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Postcard. Postally unused.
Published by the Photochrom Co. Ltd., Royal Tunbridge Wells.
Bought from an eBay seller in Kent, United Kingdom.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordwich
"The ducking-stool was a strongly made wooden armchair (the surviving specimens are of oak) in which the victim was seated, an iron band being placed around her so that she should not fall out during her immersion. The earliest record of the use of such is towards the beginning of the 17th century, with the term being first attested in English in 1597. It was used both in Europe and in the English colonies of North America.
Usually the chair was fastened to a long wooden beam fixed as a seesaw on the edge of a pond or river. Sometimes, however, the ducking-stool was not a fixture but was mounted on a pair of wooden wheels so that it could be wheeled through the streets, and at the river-edge was hung by a chain from the end of a beam. In sentencing a woman the magistrates ordered the number of duckings she should have. Yet another type of ducking-stool was called a tumbrel. It was a chair on two wheels with two long shafts fixed to the axles. This was pushed into the pond and then the shafts released, thus tipping the chair up backwards. Sometimes the punishment proved fatal and the victim died of shock.
The last recorded cases are those of a Mrs. Ganble at Plymouth (1808); Jenny Pipes, a notorious scold (1809), and Sarah Leeke (1817), both of Leominster. In the last case the water in the pond was so low that the victim was merely wheeled round the town in the chair." - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucking_stool#Ducking-stools
This photograph was published in the Illustrated Chronicle on the 10th of December 1915.
During the Great War the Illustrated Chronicle published photographs of soldiers and sailors from Newcastle and the North East of England, which had been in the news. The photographs were sent in by relatives and give us a glimpse into the past.
The physical collection held by Newcastle Libraries comprises bound volumes of the newspaper from 1910 to 1925. We are keen to find out more about the people in the photographs. If you recognise anyone in the images and have any stories and information to add please comment below.
Copies of this photograph may be ordered from us, for more information see: www.newcastle.gov.uk/tlt Please make a note of the image reference number above to help speed up your order."
Graeme Butler images from the 1992 survey for the Macedon Ranges Cultural Heritage and Landscape Study published 1994
Dreamthorpe was part of Nathanial Ronalds' (Melbourne florist) house and nursery, set on 22.1/2. acres purchased from the Waterfalls Estate, prior to 1887{ RB1886, c101 no Ronalds; RB1887,283 1st entry}. Reputedly Ronalds sent flowers daily from Macedon to his Swanston Street shop, `Ronalds' Central', while his residential address was in New Street, North Brighton. This shop was later called simple `RONALDS' and was managed by a Miss Fawcett{ WD1899-1900}. By 1893 Mr & Mrs David T Davies had purchased the nursery and added the brick butter factory there{ RB1893,68 NAV increase to 1894 in Mrs DT (Susan) Davies' name; Milbourne, p.76}. The factory was opened in 1893 and was stated by dairying expert, a Mr Wilson, to be `..one of the best equipped factories in the colony' but it was closed in the following year and purchased by the Pioneer Dairy Co{ ibid.; M Hutton pers.com.}. From 1895, Ronalds leased 4.1/2. acres of the Lillies Leaf estate from G Bevis on Brougham Road{ RB1895,644}. He was joined there by his wife, Agnes Ronalds, in 1896 who had a cottage on lot 10 of the same estate (now Apsley){ RB1896-7,889}. Nat died in 1898 but Agnes remained there for many years with a large family, becoming known in the area as Granny Ronalds{ M Hutton pers.com. cites GMM&DHS files}. One of Nat's daughters, Mary, also opened a nursery on the other side of the road (Brookdale, q.v.) in c1927. Meanwhile Dreamthorpe nursery and house had been purchased by gardener, Richard Healy (or Healey) from the Davies estate{ RB1909-10,731; RB1898,718}. Healy ran the nursery there until it was acquired by Judge Henry Edward Hodges, then care of the High Court, c1912-13. The house was enlarged (front rooms) for Judge Hodges (knighted 1918, died at Dreamthorpe 1919) in c1914 and was rated in his wife's name (Alice B Hodges) by c1917. The added rooms had art-metal