuge during the occupation, served as inspiration for his first film, the short L'école des facteurs/School for Postmen (Jacques Tati, 1947), in which Tati plays the character of François, a bumbling hyperactive postman. The film was so successful that Tati was offered the chance to make his first feature-length film, starring that same character. Jour de fête (Jacques Tati, 1949) shows a postman in a rural village, Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre, which is isolated and deprived compared to the rest of the modern world. But even the peaceful village does not escape modernity: on the day of the French national holiday on 14 July, a film is shown for the first time, and it is about the efficiency of the US postal service. In this film, postman François (played by Tati himself) sees how his colleagues in the United States deliver their mail by car and even by plane. François does everything by bike and now decides to drive his bike as fast as a car. The result is a whole series of stunts, which Tati himself performed on the bicycle. Jour de fête became a success.

 

Jacques Tati then made the classic Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Jacques Tati, 1953). In this film, Tati played the character of Monsieur Hulot for the first time. Tati took the name of the character from the architect Hulot who lived in the same apartment building as himself. Hulot arrives in a rickety 1924 Amilcar. I.S. Mowis at IMDb: "Tall and reedy, clad in a poplin coat, wearing a crumpled hat, striped socks, trousers which are patently too short, rolled umbrella, a pipe firmly clenched between his teeth and perambulating with an odd stiff-legged gait, Hulot cuts an ungainly, yet hilarious figure. Well-meaning though he is, he invariably leaves disaster in his wake and departs the scene quickly as things go wrong, letting others sort out the mess." Monsieur Hulot would become one of the icons of comic cinematography. Style features of Tati are silent, small jokes hidden in a scene. These scenes are almost always filmed in total shots, keeping the camera and thus the audience at a distance. This makes the films like observations of people's behaviour. Tati shows the viewer an absurd, satirical mirror in which the viewer can recognise his own behaviour, from everyday life. Another feature that made Tati differ from other slapstick actors was his use of sound. In Tati's films, the sound is as important as the image; many strange sound effects, such as footsteps, creaking and squeaking doors and clinking glass, enhance the effect of the jokes. In 1958, Tati made Mon Oncle (Jacques Tati, 1958), a comedy that was awarded the Oscar for best foreign film. This film also sees Tati as Monsieur Hulot. Tati criticises today's modern society in the film. According to Tati, technology, decadence and greed started playing an increasing role in our society. Real human values such as individuality, sociability, helpfulness and exercise are lost as a result. Crowds are central to all of Tati's films, but there is always a character who refuses to adapt, but eventually dissolves into the masses. This individual, played by Tati himself, fights (often unconsciously) against modernity. He understands nothing about machines and this often results in hilarious failures, in which modern technology is destroyed by human nature. The film juxtaposes the good old days with modern technology. Nostalgia clashes with the unimaginative, decadent, massive and impersonal world of modern times.

 

Jacques Tati then started working on an extremely expensive film, Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967), a kind of Sci-Fi comedy in which the world was completely turned into a very large city. Lacking suitable filming locations, Tati had an entire full-scale futuristic city (Tativille) recreated in Joinville-le-Pont. The shooting took almost four years. It was shot on the expensive 70 mm format and the most extraordinary filming techniques were used. Tati experimented with colour and used a very recognisable soundtrack in his films, which is repeated again and again throughout the film. When Playtime was released in 1967, critics' reactions were divided. In France, the film was reasonably successful, but nothing came of the intended American success: the film was not even released there. The picture's total budget had been $3 million and left Tati bankrupt. Tati was now unemployed: no one wanted to invest money in his films. Only in 1972 did he return to the big screen, in the film Trafic (Jacques Tati, 1972), a satire of modern man's love of cars, partly shot in the Netherlands and co-directed by Dutch cinematographer Bert Haanstra. This film was not a success either. Tati then made the television film Parade (Jacques Tati, 1974), a comedy about circus life, for Swedish television. Creditors impounded Tati's films, which were not re-released until 1977, when a canny Parisian distributor expunged his outstanding debts. Jacques Tati died of cancer in 1982 in Paris at the age of 75. Since 1944, he had been married to Micheline Winter with whom he had two children. In 2010, L'Illusionniste was released, a full-length animated film by Sylvain Chomet, based on a script by Tati. The main character in this film, an old, disillusioned magician named Tatischeff, is a cartoon version of Monsieur Hulot. The idea to release Tati's script as a cartoon came from Tati's daughter who did not want another actor to imitate her father. In the film, the protagonist walks into a cinema where Mon Oncle is currently being played. The film is not so much comic as melodramatic and builds on Tati's ideas about alienation and the demise of old trades.

 

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Frankreich / Provence - Gorges du Verdon

 

South Rim

 

Südrand

 

The Verdon Gorge (French: Gorges du Verdon Occitan: Gòrja de Verdon) is a river canyon located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of Southeastern France. It is about 25 km (15.5 mi) long and up to 700 metres (0.4 mi) deep. It was formed by the Verdon River, which is named for its turquoise-green colour, one of the location's distinguishing characteristics. In between the towns of Castellane and Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, the river has cut a ravine to a depth of 700 meters through the limestone mass. At the end of the canyon, the Verdon flows into the artificial Lake of Sainte-Croix.

 

The gorge is very popular with tourists, who can drive around its rim, rent kayaks to travel on the river, or hike. The limestone walls, which are several hundreds of metres high, attract many rock climbers. It is considered an outstanding destination for multi-pitch climbing, with 1,500 routes available ranging from 20 metres (65 feet) to over 400 metres (1,300 feet).

 

History

 

During the Triassic period, the Provence subsided and was covered by the sea, leaving thick layers of various limestone deposits. Several million years later, with the arrival of the Jurassic period, the area was covered by a warm shallow sea, which allowed the growth of various corals. The Cretaceous period saw what is now Basse Provence being raised and the sea reaching the current location of the Alps, which were themselves erected during the tertiary era. As a result of the large-scale geological activity, many of the Jurassic limestone deposits fractured, forming relief with valleys and other such features. The origins of the Verdon Gorge can be traced to this era.

 

The dawn of the Quaternary period had large-scale glaciation, transforming water pockets and lakes into rivers of ice, which remodeled the topography, scouring and striating the landscape. At the end of this activity, erosion by rivers continued, forming the Gorge as it is today. The Verdon's riverbed was scoured for a second time of the accumulated coral and limestone sediments, by a water delivery rate nearing 2000 to 3000 cubic metres per second.

 

Discovery

 

The gorge was described in printed form from 1782 and 1804. By the second half of the 19th century, it was featured in French tourist guides. According to Graham Robb's book The Discovery of France, the gorge did not become known outside France until 1906.

 

Recent developments

 

On 10 July 2006, the Council of State annulled the declaration of public use of a project by EDF relating to a proposed high-voltage line which would have had to pass through the Verdon Gorge. This decision ended 23 years of struggle by public groups and associations of environmental defence to preserve a site of exceptional natural interest, of which a part contains protected animal and plant species.

 

During the 2022 European drought, the water levels in the river were very low and dried up completely in some parts.