ceilings and seaweed in the walls for insulation Visitors to the garden in the 1920s described it so: `..apparently careless profusion of trees and flowers. Amongst the ash elm and maple trees, resplendent golden oaks caught the eye and viburnum and clematis harmonised with the alluring colour scheme. Here one saw miniature lakes, winding paths decked with forget-me-nots, shady nooks beneath noble trees and an appealing play of light and shadow through the leaves of myriad tints{ `Gisborne Gazette' 20.11.25}. The name `Dreamthorpe' was recorded in rate books of the 1940s when the property was owned by Catherine M Walker and the house still stood on 22 acres{ RB1945-6,952}. However it was reputedly named so much earlier, by Mrs Hodges, who was also responsible for much of the garden's development, after it ceased to be a nursery{ Gisborne & Mount Macedon District Historical Society- M.Hutton typescript Dreamthorpe 1987}. The garden was also the venue for many community occasions during Lady Hodges' tenure, with many fetes raising money for a variety of charities. Judge Hodges (1844-1919) Hodges was born in Liverpool, England, the son of a ship's captain, and came to the colony in 1854 seeking gold{ JM Young ADB V9}. He took up teaching on the Bendigo goldfields. He obtained a BA at Melbourne University in 1870 and took up private tutorship of the familes of JG Francis and Sir William Stawell. Reputedly, he was also the tutor for the Hamilton children and subsequently came back to the Macedon area, older and more successful. He was called to the bar in 1873 and quickly established a lucrative practice, being appointed an acting Judge of the supreme Court in 1889 (permanent by 1890){ ADB V9}. Here he established a reputation for logical but a sometimes severe demeanour in court, being sometimes prone to sarcasm and emotional outbursts which led to an unprecedented resolution in 1913 from the bar criticising his behavour in court. Alice Hodges was his second wife (m 1909), the widow of Robert Chirnside of Caranballac. As Lady Hodges she lived on at Dreamthorpe there until her death in 1942.
The recipe for this delicious curry is now published on my gourmet webzine :: Richly Spiced Cambodian Chicken Curry
♥
Cambodian cuisine is less known than that of its neighbours, Thailand and Vietnam. It is a colourful cuisine whose style and ingredients reveals strong influences from its neighbouring countries (though less spicy in general) and China. Influences can also be seen from the period of French occupation (including the use of caramel in certain dishes and eating curries with toasted baguette) and India (many Cambodian curries contain Indian curry powder and black pepper as opposed to chilli, which is served separately).
Published by La Selva, Brazil 1950
A friends of mine collection, but I wanted you to have a chance to view these important editions.
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Davide, Enrica, Giosada e gli Urban Strangers, i quattro finalisti di #XF9, in diretta dal Mediolanum Forum di Assago, Milano, giovedì 10 Dicembre 2015, avranno l’onore di condividere lo stesso palco con giganti della musica come i Coldplay, in vetta alle classifiche in 53 paesi. Chris Martin & Co si esibiranno live in esclusiva per l’Italia proprio sul palco della Finale per regalare al pubblico ben due successi del nuovo album: "A Head Full of Dreams" e "Adventure of a Lifetime".
X Factor Italia vuole siglare un altro primato: l’intera giuria si esibirà sulle note dei propri successi e con le proprie band: Elio e le Storie Tese, Skunk Anansie e Fedez e Mika.
Alessandro Cattelan vi racconterà questo grandissimo evento musicale scandendo i ritmi di una serata che si preannuncia veramente intensa. Avrete modo di assistere a una sfida davvero speciale tra Enrica, Davide, Giosada e Urban Strangers al fianco di un grande artista italiano: Cesare Cremonini. Dopo 34 date del Logico Tour, la pop star bolognese accompagnerà al pianoforte i ragazzi nella prima manche dedicata ai duetti, al termine della quale uno di loro lascerà la gara, oltre ad eseguire "Lost in weekend".
La sfida proseguirà con la manche degli inediti, appena presentati e già in cima alla classifica iTunes. Per lo scontro decisivo, i due super finalisti si giocheranno il podio con un brano scelto da ciascuno di loro tra quelli interpretati durante il lungo percorso ad X Factor. Solo uno di loro si aggiudicherà un contratto con Sony Music Italia e la possibilità di pubblicare un album.