 

Geography

 

The source of the Verdon is close to the col d'Allos hill in the Trois Eveches mountain range, whence it continues, flowing into the Durance river near Vinon-sur-Verdon after traveling 175 kilometres. Between Castellane and the Galetas bridge, the river passes through the lake of Sainte-Croix, created by the construction of a dam of the same name. Before the dam was constructed, the village of Les Salles-sur-Verdon occupied the river plain. To create the reservoir, the village was destroyed in 1973. Les Salles-sur-Verdon was reconstructed as a more modern settlement higher up the valley. Today, it is the youngest village in France.

 

For some distance the Verdon Gorge forms the border between the départements of Var to the south and Alpes-de-Haute-Provence to the north in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur région.

 

This region between Castellane and the Lac de Sainte-Croix is called the Gorges du Verdon, or Verdon Gorge. It is split into three distinct parts:

 

"Prégorges" ('pre-gorge'), from Castellane to Pont de Soleils,

the deepest part of the Gorge, from Pont de Soleils to l'Imbut, and

the Canyon from l’Imbut to the Pont du Galetas.

 

The Verdon Gorge is narrow and deep, with depths of 250 to 700 metres and widths of 6 to 100 metres at the level of the Verdon river. It is 200 to 1500 metres wide from one side of the Gorge to the other at the summits. The Gorge has been compared to the Grand Canyon in the United States.

 

Hydro-electric dams

 

Between 1929 and 1975, five dams were erected on the course of the Verdon, between Castellane and Gréoux-les-Bains. These dams hold back water in the following reservoirs:

 

Lac de Castillon, which was created by flooding the village of the same name

Lac de Sainte-Croix, flooded the village of des Salles-sur-Verdon.

Lac d'Esparron-Gréoux, known locally as "lac d’Esparron".

Reservoir at Chaudanne

Reservoir at Quinson, sometimes improperly called the "lac de Montpezat", the name of the village over which it dominates.

 

Notable features

 

The Styx du Verdon, associated with the river Styx of Greek mythology, is an area of sub-canyon within the gorge.

 

The Imbut, also known as Embut or Embucq, is an area where the Verdon disappears underground, beneath enormous rock structures, before re-emerging above ground.

 

Tourism

 

The Verdon Gorge attracts numerous tourists, especially during the summer period. The river's turquoise colour is associated with glacial sources and the minerals of rock flour suspended in the water.

 

It is easily accessible on its right bank from the north (via route D952 from Castellane to Moustiers-Sainte-Marie), and on its left bank from the south (via routes D71, D90 and D955 from Aiguines to Castellane).

 

Sport

 

The Verdon Gorge attracts many rock climbers for its more than 1,500 climbing routes on good limestone rock.

The Verdon and its Gorge are also a favoured destination for fishermen, particularly for fly fishing.

Hiking, canoeing, paragliding, rafting, climbing and canyoning are some of the sports practised in the region.

 

Hiking and scenic walks

 

The most common hikes in the gorge include:

 

Le sentier (pathway) de Martel

Le sentier de l'Imbut

Le sentier du Bastidon

Le belvédère de Rancoumas par le pont de Tusset (the Rancoumas panoramic viewpoint near the Tusset Bridge)

 

The Sentier Martel, was laid out in 1928 by the Touring Club de France.[citation needed] It was named in 1930 to honor the explorer Édouard-Alfred Martel (1859–1938). Martel had visited the Verdon in 1905 as an employee of the Southeast Electricity Company, carrying out precise geological surveys of the river. On 11 August, he and his team (explorer Armand Janet, schoolmaster Isidore Blanc, geographer Cuvelier, plaus Baptistin Flory, Fernand Honorat, Prosper Marcel, and Tessier Zurcher) began an expedition of the region. Their successful arrival at the Pas de Galetas marked the completion of the first expedition of the Verdon Canyon.

 

Other expeditions to the Verdon included Martel's team the following year; followed by Robert de Joly, who in 1928 was the first to completely cross the Verdon Gorge.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Die Verdonschlucht, französisch Gorges du Verdon, umgangssprachlich auch Grand Canyon du Verdon, ist eine Schlucht in der französischen Provence, Département Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. Sie beginnt flussabwärts nach der Stadt Castellane und endet nahe Moustiers-Sainte-Marie im Stausee Lac de Sainte-Croix. Durch den etwa 21 km langen und bis zu 700 Meter tiefen Canyon fließt der türkisfarbene Fluss Verdon. Die Gorges du Verdon sind neben der Tara-Schlucht einer der größten Canyons Europas und Hauptbestandteil des nach ihm benannten Regionalen Naturparks Verdon.

 

Geographische Lage

 

Der Verdon entspringt in der Nähe des Col d’Allos im Bergland Trois Évêchés und mündet nach etwa 175 km in der Nähe von Vinon-sur-Verdon in die Durance. Das interessanteste Stück seines Laufes befindet sich zwischen Castellane und der Galetas-Brücke kurz vor dem Lac de Sainte-Croix. Die Schlucht von Verdon definiert über weite Strecken die Grenze zwischen den Départements Var im Süden und Alpes-de-Haute-Provence im Norden. Das Gebiet ist in drei Teilabschnitte gegliedert:

 

Die „Prégorges“ zwischen Castellane und der Brücke bei Soleils

Die Schlucht zwischen der Brücke und l’Imbut

Der Canyon zwischen l’Imbut und der Brücke von Galetas

 

Die Schlucht ist am Grund zwischen 6 und 100 m breit, die gegenüberliegenden Flanken sind zwischen 200 und 1500 m voneinander entfernt und die Tiefe variiert zwischen 250 und 700 m.

 

Entstehung

 

In der Trias-Zeit senkte sich die Provence ab und wurde vom Meer bedeckt. In der Folge lagerten sich am Grund verschiedene Schichten von Kalk (abgestorbene Muscheln u. ä.) ab. Im Jura wurde die Provence erneut von einem warmen, wenig tiefen Meer überflutet, was die Entstehung mächtiger Korallenbänke begünstigte.

 

In der Kreidezeit hob sich die Provence, und das Meer zog sich in den Bereich der heutigen Alpen zurück. Erst im Tertiär wurden die Alpen aufgefaltet. Die in der Folge zerbrechenden Kalkmassive aus der Jurazeit bestimmten das Relief und die Täler. In dieser Zeit suchte sich auch der Verdon sein Bett.

 

Im Quartär überformten die eiszeitlichen Gletscher die Landschaft. Am Ende der Vereisung nehmen die Flüsse ihre Erosionstätigkeit wieder auf. Bedingt durch die Eisschmelze waren die Wassermengen gewaltig: bis zu 3000 m³/s. Diese Mengen ermöglichten die tiefen Einschnitte im weichen Gestein.

 

Jüngere Geschichte

 

Auf dem Gebiet des heutigen Stausees, der durch den Bau des Sainte-Croix-Staudamms entstand, befand sich vor 1973 die Ortschaft Les Salles-sur-Verdon, die kurz vor der Flutung des Tals vollständig zerstört und an anderer Stelle neu aufgebaut wurde. Heute ist sie eine der jüngsten Gemeinden Frankreichs.

 

Seit dem 7. Mai 1990 ist die Schlucht offizielles Naturschutzgebiet.

 

Am 10. Juli 2006 beschloss der Conseil d’État, dass die geplante 400.000-Volt-Hochspannungsleitung der Électricité de France durch den Canyon nicht gebaut werden dürfe. Damit endete ein über 23 Jahre andauernder Kampf verschiedener Umwelt- und Naturschutzorganisation, die sich für den Erhalt der ursprünglichen Schlucht einsetzen.

 

1905: Erste vollständige Durchquerung der Schlucht durch den Speläologen Martel

1929: Grundsteinlegung des Castillon-Staudamms

1932: Unterbrechung der Bauarbeiten

1936: Ein Brand beschädigt den Staudamm

1948: Fertigstellung des Castillon-Staudamms

1951: Fertigstellung des Chaudanne-Staudamms

1960: Fertigstellung des Esparron-Gréoux-Staudamms

1973: Flutung des Sainte-Croix-Stausees

1973: Wiederaufbau der gefluteten Ortschaft Les Salles-sur-Verdon etwa 400 m entfernt

1974: Beginn der Stromproduktion des Wasserkraftwerks in Sainte-Croix

1975: Flutung des Quinson-Stausees

 

Aktivitäten

 

Auf dem Wasser

 

Teilweise lässt sich die Verdonschlucht mit Wildwasser-Kajaks befahren, im Unterlauf am Lac de Sainte-Croix auch mit größeren Booten. Der Wasserabfluss der oberen Stauseen ist zumindest während der Hauptreisezeit Juli und August einheitlich festgelegt. Um den Wassersport wie Wildwasserschwimmen, Rafting etc. zu unterstützen, wird an zwei Tagen der Woche (meist dienstags und freitags) mehr Wasser abgelassen. Der Abfluss beträgt dann 10–16 Kubikmeter Wasser pro Sekunde, an den anderen Tagen ca. 0,5 Kubikmeter Wasser pro Sekunde. Es existiert eine Hotline zur Information über aktuelle Wasserstände. In der Vor- und Nachsaison hingegen wird deutlich unregelmäßiger Wasser abgelassen, in manchen Jahren wochenlang bis zu 40 Kubikmeter pro Sekunde, in anderen wochenlang nur 0,5 Kubikmeter pro Sekunde. Bei Wassermengen über 2 bis 3 Kubikmeter wird im Wildwasserschwimmen Ungeübten vom Baden in der Strömung abgeraten. Durch unberechenbare Hindernisse wie Siphone, Unterspülungen und Holzverblockungen besteht dann Lebensgefahr.

 

Wandern

 

Das Wandern in den unzugänglicheren Regionen der Schlucht ist beliebt und gilt als ungefährlich. Die bekannteste Wander-Route durch den Verdon-Canyon beginnt und endet in der Mitte des Canyons an einem Aussichtspunkt, von dem es relativ steil über Serpentinen bergab geht. Sie führt entlang des Sentier Martel (benannt nach dem Erstdurchquerer Martel). Der Abstieg beginnt von der Route de Crête, am Vereinshaus La Maline. Unten am Fluss angelangt sollte man sich an der dortigen Weggabelung nach Norden halten und dort zügig dem Wegverlauf stromaufwärts folgen. Im Verlauf der fast sechsstündigen Wanderung – ohne Möglichkeit eines Zwischenausstieges – führt der Wanderweg beständig bergauf-bergab und über einige künstlich angelegte Leitern und Treppen abwärts. Eine davon (Brèche Imbert) ist recht steil und führt über 252 Stufen von einem Aussichtspunkt hinunter. Kurz vor Ende der Route führt der Weg durch zwei hintereinander liegende Tunnel, die als einzige Möglichkeit weiterführen. Hier sollte ursprünglich der Fluss komplett umgeleitet werden, doch das Projekt wurde nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg aufgegeben. Die Länge des ersten Tunnels beträgt 110 m, die des zweiten 657 m.

 

Insgesamt ist für diese Bergwanderung mit etwa fünf bis sechs Stunden reiner Gehzeit zu rechnen. Am End- bzw. Ausgangspunkt Point Sublime im Norden befindet sich ein weiterer Parkplatz. Für die Rückfahrt zum Ausgangspunkt besteht die Möglichkeit, ein Schluchtentaxi oder einen allerdings selten verkehrenden Linienbus zu benutzen.

 

Klettern

 

Die Verdonschlucht war in den 1970er und 1980er Jahren eines der bedeutendsten Klettergebiete. In den 1970er Jahren wurden zahlreiche ausgesetzte technische Linien erstbegangen, in den 1980er Jahren gelang dann Kletterern wie Patrick Berhault und Patrick Edlinger die freie Begehung vieler dieser Routen. Auch heute wird in dem Gebiet noch intensiv geklettert.

 

Weitere Aktivitäten

 

Auf der Ringstraße um den Verdon-Canyon sind immer wieder Aussichtspunkte zur Schlucht hin, aber auch auf die Lavendel-Felder, für die die Region berühmt ist, angelegt. Über der Schlucht kreisen häufig Paraglider, Drachen und Segelflieger, wenn das Wetter dies zulässt. Die Pont de l’Artuby wird sehr stark von Bungee-Jumpern frequentiert. Ebenso ist die Schlucht mit ihren Pässen Ziel vieler Motorradfahrer.

 

(Wikipedia)

The famous Overell department store was established in Brisbane in 1883 as a small drapery store in Fortitude Valley. Moving to Brisbane from Tasmania, William James Overell had opened the store with Thomas White in premises on the corner of Ann and Warner Streets which had been run as a drapery store since the mid-1860s. The partners bought a 15 perch (379.4m2) block of land fronting Brunswick Street in 1886, but did not occupy the site initially, instead leasing it to tenants. White left the business in 1889, transferring his share of the Brunswick Street site to Overell. Overell renamed the business ‘Overell’ and expanded to additional premises in Queen Street and other stores around southern Queensland. He adopted the motto ‘While we live we grow’ for the store, a statement that proved true over the following decades.

 

As Overell was branching out, other retailers were looking into the Valley for premises. Thomas Beirne and James McWhirter both started their drapery businesses in the centre of the Valley in the 1890s, with Foy and Gibson following, and the long-established drapers Stewart and Hemmant had a clothing factory constructed on McLachlan Street. The drapers’ stores and their competitive prices played a large role in making the Valley a vital commercial and industrial centre. By the turn of the twentieth century, helped by improvements to public transport and roads, the Valley had become a favourite shopping destination for Brisbane residents.

 

With the growing commercial importance of the Valley, Overell bought 28.83 perches of land (729.2m2) near the corner of Brunswick and Wickham Streets from the Bank of New South Wales in 1899. The site had a connection with the Brunswick Street property that Overell already owned, though they did not share a street front, giving the block an odd shape. An ‘exceedingly handsome building’ was designed by Addison and Corrie for the site and the firm relocated there in July 1900. The new premises caught fire and burned to the ground in February 1904, causing the death of one man, knocking out power to the trams and destroying the Bank of New South Wales premises next door.