Non finisce qui: un inedito duetto infiammerà il Forum, quello di Fedez & Mika, che si esibiranno per la prima volta live nel loro "Beautiful Disaster". Elio e le Storie Tese si porteranno al Forum uno dei classici storici della band, "Servi della gleba", mentre gli Skunk Anansie la nuovissima "Love Someone Else".
Il vincitore della nona edizione di X Factor Italia è Giosada.
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The Postcard
A postally unused carte postale that was published by Cie Alsacienne des Arts Photomécaniques of Strasbourg.
Lourdes
Lourdes is in southwestern France, and is famous for the 15 apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes that are reported to have been seen in 1858 by 14 year old Bernadette Soubirous.
Reports of the apparitions have led to Lourdes developing into a major place of Christian pilgrimage and of alleged miraculous healings.
In fact on the rock face near the statue of Our Lady you could see crutches that have been discarded by some of the many disabled people who felt that they had been rendered mobile during their visit to the grotto. The crutches are no longer there.
The 150th. Jubilee of the first apparition took place on the 11th. February 2008 with an outdoor mass attended by approximately 45,000 pilgrims.
Today Lourdes has a population of around 15,000, but is able to take in some 5 million pilgrims and tourists every season. With about 270 hotels, Lourdes has the second greatest number of hotels in France after Paris.
Pop icon Madonna named her daughter Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon after the town.
A Poem by Rose Kelleher
There is a poem called "Lourdes" in the book Bundle o' Tinder, a collection of poems by Rose Kelleher which won the 2007 Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize.
In the poem she expresses doubts that she would clearly like to be resolved. Here is the poem:
"A trickle from a single spring
heals a few who travel to your grotto
high in the Pyrenees. You're hard to get to,
and can't fix everything.
One wound, one tumour at a time -
why must your miracle be watered down?
Let limbs regrow from stumps in Sierra Leone.
Now that would be a sign.
Burst the spigots. Overflow.
Send mercy surging down the mountainside,
washing over every borderline.
Don't just stand there. Go
to battlefields and seek us out.
Hurry, before the bodies start to smell.
Repack that soldier's brains inside his skull.
Cure my doubt".
MØ
Secret Solstice Festival
June, 2015
Reykjavik, Iceland
© 2015 LEROE24FOTOS.COM
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This is a shot from 2011, I'm posting it because it was recently published in "Our State" magazine. That's a North Carolina magazine that focuses on all things concerning North Carolina. My thanks to Our State for publishing one of my shots.
From "Around The World" Published in 1897. This is the largest town in the Rheinish province of Prussia,and is a fortress of the first class. Cologne has a population of 291,000, and is reached by steamer in about four hours from our last stopping place, (Rheinstein Castle}. The city is situated on the left bank of the Rhine and is connected with its suburb, Deutz, on the opposite bank, by an iron bridge and a bridge of boats. From a distance and more especially when approached by steamer, the town with its numerous towers presents an imposing appearance ; but most of the streets are old and gloomy, ill paved and ill drained. Many of the houses date back to the 13th and 14th centuries. The area of the town was nearly doubled in 1881, when the fortifications were extended.
The Cathedral of Cologne justly excites the admiration of every beholder, and is probably the most magnificent Gothic building in the world. It stands on a slight eminence about 60ft above the Rhine. The foundations were laid in 1248, but the rate of progress was phenomenally slow, owing to sundry bickerings that arose between the Archbishop and the citizens.
In 1796 this Cathedral was converted into a hay magazine by the French, who also stripped the lead from the roof. The work of renovation was commenced in 1823, and between 1842 and 1880 no less than £900,000 was spent on the edifice.
Cologne Cathedral is 444ft long and 201 ft broad ; length of trancept, 282ft ; height of walls, 150ft. The tower is 512ft high-the loftiest church tower in Europe. Twenty eight men are required to ring the 25-ton bell in the south tower. The interior area of the cathedral is 7,399 square yards. Between the Cathedral and the Museum begins the Hoch-Strasse, the chief thoroughfare of Cologne. A series of boulevards, three and a half miles long, collectively known as the Ring-Strasse, have been laid out on the site of the old fortifications at a cost of £590,000.
Published on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 by TomDispatch.com
A Very American Coup: Coming Soon to a Hometown Near You
by William Astore
The wars in distant lands were always going to come home, but not this way.
It's September 2016, year 15 of America's "Long War" against terror. As weary troops return to the homeland, a bitter reality assails them: despite their sacrifices, America is losing.