 

After a dispute with Addison and Corrie, Overell engaged architects Eaton and Bates to design a replacement building. At that time the architectural firm was new to Brisbane, having shifted their Rockhampton practice to Brisbane in 1902, but had promptly designed impressive buildings, including Saint Bridgid’s Convent, Red Hill (1903), Bunburra, Clayfield (1902) and Cremorne, Hamilton (1905). Eaton and Bates also designed Swift’s Building, almost diagonally opposite Overell’s on the Valley corner, as well as the rebuilt Bank of New South Wales building on the corner (no longer extant).

 

The new three-storey brick building was featured in Brisbane’s newspapers on its opening on the 1st of December 1904. ‘It is a different building which has arisen from the ashes,’ wrote the Telegraph, ‘not perhaps in contour, but there is more light and ventilation, larger departments, finer windows, and generally more convenience from a public point of view.' The fire was credited with the development of the company’s trademark, the Phoenix, with the company’s new building almost literally rising from the ashes. The building had three entrances, with shopping on the ground level, furniture and delivery departments in the basement, and a workshop on the upper floor, where Overell’s ‘Phoenix’ shirts were made. Eight large display windows provided views of Overell’s wares, and a phoenix was displayed on one of three coloured glass windows at the back of the building. Pressed metal ceilings, wide staircases, suites and lunchrooms for the workers and electric lighting were all installed.

 

Further growth followed the opening of the new building. WJ Overell and Sons was registered as a limited liability company in August 1905, with £30,000 in capital. Factories were established in Spring Hill and South Brisbane. In May 1906 architect Claude Chambers called for tenders for additions and alterations to Overell’s Brunswick Street property. In July, William Overell purchased a further 11.53 perches of land (291.63m2) from the Bank of New South Wales, fronting Wickham Street and with a lane (now called Overells Lane) at the side. Overell’s extension plans were detailed in the Brisbane Courier in August, which noted that the new premises would be fitted with pneumatic cash carrying tubes and fire sprinklers. Plans were approved for brick and iron additions to the Overell premises, this time on Wickham Street, in September, and construction was underway by October. With the Bank of New South Wales still occupying the Wickham and Brunswick Street corner, Overell was unable to dominate the Valley Corner, but the back of the Wickham Street building was connected to the Brunswick Street shops, creating an uninterrupted shopping arcade for customers.

 

No architect was listed in the register of new buildings in September 1906, though Claude Chambers’ advertisements for tenders suggest that he was engaged to design the building. Chambers’ solo practice was one of the largest in Brisbane, resulting in commercial designs including Finney and Isles’ ‘Big Block’ Building (1908 - 1910) and Perry House on the corner of Elizabeth and Albert Streets (1910 - 1913). He also appears to have known William Overell personally, as both were active members of the Booroodabin Bowling Club in the early 1900s.

 

In March 1907 Overell held a sale to celebrate the opening of the new Wickham Street building. A kiosk provided free tea and biscuits to shoppers. The expansion enabled Overell to divide the store into departments, with the Wickham Street side devoted to male clothing while the Brunswick Street building sold women’s apparel and accessories. By 1910, Overell’s comprised twenty departments in the Valley store, and the company had branches in Charleville, Laidley and Pittsworth.

 

Further renovations were undertaken on Overell’s buildings in 1911. An extra storey was added to the Wickham Street frontage, bringing it to the height of the Brunswick Street shops, while the Brunswick Street store was extended at the back. Galleries were constructed inside the building, to be used as offices and for toy displays. The designer of these additions was Walter Carey Voller, a Sydney-born architect who had trained with F.D.G. Stanley and practised in Brisbane since 1891. Voller was a fellow in the Queensland Institute of Architects and had served as its president and vice-president by the time he was commissioned for Overell’s building. Voller’s design was approved in late November, although the extensions were partially completed and opened in December 1911, just in time for Christmas.

 

William Overell died in 1917 and his properties were transferred to the company, Overells Limited. William Overell, the first of the famous Valley drapers-turned-department store owners, had played a significant role in the development of the Valley as a commercial hub. Along with Beirne and McWhirter, the appeal of Overells’ impressive store drew customers to the Valley, providing a market for smaller businesses and entertainment venues that sprang up in the Valley in the first half of the twentieth century. Overell’s contribution to the business development of Brisbane was acknowledged with the observation that his death caused ‘a blank in Brisbane business circles’.

 

Management of the company passed to Overell’s eldest sons, Arthur and William, who continued the firm along the same expansionary lines. By 1923, Overells’ was a forty-year old business and had ‘the honour of being the oldest established firm in Fortitude Valley’. The company marked the occasion with the purchase of another block of land on Brunswick Street, a 15.1 perch (381.92m2) allotment adjoining the Overell store. The company extended their building along Brunswick Street and updated windows for the Wickham Street frontage, in accordance with designs by architectural firm Atkinson and Conrad.

 

Three storeys were added to the Wickham Street building in 1926 - 1927. The company obtained a mortgage from the National Mutual Association in February 1926 and plans were approved in June. The Council also granted permission for the architects to add a chiming clock on the front of the Wickham Street premises, though if installed, is no longer extant. Atkinson and Conrad were again engaged to design the new storeys, which were built by Blair Cunningham. The additions cost £30,000 and were finished and opened in September 1927. The building featured rest-rooms for staff and customers and sick-rooms, and the additional storeys made it one of the tallest buildings in the Valley.

 

The success of Overell’s continued well into the 1930s and 1940s. From the original drapery goods, the company branched into selling wireless radios, furniture, household goods, footwear, fancy goods including jewellery, toys, confectionary, and self-service groceries. There was also a mail-order service, a radio club, an employee benefit society, a war bonds group, fashion parades, child care centre for shoppers, employee sports clubs, charity balls, a social theatre, and tea rooms. Entries in Overell’s dressmaking competition were displayed in the Wickham Street island window. The company even applied to run a movie theatre in the basement but permission to do so was refused.

 

Several alterations were undertaken on the Brunswick Street building front in the 1950s, converting it to a masonry facade. In 1953 Overell’s was replaced by Sydney department store Walton-Sears, one of four branches opened in November 1953 as the company expanded into Queensland. Title passed to Waltons in 1956, and the company made significant internal alterations in 1960, 1962, 1967, 1973, and 1975. The Valley’s popularity as a shopping destination declined from the 1960s onwards, and the department store closed in the 1980s. In 1984 ownership passed to Mount Cathay Pty Ltd, which in 2016 continues to own all of the former Overell buildings.

 

Source: Brisbane City Council Heritage Register.

The Glasshouse is an international centre for musical education and concerts on the Gateshead bank of Quayside in northern England. Opened in 2004 as Sage Gateshead and occupied by North Music Trust The venue's original name honours a patron: the accountancy software company The Sage Group.

 

History

Planning for the centre began in the early 1990s, when the orchestra of Sage Gateshead, Royal Northern Sinfonia, with encouragement from Northern Arts, began working on plans for a new concert hall. They were soon joined by regional folk music development agency Folkworks, which ensured that the needs of the region's traditional music were taken into consideration and represented in Sage Gateshead's programme of concerts, alongside Rock, Pop, Dance, Hip Hop, classical, jazz, acoustic, indie, country and world, Practice spaces for professional musicians, students and amateurs were an important part of the provision.

 

The planning and construction process cost over £70 million, which was raised primarily through National Lottery grants. The contractor was Laing O'Rourke. The centre has a range of patrons, notably Sage Group which contributed a large sum of money to have the building named after it. Sage plc has helped support the charitable activities of Sage Gateshead since its conception. The venue opened over the weekend 17–19 December 2004.

 

Sage Gateshead was developed by Foster and Partners following an architectural design competition launched in 1997 and managed by RIBA Competitions. Over 100 architects registered their interest and 12 – a mixture of local, national and international talent – were invited to prepare concept designs. A shortlist of six was then interviewed with Foster and Partners unanimously selected as the winner. The Design has gone on to win a number of awards: the RIBA Inclusive Design Award, Civic Trust Award and The Journal North East Landmark of the Year Award.

 

As a conference venue, the building hosted the Labour Party's Spring conference in February 2005 and the Liberal Democrat Party conference in March 2012. On 18 August 2009, Sage Gateshead was selected to host the 2010 and 2011 National Union of Students annual conference. The 2010 Annual Conference took place 13–15 April 2010.

 

In 2022 The Sage Group announced that they were also sponsoring a new development that is being built next to Sage Gateshead which will be called The Sage. Sage Gateshead announced that they will be finding a new name for the venue prior to The Sage opening in 2024. On 13 September 2023 the venue announced its new name, The Glasshouse International Centre for Music.

 

Building

The centre occupies a curved glass and stainless steel building designed by Foster and Partners, Buro Happold (structural engineering), Mott MacDonald (engineering consultants) and Arup (acoustics), with views of Newcastle and Gateshead Quaysides, the Tyne Bridge and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge.

 

The Glasshouse contains three performance spaces; a 1,700-seater, a 450-seater, and a smaller rehearsal and performance hall, the Northern Rock Foundation Hall. The rest of the building was designed around these three spaces to allow for maximum attention to detail in their acoustic properties. Structurally it is three separate buildings, insulated from each other to prevent noise and vibration travelling between them. The gaps between them may be seen as one walks around inside. A special 'spongy' concrete mix was used in the construction, with a higher-than-usual air capacity to improve the acoustic. These three buildings are enclosed (but not touched) by the now-famous glass and steel shell. Sage One was intended as an acoustically perfect space, modelled on the Musikverein in Vienna. Its ceiling panels may be raised and lowered and curtains drawn across the ribbed wooden side walls, changing the sound profile of the room to suit any type of music. Sage Two is a smaller venue, possibly the world's only ten-sided performance space.

 

The building is open to the public throughout the day.

 

Concerts

The Glasshouse will host concerts from a wide range of internationally famous artists, and those who have played at the venue include Above and Beyond, Blondie, James Brown, Bonobo, Andy Cutting, De La Soul, Nick Cave, George Clinton, Bill Callahan, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Dillinger, Grace Jones, Gretchen Peters, Elbow, Explosions in the Sky, the Fall, Herbie Hancock, Mogwai, Morrissey, Mumford & Sons, Pet Shop Boys, Sunn O))), Nancy Sinatra, Snarky Puppy, Sting, Yellowman, Shane Filan of Westlife and others. In February 2015, it was one of the hosts of the second annual BBC Radio 6 Music Festival.

 

It is also home to Royal Northern Sinfonia, of which The Guardian wrote there is "no better chamber orchestra in Britain", and frequently hosts other visiting orchestras from around the world. The current music director for Royal Northern Sinfonia is the pianist and conductor Lars Vogt. In late 2014, Royal Northern Sinfonia collaborated with John Grant, performing at Sage Gateshead, and other venues throughout the UK. Recordings from this tour were made available as a limited edition CD and 12" record via Rough Trade Records in 2015.

 

Opinion

There has been popular debate surrounding what was Sage Gateshead. The venue is popular in the local area because of its concerts, and also its accessible learning courses for all ages and its constant interaction with local schools and academies through programmes such as Sing Up and the option of school visits.

 

Awards

2019: UK National Lottery 25th Birthday Award - Best Arts, Culture and Film

2019: Julie's Bicycle Creative Green 2 Star

2019: Gold Standard - Attitude is Everything

2018: Gold Award for Inclusive Tourism (North East Tourism Awards)

2018: Gold Award for Business Tourism (Visit England Awards for Excellence)

2005: Local Authority Building of the Year

2005: British Construction Industry Awards

2005: RIBA Award for Inclusive Design

 

Gateshead is a town in the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank. The town's attractions include the twenty metre tall Angel of the North sculpture on the town's southern outskirts, The Glasshouse International Centre for Music and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. The town shares the Millennium Bridge, Tyne Bridge and multiple other bridges with Newcastle upon Tyne.

 

Historically part of County Durham, under the Local Government Act 1888 the town was made a county borough, meaning it was administered independently of the county council.

 

In the 2011 Census, the town had a population of 120,046 while the wider borough had 200,214.

 

History

Gateshead is first mentioned in Latin translation in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People as ad caput caprae ("at the goat's head"). This interpretation is consistent with the later English attestations of the name, among them Gatesheued (c. 1190), literally "goat's head" but in the context of a place-name meaning 'headland or hill frequented by (wild) goats'. Although other derivations have been mooted, it is this that is given by the standard authorities.

 

A Brittonic predecessor, named with the element *gabro-, 'goat' (c.f. Welsh gafr), may underlie the name. Gateshead might have been the Roman-British fort of Gabrosentum.

 

Early

There has been a settlement on the Gateshead side of the River Tyne, around the old river crossing where the Swing Bridge now stands, since Roman times.

 

The first recorded mention of Gateshead is in the writings of the Venerable Bede who referred to an Abbot of Gateshead called Utta in 623. In 1068 William the Conqueror defeated the forces of Edgar the Ætheling and Malcolm king of Scotland (Shakespeare's Malcolm) on Gateshead Fell (now Low Fell and Sheriff Hill).

 

During medieval times Gateshead was under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Durham. At this time the area was largely forest with some agricultural land. The forest was the subject of Gateshead's first charter, granted in the 12th century by Hugh du Puiset, Bishop of Durham. An alternative spelling may be "Gatishevede", as seen in a legal record, dated 1430.

 

Industrial revolution

Throughout the Industrial Revolution the population of Gateshead expanded rapidly; between 1801 and 1901 the increase was over 100,000. This expansion resulted in the spread southwards of the town.

 

In 1854, a catastrophic explosion on the quayside destroyed most of Gateshead's medieval heritage, and caused widespread damage on the Newcastle side of the river.

 

Sir Joseph Swan lived at Underhill, Low Fell, Gateshead from 1869 to 1883, where his experiments led to the invention of the electric light bulb. The house was the first in the world to be wired for domestic electric light.

 

In the 1889 one of the largest employers (Hawks, Crawshay and Company) closed down and unemployment has since been a burden. Up to the Second World War there were repeated newspaper reports of the unemployed sending deputations to the council to provide work. The depression years of the 1920s and 1930s created even more joblessness and the Team Valley Trading Estate was built in the mid-1930s to alleviate the situation.

 

Regeneration

In the late noughties, Gateshead Council started to regenerate the town, with the long-term aim of making Gateshead a city. The most extensive transformation occurred in the Quayside, with almost all the structures there being constructed or refurbished in this time.