Iraq is increasingly hostile to remaining occupation forces. Afghanistan is a riddle that remains unsolved: its army and police forces are untrustworthy, its government corrupt, and its tribal leaders unsympathetic to the vagaries of U.S. intervention. Since the Obama surge of 2010, a trillion more dollars have been devoted to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and other countries in the vast shatter zone that is central Asia, without measurable returns; nothing, that is, except the prolongation of America's Great Recession, now entering its tenth year without a sustained recovery in sight.
Disillusioned veterans are unable to find decent jobs in a crumbling economy. Scarred by the physical and psychological violence of war, fed up with the happy talk of duplicitous politicians who only speak of shared sacrifices, they begin to organize. Their motto: take America back.
Meanwhile, a lame duck presidency, choking on foreign policy failures, finds itself attacked even for its putative successes. Health-care reform is now seen to have combined the inefficiency and inconsistency of government with the naked greed and exploitative talents of corporations. Medical rationing is a fact of life confronting anyone on the high side of 50. Presidential rhetoric that offered hope and change has lost all resonance. Mainstream media outlets are discredited and disintegrating, resulting in new levels of information anarchy.
Protest, whether electronic or in the streets, has become more common -- and the protestors in those streets increasingly carry guns, though as yet armed violence is minimal. A panicked administration responds with overlapping executive orders and legislation that is widely perceived as an attack on basic freedoms.
Tapping the frustration of protesters -- including a renascent and mainstreamed "tea bag" movement -- the former captains and sergeants, the ex-CIA operatives and out-of-work private mercenaries of the War on Terror take action. Conflict and confrontation they seek; laws and orders they increasingly ignore. As riot police are deployed in the streets, they face a grim choice: where to point their guns? Not at veterans, they decide, not at America's erstwhile heroes.
A dwindling middle-class, still waving the flag and determined to keep its sliver-sized portion of the American dream, throws its support to the agitators. Wages shrinking, savings exhausted, bills rising, the sober middle can no longer hold. It vents its fear and rage by calling for a decisive leader and the overthrow of a can't-do Congress.
Savvy members of traditional Washington elites are only too happy to oblige. They too crave order and can-do decisiveness -- on their terms. Where better to find that than in the ranks of America's most respected institution: the military?
A retired senior officer who led America's heroes in central Asia is anointed. His creed: end public disorder, fight the War on Terror to a victorious finish, put America back on top. The United States, he says, is the land of winners, and winners accept no substitute for victory. Nominated on September 11, 2016, Patriot Day, he marches to an overwhelming victory that November, embraced in the streets by an American version of the post-World War I German Freikorps and the police who refuse to suppress them. A concerned minority is left to wonder (and tremble) at the de facto military coup that occurred so quickly, and yet so silently, in their midst.
It Can Happen Here, Unless We Act
Yes, it can happen here. In some ways, it's already happening. But the key question is: at this late date, how can it be stopped? Here are some vectors for a change in course, and in mindset as well, if we are to avoid our own stealth coup:
1. Somehow, we need to begin to reverse the ongoing militarization of this country, especially our ever-rising "defense" budgets. The most recent of these, we've just learned, is a staggering $708 billion for fiscal year 2011 -- and that doesn't even include the $33 billion President Obama has requested for his latest surge in Afghanistan. We also need to get rid of the idea that anyone who suggests even minor cuts in defense spending is either hopelessly naïve or a terrorist sympathizer. It's time as well to call a halt to the privatization of military activity and so halt the rise of security contractors like Xe (formerly Blackwater), thereby weakening the corporate profit motive that supports and underpins the American version of perpetual war. It's time to begin feeling chastened, not proud, that we're by far the number one country in the world in arms manufacturing and the global arms trade.
2. Let's downsize our global mission rather than endlessly expanding our military footprint. It's time to have a military capable of defending this country, not fighting endless wars in distant lands while garrisoning the globe.
3. Let's stop paying attention to major TV and cable networks that rely on retired senior military officers, most of whom have ties both to the Pentagon and military contractors, for "unbiased" commentary on our wars. If we insist on fighting our perpetual "frontier" wars, let's start insisting as well that they be covered in all their bitter reality: the death, the mayhem, the waste, the prisons, and the torture. Why is our war coverage invariably sanitized to "PG" or even "G," when we can go to the movies anytime and see "R" rated, pornographically violent films? And by the way, it's time to be more critical of the government's and the media's use of language and propaganda. Mindlessly parroting the Patriot Act doesn't make you patriotic.
4. It's time to elect a president who doesn't surround himself with senior "civilian" advisors and ambassadors who are actually retired military generals and admirals, one who won't accept a Nobel Peace Prize by defending war in theory and escalating it in practice.
5. Let's toughen up. Let's stop deferring to authority figures who promise to "protect" us while abridging our rights. Let's stop bowing down before men and women in uniform, before they start thinking that it's their right to be worshipped and act accordingly.
6. Let's act now to relieve the sort of desperation bred by joblessness and hopelessness that could lead many -- notably male workers suffering from the "He-Cession" -- to see a militarized solution in "the homeland" as a credible last resort. It's the economy, stupid, but with Main Street's health, not Wall Street's, in our focus.
7. Let's take Sarah Palin and her followers seriously. They're tapping into anger that's real and spreading. Don't let them become the voices of the angry working (and increasingly unemployed) classes.
8. Recognize that we face real enemies in our world, the most powerful of which aren't in distant Afghanistan or Yemen but here at home. The essence of our struggle to sustain our faltering democracy should not be against "terrorists," with their shoe and crotch bombs, but against various powerful, perfectly legal groups here whose interests lie in a Pentagon that only grows ever stronger.
9. Stop thinking the U.S. is uniquely privileged. Don't take it on faith that God is on our side. Forget about God blessing America. If you believe in God, get out there and start trying to earn His blessing through deeds.
10. And, most important of all, remember that fear is the mind-killer that makes militarism possible. Ramping up "terror" is an amazingly effective way of shredding our Constitution. Putting our "safety" above all else is asking for trouble. The only way we'll be completely safe from the big bad terrorists, after all, is when we're all living in a maximum security state. Think of walking down the street while always being subject to a "full-body scan."
That's my top 10 things we need to do. It's a daunting list and I'm sure you have a few ideas of your own. But have faith. Ultimately, it all boils down to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's words to a nation suffering through the Great Depression: the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. These words came to mind recently as I read the following missive from a friend and World War II veteran who's seen tough times:
"It's very hard for me to accept how soft the American people have become. In 1941, with the western world under assault by powerful and deadly forces, and a large armada of ships and planes attacking us directly, I never heard a word of fear as we faced three powerful nations as enemies. Sixteen million of us went into the military with the very real possibility of death and I never once heard of fear, except from those exposed to danger. Now, our people let [their leaders] terrify them into accepting the destruction of our economy, our image in the world, and our democracy... All this over a small group of religious fanatics [mostly] from Saudi Arabia whom we kowtow to so we can drive 8-cylinder SUV's. Pathetic!
"How many times have I stood in ‘security lines' at airports and when I complained of the indignity of taking off shoes and not having water and the manhandling of passengers, have well educated people smugly said to me, ‘Well, they're just keeping us safe.' I look at the airport bullshit as a training ground to turn Americans into docile sheep in a totalitarian state."
A public conditioned to act like sheep, to "support our troops" no matter what, to cower before the idea of terrorism, is a public ready to be herded. A military that's being used to fight unwinnable wars is a military prone to return home disaffected and with scores to settle.
Angry and desperate veterans and mercenaries already conditioned to violence, merging with "tea baggers" and other alienated groups, could one day form our own Freikorps units, rioting for violent solutions to national decline. Recall that the Nazi movement ultimately succeeded in the early 1930s because so many middle-class Germans were scared as they saw their wealth, standard of living, and status all threatened by the Great Depression.
If our Great Recession continues, if decent jobs remain scarce, if the mainstream media continue to foster fear and hatred, if returning troops are disaffected and their leaders blame politicians for "not being tough enough," if one or two more terrorist attacks succeed on U.S. soil, wouldn't this country be well primed for a coup by any other name?
Don't expect a "Seven Days in May" scenario. No American Caesar will return to Washington with his legions to decapitate governmental authority. Why not? Because he won't have to.
As long as we continue to live in perpetual fear in an increasingly militarized state, we establish the preconditions under which Americans will be nailed to, and crucified on, a cross of iron.