 

In the early 2010s, regeneration refocused on the town centre. The £150 million Trinity Square development opened in May 2013, it incorporates student accommodation, a cinema, health centre and shops. It was nominated for the Carbuncle Cup in September 2014. The cup was however awarded to another development which involved Tesco, Woolwich Central.

 

Governance

In 1835, Gateshead was established as a municipal borough and in 1889 it was made a county borough, independent from Durham County Council.

 

In 1870, the Old Town Hall was built, designed by John Johnstone who also designed the previously built Newcastle Town Hall. The ornamental clock in front of the old town hall was presented to Gateshead in 1892 by the mayor, Walter de Lancey Willson, on the occasion of him being elected for a third time. He was also one of the founders of Walter Willson's, a chain of grocers in the North East and Cumbria. The old town hall also served as a magistrate's court and one of Gateshead's police stations.

 

Current

In 1974, following the Local Government Act 1972, the County Borough of Gateshead was merged with the urban districts of Felling, Whickham, Blaydon and Ryton and part of the rural district of Chester-le-Street to create the much larger Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead.

 

Geography

The town of Gateshead is in the North East of England in the ceremonial county of Tyne and Wear, and within the historic boundaries of County Durham. It is located on the southern bank of the River Tyne at a latitude of 54.57° N and a longitude of 1.35° W. Gateshead experiences a temperate climate which is considerably warmer than some other locations at similar latitudes as a result of the warming influence of the Gulf Stream (via the North Atlantic drift). It is located in the rain shadow of the North Pennines and is therefore in one of the driest regions of the United Kingdom.

 

One of the most distinguishing features of Gateshead is its topography. The land rises 230 feet from Gateshead Quays to the town centre and continues rising to a height of 525 feet at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Sheriff Hill. This is in contrast to the flat and low lying Team Valley located on the western edges of town. The high elevations allow for impressive views over the Tyne valley into Newcastle and across Tyneside to Sunderland and the North Sea from lookouts in Windmill Hills and Windy Nook respectively.

 

The Office for National Statistics defines the town as an urban sub-division. The latest (2011) ONS urban sub-division of Gateshead contains the historical County Borough together with areas that the town has absorbed, including Dunston, Felling, Heworth, Pelaw and Bill Quay.

 

Given the proximity of Gateshead to Newcastle, just south of the River Tyne from the city centre, it is sometimes incorrectly referred to as being a part of Newcastle. Gateshead Council and Newcastle City Council teamed up in 2000 to create a unified marketing brand name, NewcastleGateshead, to better promote the whole of the Tyneside conurbation.

 

Economy

Gateshead is home to the MetroCentre, the largest shopping mall in the UK until 2008; and the Team Valley Trading Estate, once the largest and still one of the larger purpose-built commercial estates in the UK.

 

Arts

The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art has been established in a converted flour mill. The Glasshouse International Centre for Music, previously The Sage, a Norman Foster-designed venue for music and the performing arts opened on 17 December 2004. Gateshead also hosted the Gateshead Garden Festival in 1990, rejuvenating 200 acres (0.81 km2) of derelict land (now mostly replaced with housing). The Angel of the North, a famous sculpture in nearby Lamesley, is visible from the A1 to the south of Gateshead, as well as from the East Coast Main Line. Other public art include works by Richard Deacon, Colin Rose, Sally Matthews, Andy Goldsworthy, Gordon Young and Michael Winstone.

 

Traditional and former

The earliest recorded coal mining in the Gateshead area is dated to 1344. As trade on the Tyne prospered there were several attempts by the burghers of Newcastle to annex Gateshead. In 1576 a small group of Newcastle merchants acquired the 'Grand Lease' of the manors of Gateshead and Whickham. In the hundred years from 1574 coal shipments from Newcastle increased elevenfold while the population of Gateshead doubled to approximately 5,500. However, the lease and the abundant coal supplies ended in 1680. The pits were shallow as problems of ventilation and flooding defeated attempts to mine coal from the deeper seams.

 

'William Cotesworth (1668-1726) was a prominent merchant based in Gateshead, where he was a leader in coal and international trade. Cotesworth began as the son of a yeoman and apprentice to a tallow - candler. He ended as an esquire, having been mayor, Justice of the Peace and sheriff of Northumberland. He collected tallow from all over England and sold it across the globe. He imported dyes from the Indies, as well as flax, wine, and grain. He sold tea, sugar, chocolate, and tobacco. He operated the largest coal mines in the area, and was a leading salt producer. As the government's principal agent in the North country, he was in contact with leading ministers.

 

William Hawks originally a blacksmith, started business in Gateshead in 1747, working with the iron brought to the Tyne as ballast by the Tyne colliers. Hawks and Co. eventually became one of the biggest iron businesses in the North, producing anchors, chains and so on to meet a growing demand. There was keen contemporary rivalry between 'Hawks' Blacks' and 'Crowley's Crew'. The famous 'Hawks' men' including Ned White, went on to be celebrated in Geordie song and story.

 

In 1831 a locomotive works was established by the Newcastle and Darlington Railway, later part of the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway. In 1854 the works moved to the Greenesfield site and became the manufacturing headquarters of North Eastern Railway. In 1909, locomotive construction was moved to Darlington and the rest of the works were closed in 1932.

 

Robert Stirling Newall took out a patent on the manufacture of wire ropes in 1840 and in partnership with Messrs. Liddell and Gordon, set up his headquarters at Gateshead. A worldwide industry of wire-drawing resulted. The submarine telegraph cable received its definitive form through Newall's initiative, involving the use of gutta-percha surrounded by strong wires. The first successful Dover–Calais cable on 25 September 1851, was made in Newall's works. In 1853, he invented the brake-drum and cone for laying cable in deep seas. Half of the first Atlantic cable was manufactured in Gateshead. Newall was interested in astronomy, and his giant 25-inch (640 mm) telescope was set up in the garden at Ferndene, his Gateshead residence, in 1871.

 

Architecture

JB Priestley, writing of Gateshead in his 1934 travelogue English Journey, said that "no true civilisation could have produced such a town", adding that it appeared to have been designed "by an enemy of the human race".

 

Victorian

William Wailes the celebrated stained-glass maker, lived at South Dene from 1853 to 1860. In 1860, he designed Saltwell Towers as a fairy-tale palace for himself. It is an imposing Victorian mansion in its own park with a romantic skyline of turrets and battlements. It was originally furnished sumptuously by Gerrard Robinson. Some of the panelling installed by Robinson was later moved to the Shipley Art gallery. Wailes sold Saltwell Towers to the corporation in 1876 for use as a public park, provided he could use the house for the rest of his life. For many years the structure was essentially an empty shell but following a restoration programme it was reopened to the public in 2004.

 

Post millennium

The council sponsored the development of a Gateshead Quays cultural quarter. The development includes the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, erected in 2001, which won the prestigious Stirling Prize for Architecture in 2002.