© 2010 William Astore
William J. Astore teaches History at the Pennsylvania College of Technology (wastore@pct.edu). A retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), he has also taught at the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School. A TomDispatch regular, he is the author of Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism.
What would you do if you saw your nation going fascist?
The Postcard
A postally unused carte postale that was published by L.L.
Although the card was not posted, someone has used a pencil to write "T. Banfield" on the divided back.
The Notre-Dame de Paris Fire
The Notre-Dame de Paris fire broke out on the 15th. April 2019, just before 18:20 CEST, beneath the roof of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral. By the time the fire was extinguished, the building's spire had collapsed, most of its roof had been destroyed, and its upper walls were severely damaged.
Extensive damage to the interior was prevented by its stone vaulted ceiling, which largely contained the burning roof as it collapsed. Many works of art and religious relics were moved to safety early in the emergency, but others suffered smoke damage, and some of the exterior art was damaged or destroyed.
The cathedral's altar, two pipe organs, and its three 13th.-century rose windows suffered little or no damage. Three emergency workers were injured, and contamination of the site and the nearby environment resulted.
French president Emmanuel Macron said that the cathedral would be restored by 2024, and launched a fundraising campaign which brought in pledges of over €1 billion. It was estimated that a complete restoration could require twenty years or more.
On the 25th. December 2019, the cathedral did not host Christmas services for the first time since 1803.
Background to The Fire
The Catholic cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, part of the "Paris, Banks of the Seine" UNESCO World Heritage Site, was begun in the 12th. century.
Its walls and interior vaulted ceiling are of stone; its roof and flèche (spire) were of wood (much of it 13th.-century oak), sheathed in lead to exclude water. The spire was rebuilt several times, most recently in the 19th. century.
The cathedral's stonework has been severely eroded by years of weather and pollution, and the spire had extensively rotted because fissures in its lead sheathing were admitting water.
The roof timbers were dry, spongy and powdery with age. In 2014, the Ministry of Culture estimated necessary renovations would cost €150 million, and in 2016 the Archdiocese of Paris launched an appeal to raise €100 million over the following five to ten years.
At the time of the fire, the spire was undergoing restoration, and scaffolding was being erected over the transept.
Extensive attention had been given to the risk of fire at the cathedral. The Paris Fire Brigade drilled regularly to prepare for emergencies there, including on-site exercises in 2018; a firefighter was posted to the cathedral each day; and fire wardens checked conditions beneath the roof three times daily.
Fortunately the Twelve Apostle and Four Evangelist statues at the spire's base had been removed for conservation days before the fire.
The Notre-Dame Fire
Fire broke out in the attic beneath the cathedral's roof at 18:18. At 18:20 the fire alarm sounded and guards evacuated the cathedral. A guard was sent to investigate, but to the wrong location – the attic of the adjoining sacristy – where he found no fire. About fifteen minutes later the error was discovered, but by the time guards had climbed the three hundred steps to the cathedral attic the fire was well advanced.
The alarm system was not designed to automatically notify the fire brigade, which was summoned at 18:51 after the guards had returned. Firefighters arrived within ten minutes.
Fighting the Notre-Dame Fire
More than 400 firefighters were engaged. A hundred government employees along with police and municipal workers moved precious artefacts to safety via a human chain.
The fire was primarily fought from inside the structure, which was more dangerous for personnel, but reduced potential damage to the cathedral - applying water from outside risked deflecting flames and hot gases (at temperatures up to 800 °C) inwards. Deluge guns were used at lower-than-usual pressures to minimise damage to the cathedral and its contents. Water was supplied by pump-boat from the Seine.
Aerial firefighting was not used because water dropped from heights could have caused structural damage, and heated stone can crack if suddenly cooled. Helicopters were also not used because of dangerous updrafts, but drones were used for visual and thermal imaging, and robots for visual imaging and directing water streams. Molten lead falling from the roof posed a special hazard for firefighters.
By 18:52, smoke was visible from the outside; flames appeared within the next ten minutes. The spire of the cathedral collapsed at 19:50, creating a draft that slammed all the doors and sent a fireball through the attic. Firefighters then retreated from within the attic.
Shortly before the spire fell, the fire had spread to the wooden framework inside the north tower, which supported eight very large bells. Had the bells fallen, it was thought that the damage done as they fell could have collapsed the towers, and with them the entire cathedral.