 

Former brutalism

The brutalist Trinity Centre Car Park, which was designed by Owen Luder, dominated the town centre for many years until its demolition in 2010. A product of attempts to regenerate the area in the 1960s, the car park gained an iconic status due to its appearance in the 1971 film Get Carter, starring Michael Caine. An unsuccessful campaign to have the structure listed was backed by Sylvester Stallone, who played the main role in the 2000 remake of the film. The car park was scheduled for demolition in 2009, but this was delayed as a result of a disagreement between Tesco, who re-developed the site, and Gateshead Council. The council had not been given firm assurances that Tesco would build the previously envisioned town centre development which was to include a Tesco mega-store as well as shops, restaurants, cafes, bars, offices and student accommodation. The council effectively used the car park as a bargaining tool to ensure that the company adhered to the original proposals and blocked its demolition until they submitted a suitable planning application. Demolition finally took place in July–August 2010.

 

The Derwent Tower, another well known example of brutalist architecture, was also designed by Owen Luder and stood in the neighbourhood of Dunston. Like the Trinity Car Park it also failed in its bid to become a listed building and was demolished in 2012. Also located in this area are the Grade II listed Dunston Staithes which were built in 1890. Following the award of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of almost £420,000 restoration of the structure is expected to begin in April 2014.

 

Sport

Gateshead International Stadium regularly holds international athletics meetings over the summer months, and is home of the Gateshead Harriers athletics club. It is also host to rugby league fixtures, and the home ground of Gateshead Football Club. Gateshead Thunder Rugby League Football Club played at Gateshead International Stadium until its purchase by Newcastle Rugby Limited and the subsequent rebranding as Newcastle Thunder. Both clubs have had their problems: Gateshead A.F.C. were controversially voted out of the Football League in 1960 in favour of Peterborough United, whilst Gateshead Thunder lost their place in Super League as a result of a takeover (officially termed a merger) by Hull F.C. Both Gateshead clubs continue to ply their trade at lower levels in their respective sports, thanks mainly to the efforts of their supporters. The Gateshead Senators American Football team also use the International Stadium, as well as this it was used in the 2006 Northern Conference champions in the British American Football League.

 

Gateshead Leisure Centre is home to the Gateshead Phoenix Basketball Team. The team currently plays in EBL League Division 4. Home games are usually on a Sunday afternoon during the season, which runs from September to March. The team was formed in 2013 and ended their initial season well placed to progress after defeating local rivals Newcastle Eagles II and promotion chasing Kingston Panthers.

 

In Low Fell there is a cricket club and a rugby club adjacent to each other on Eastwood Gardens. These are Gateshead Fell Cricket Club and Gateshead Rugby Club. Gateshead Rugby Club was formed in 1998 following the merger of Gateshead Fell Rugby Club and North Durham Rugby Club.

 

Transport

Gateshead is served by the following rail transport stations with some being operated by National Rail and some being Tyne & Wear Metro stations: Dunston, Felling, Gateshead Interchange, Gateshead Stadium, Heworth Interchange, MetroCentre and Pelaw.

 

Tyne & Wear Metro stations at Gateshead Interchange and Gateshead Stadium provide direct light-rail access to Newcastle Central, Newcastle Airport , Sunderland, Tynemouth and South Shields Interchange.

 

National Rail services are provided by Northern at Dunston and MetroCentre stations. The East Coast Main Line, which runs from London Kings Cross to Edinburgh Waverley, cuts directly through the town on its way between Newcastle Central and Chester-le-Street stations. There are presently no stations on this line within Gateshead, as Low Fell, Bensham and Gateshead West stations were closed in 1952, 1954 and 1965 respectively.

 

Road

Several major road links pass through Gateshead, including the A1 which links London to Edinburgh and the A184 which connects the town to Sunderland.

 

Gateshead Interchange is the busiest bus station in Tyne & Wear and was used by 3.9 million bus passengers in 2008.

 

Cycle routes

Various bicycle trails traverse the town; most notably is the recreational Keelmans Way (National Cycle Route 14), which is located on the south bank of the Tyne and takes riders along the entire Gateshead foreshore. Other prominent routes include the East Gateshead Cycleway, which connects to Felling, the West Gateshead Cycleway, which links the town centre to Dunston and the MetroCentre, and routes along both the old and new Durham roads, which take cyclists to Birtley, Wrekenton and the Angel of the North.

 

Religion

Christianity has been present in the town since at least the 7th century, when Bede mentioned a monastery in Gateshead. A church in the town was burned down in 1080 with the Bishop of Durham inside.[citation needed] St Mary's Church was built near to the site of that building, and was the only church in the town until the 1820s. Undoubtedly the oldest building on the Quayside, St Mary's has now re-opened to the public as the town's first heritage centre.

 

Many of the Anglican churches in the town date from the 19th century, when the population of the town grew dramatically and expanded into new areas. The town presently has a number of notable and large churches of many denominations.

 

Judaism

The Bensham district is home to a community of hundreds of Jewish families and used to be known as "Little Jerusalem". Within the community is the Gateshead Yeshiva, founded in 1929, and other Jewish educational institutions with international enrolments. These include two seminaries: Beis Medrash L'Morot and Beis Chaya Rochel seminary, colloquially known together as Gateshead "old" and "new" seminaries.

 

Many yeshivot and kollels also are active. Yeshivat Beer Hatorah, Sunderland Yeshiva, Nesivos Hatorah, Nezer Hatorah and Yeshiva Ketana make up some of the list.

 

Islam

Islam is practised by a large community of people in Gateshead and there are 2 mosques located in the Bensham area (in Ely Street and Villa Place).

 

Twinning

Gateshead is twinned with the town of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray near Rouen in France, and the city of Komatsu in Japan.

 

Notable people

Eliezer Adler – founder of Jewish Community

Marcus Bentley – narrator of Big Brother

Catherine Booth – wife of William Booth, known as the Mother of The Salvation Army

William Booth – founder of the Salvation Army

Mary Bowes – the Unhappy Countess, author and celebrity

Ian Branfoot – footballer and manager (Sheffield Wednesday and Southampton)

Andy Carroll – footballer (Newcastle United, Liverpool and West Ham United)

Frank Clark – footballer and manager (Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest)

David Clelland – Labour politician and MP

Derek Conway – former Conservative politician and MP

Joseph Cowen – Radical politician

Steve Cram – athlete (middle-distance runner)

Emily Davies – educational reformer and feminist, founder of Girton College, Cambridge

Daniel Defoe – writer and government agent

Ruth Dodds – politician, writer and co-founder of the Little Theatre

Jonathan Edwards – athlete (triple jumper) and television presenter

Sammy Johnson – actor (Spender)

George Elliot – industrialist and MP

Paul Gascoigne – footballer (Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur, Lazio, Rangers and Middlesbrough)

Alex Glasgow – singer/songwriter

Avrohom Gurwicz – rabbi, Dean of Gateshead Yeshiva

Leib Gurwicz – rabbi, Dean of Gateshead Yeshiva

Jill Halfpenny – actress (Coronation Street and EastEnders)

Chelsea Halfpenny – actress (Emmerdale)

David Hodgson – footballer and manager (Middlesbrough, Liverpool and Sunderland)

Sharon Hodgson – Labour politician and MP

Norman Hunter – footballer (Leeds United and member of 1966 World Cup-winning England squad)

Don Hutchison – footballer (Liverpool, West Ham United, Everton and Sunderland)