At 20:30, firefighters abandoned attempts to extinguish the roof and concentrated on saving the towers, fighting from within and between the towers. By 21:45 the fire was under control.
Adjacent apartment buildings were evacuated due to concern about possible collapse, but on the 19th. April the fire brigade ruled out that risk. One firefighter and two police officers were injured.
Damage to Notre-Dame
Most of the wood/metal roof and the spire of the cathedral was destroyed, with about one third of the roof remaining. The remnants of the roof and spire fell atop the stone vault underneath, which forms the ceiling of the cathedral's interior. Some sections of this vaulting collapsed in turn, allowing debris from the burning roof to fall to the marble floor below, but most sections remained intact due to the use of rib vaulting, greatly reducing damage to the cathedral's interior and objects within.
The cathedral contained a large number of artworks, religious relics, and other irreplaceable treasures, including a crown of thorns said to be the one Jesus wore at his crucifixion. Other items were a purported piece of the cross on which Jesus was crucified, the Tunic of St. Louis, a pipe organ by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, and the 14th.-century Virgin of Paris statue.
Some artwork had been removed in preparation for the renovations, and most of the cathedral's sacred relics were held in the adjoining sacristy, which the fire did not reach; all the cathedral's relics survived. Many valuables that were not removed also survived.
Lead joints in some of the 19th.-century stained-glass windows melted, but the three major rose windows, dating back to the 13th. century, were undamaged. Several pews were destroyed, and the vaulted arches were blackened by smoke, though the cathedral's main cross and altar survived, along with the statues surrounding it.
Some paintings, apparently only smoke-damaged, are expected to be transported to the Louvre for restoration. The rooster-shaped reliquary atop the spire was found damaged but intact among the debris. The three pipe organs were not significantly damaged. The largest of the cathedral's bells, the bourdon, was also not damaged. The liturgical treasury of the cathedral and the "Grands Mays" paintings were moved to safety.
Environmental Damage
Airparif said that winds rapidly dispersed the smoke, carrying it away aloft along the Seine corridor. It did not find elevated levels of particulate air pollution at monitoring stations nearby. The Paris police stated that there was no danger from breathing the air around the fire.
The burned-down roof had been covered with over 400 metric tons of lead. Settling dust substantially raised surface lead levels in some places nearby, notably the cordoned-off area and places left open during the fire. Wet cleaning for surfaces and blood tests for children and pregnant women were recommended in the immediate area.
People working on the cathedral after the fire did not initially take the lead precautions required for their own protection; materials leaving the site were decontaminated, but some clothing was not, and some precautions were not correctly followed; as a result, the worksite failed some inspections and was temporarily shut down.
There was also more widespread contamination; testing, clean-up, and public health advisories were delayed for months, and the neighbourhood was not decontaminated for four months, prompting widespread criticism.
Reactions to the Notre-Dame Fire
President of France Emmanuel Macron, postponing a speech to address the Yellow Vests Movement planned for that evening, went to Notre-Dame and gave a brief address there. Numerous world religious and government leaders extended condolences.
Through the night of the fire and into the next day, people gathered along the Seine to hold vigils, sing and pray.
White tarpaulins over metal beams were quickly rigged to protect the interior from the elements. Nettings protect the de-stabilised exterior.
The following Sunday at Saint-Eustache Church, the Archbishop of Paris, Michel Aupetit, honoured the firefighters with the presentation of a book of scriptures saved from the fire.
Investigation Into The Notre-Dame Fire
On the 16th. April, the Paris prosecutor said that there was no evidence of a deliberate act.
The fire has been compared to the similar 1992 Windsor Castle fire and the Uppark fire, among others, and has raised old questions about the safety of similar structures and the techniques used to restore them. Renovation works increase the risk of fire, and a police source reported that they are looking into whether such work had caused this incident.
The renovations presented a fire risk from sparks, short-circuits, and heat from welding (roof repairs involved cutting, and welding lead sheets resting on timber). Normally, no electrical installations were allowed in the roof space due to the extreme fire risk.
The roof framing was of very dry timber, often powdery with age. After the fire, the architect responsible for fire safety at the cathedral acknowledged that the rate at which fire might spread had been underestimated, and experts said it was well known that a fire in the roof would be almost impossible to control.