Brian Johnson – AC/DC frontman

Tommy Johnson – footballer (Aston Villa and Celtic)

Riley Jones - actor

Howard Kendall – footballer and manager (Preston North End and Everton)

J. Thomas Looney – Shakespeare scholar

Gary Madine – footballer (Sheffield Wednesday)

Justin McDonald – actor (Distant Shores)

Lawrie McMenemy – football manager (Southampton and Northern Ireland) and pundit

Thomas Mein – professional cyclist (Canyon DHB p/b Soreen)

Robert Stirling Newall – industrialist

Bezalel Rakow – communal rabbi

John William Rayner – flying ace and war hero

James Renforth – oarsman

Mariam Rezaei – musician and artist

Sir Tom Shakespeare - baronet, sociologist and disability rights campaigner

William Shield – Master of the King's Musick

Christina Stead – Australian novelist

John Steel – drummer (The Animals)

Henry Spencer Stephenson – chaplain to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II

Steve Stone – footballer (Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa and Portsmouth)

Chris Swailes – footballer (Ipswich Town)

Sir Joseph Swan – inventor of the incandescent light bulb

Nicholas Trainor – cricketer (Gloucestershire)

Chris Waddle – footballer (Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur and Sheffield Wednesday)

William Wailes – stained glass maker

Taylor Wane – adult entertainer

Robert Spence Watson – public benefactor

Sylvia Waugh – author of The Mennyms series for children

Chris Wilkie – guitarist (Dubstar)

John Wilson - orchestral conductor

Peter Wilson – footballer (Gateshead, captain of Australia)

Thomas Wilson – poet/school founder

Robert Wood – Australian politician

Today, tent pegging is practised around the world, but is especially popular in Australia, India, Israel, Oman, Pakistan, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The Olympic Council of Asia included tent pegging as an official sport in 1982, and the International Federation for Equestrian Sports recognised it as an official equestrian discipline in 2004.

Castell Henllys (Welsh, "castle of the old court") is an archaeological site near Nevern in north Pembrokeshire, Wales.

 

The Iron Age hillfort has been the subject of an ongoing excavation since the start of the 21st century, accompanied by an exercise in reconstruction archaeology whereby experiments in prehistoric farming have been practised. Four roundhouses and a granary have been reconstructed on their original Iron Age foundations – some 2,000 years old – the hillfort the only site in Britain where this has been done.[1] The Castell Henlyss site includes significant earthworks and fortifications

ESA Astronaut Reserve member John McFall poses for a picture while his body familiarises itself with the challenges of controlling his movements in 'weightless’ conditions. Flying with him on the Airbus ‘Zero G’ aircraft were experienced European spacewalkers Alexander Gerst and Thomas Pesquet for safety and support.

 

Over repeated climbs and dives of the plane, parabolic flights recreate a state of weightlessness for 20 seconds at a time. John trained in several working stations on the plane while wearing his prosthetic leg.

 

The former Paralympic sprinter and orthopaedic surgeon from the UK suffered the amputation of his right leg at age 19 following a motorcycle accident. He practised stabilising himself and performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation techniques, better known as CPR, while being upside down in reduced gravity.

 

Since 2023, John is a key figure in the pioneering ‘Fly!’ feasibility study that investigates whether it would be possible for a professional astronaut with a physical disability to embark on a mission to the International Space Station, which typically lasts six months.

 

As an elite athlete with a passion for biomechanics and health science, John brings a diverse background to his role in Fly!

 

“My experience gives me the ability to take an active role rather than being a passive subject. My skills allow the team to explore potential barriers and come up with solutions to make human spaceflight more inclusive,” explains John.

 

Hands-on experience is crucial for this study. John has worked with international partners and industries to test equipment and different scenarios and come up with solutions to improve accessibility to space, especially in emergency procedures.

 

John explains that from a very early stage the team realised that if he had to leave the spacecraft during an emergency on the launch pad, procedures would need to account for his prosthetic leg.

 

“My leg would need to be compatible to be worn with the spacesuit, inside the capsule and on the International Space Station, where I would need it to exercise and keep myself fit. My prosthesis would need to meet and adapt to all the requirements,” he says.

 

To this day, Fly! has not identified any showstoppers which would prevent an astronaut with a disability like John's from flying into space.

 

The Fly! study will conclude in late 2024. ESA continues to push the boundaries of what is possible,ensuring that space exploration is a shared human endeavour.

 

Follow John’s journey on Instagram and X, and listen to his story with the ESA Explores podcast.

 

Credits: ESA/Novespace

This is my first guitar of 1976, remodified in 2016 and in pristine condition. Ready for another episode, but not for crazy jam (jam = improvising).

 

"Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord"

Ephesians 5:19

 

In a guitar, what matters the most is how you adjust the length of the strings (vibrating length), provided the tension and the thickness of the strings are constant. So I focus, in the photograph, on the fretboard where all the major actions take place.

All bokeh except the strings.

 

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During my university days, I used to play this guitar (of 1976) heavily. Four years of Western music education at Tharanga Nissari School of Music (of KJ Yesudas), two years at Cochin Arts, Communications (CAC of Jerry Amaldev), and St. Cecilia Music Academy in Panjim Goa made me practice so many late nights that might be given sleepless nights to my neighbors but nobody complaint ever. Though I practised softly at night, unlike the daytime the fixation might hurt them, if that was so, my sincere apology to my loving neighbors.

 

However, music brought me some kind of peace, happiness, motivation, and challenge for decades. But today, I found the truth, the way, and the life.

 

This photo grabs many awards:

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The Galaxy Hall of Fame

 

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Thank you for your faves, comments, and awards,

Have a great day.

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Happiness is a thing to be practised: John Lubbock

The Singapore Water Reclamation Study (NEWater Study) was initiated in 1998 as a joint initiative between the Public Utilities Board (PUB) and the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR). The primary objective of the joint initiative was to determine the suitability of using NEWater as a source of raw water to supplement Singapore's water supply. NEWater is treated used water that has undergone stringent purification and treatment process using advanced dual-membrane (microfiltration and reverse osmosis) and ultraviolet technologies. NEWater could be mixed and blended with reservoir water and then undergo conventional water treatment to produce drinking water (a procedure known as Planned Indirect Potable Use or Planned IPU).

 

Planned IPU as a source of water supply is not new. It has been practised in several parts of the United States for more than 20 years. At Water Factory 21, Orange County Water District, Southern California, high quality water reclaimed from treated used water has been injected into ground water since 1976. Similarly, at Upper Occoquan Sewage Authority (UOSA), North Virginia, high quality reclaimed water is discharged into Occuquan Reservoir since 1978. Occoquan Reservoir is a source of water for more than a million people living in the vicinity of Washington DC.

 

Water reclamation is a growing trend in the U.S. and around the world. In the U.S., there are several other water reclamation projects that are now being planned or under construction. Two of them are at Gwinnett near Atlanta, Georgia and at Scottsdale near Phoenix, Arizona.

 

In 2001, PUB embarked on a new initiatives to increase water supply from unconventional sources for non-potable use. The use of NEWater for wafer fabrication processes, non-potable applications in manufacturing processes as well as air-con cooling towers in commercial buildings would free large amount of potable water for other potable purposes.