Of the firms working on the restoration, a Europe Echafaudage team was the only one working there on the day of the fire; the company said no soldering or welding was underway before the fire. The scaffolding was receiving electrical supply for temporary elevators and lighting.
The roofers, Le Bras Frères, said it had followed procedure, and that none of its personnel were on site when the fire broke out. Time-lapse images taken by a camera installed by them showed smoke first rising from the base of the spire.
On the 25th. April, the structure was considered safe enough for investigators to enter. They unofficially stated that they were considering theories involving malfunction of electric bell-ringing apparatus, and cigarette ends discovered on the renovation scaffolding.
Le Bras Frères confirmed its workers had smoked cigarettes, contrary to regulations, but denied that a discarded cigarette end could have started the fire. The Paris prosecutor's office announced on the 26th. June that no evidence had been found to suggest a criminal motive.
The security employee monitoring the alarm system was new on the job, and was on a second eight-hour shift that day because his relief had not arrived. Additionally, the fire security system used confusing terminology in its referencing parts of the cathedral, which contributed to the initial confusion as to the location of the fire.
As of September, five months after the fire, investigators thought the cause of the fire was more likely an electrical fault than a cigarette. Determining the exact place in which the fire started was expected to take a great deal more time and work. By the 15th. April 2020, investigators stated:
"We believe the fire to have been
started by either a cigarette or a
short circuit in the electrical system".
Reconstruction of Notre-Dame Cathedral
On the night of the fire Macron said that the cathedral, which is owned by the state, would be rebuilt, and launched an international fundraising campaign. France's cathedrals have been owned by the state since 1905, and are not privately insured.
The heritage conservation organisation Fondation du Patrimoine estimated the damage in the hundreds of millions of euros, but losses from the fire are not expected to substantially impact the private insurance industry.
European art insurers stated that the cost would be similar to ongoing renovations at the Palace of Westminster in London, which currently is estimated to be around €7 billion.
This cost does not include damage to any of the artwork or artefacts within the cathedral. Any pieces on loan from other museums would have been insured, but the works owned by the cathedral would not have been insurable.
While Macron hoped the cathedral could be restored in time for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, architects expect the work could take from twenty to forty years, as any new structure would need to balance restoring the look of the original building, using wood and stone sourced from the same regions used in the original construction, with the structural reinforcement required for preventing a similar disaster in the future.
There is discussion of whether to reconstruct the cathedral in modified form. Rebuilding the roof with titanium sheets and steel trusses has been suggested; other options include rebuilding in the original lead and wood, or rebuilding with modern materials not visible from the outside (like the reinforced concrete trusses at Reims Cathedral).
Another option would be to use a combination of restored old elements and newly designed ones. Chartres Cathedral was rebuilt with wrought iron trusses and copper sheeting after an 1836 fire.
French prime minister Édouard Philippe announced an architectural design competition for a new spire that would be:
"Adapted to the techniques
and the challenges of our era."
The spire replacement project has gathered a variety of designs and some controversy, particularly its legal exemption from environmental and heritage rules. After the design competition was announced, the French senate amended the government's restoration bill to require the roof to be restored to how it was before the fire.
On the 16th. July, 95 days after the fire, the law that will govern the restoration of the cathedral was finally approved by the French parliament. It recognises its UNESCO World Heritage Site status and the need to respect existing international charters and practices, to:
"Preserve the historic, artistic and architectural
history of the monument, and to limit any
derogations to the existing heritage, planning,
environmental and construction codes to a
minimum".
On the 15th. April 2020, Germany offered to restore some of the large clerestory windows located far above eye level with three expert tradesmen who specialize in rebuilding cathedrals. Monika Grütters, Germany's Commissioner for Culture was quoted as saying that her country would shoulder the costs.
As of the 30th. November all of the tangled scaffolding was removed from the spire area, and was therefore no longer a threat to the building.
The world will now have to wait for Notre-Dame de Paris to be restored to its former magnificence.
The Postcard
A postally unused postcard published by the Photochrom Co. Ltd. The card, which is a glossy real photograph, was printed in Great Britain. The card has a divided back.
Note the motorbike with a sidecar - something that is rarely seen these days in the UK.
The Photochrom Co. Ltd.
The Photochrom Co. Ltd. of London and Royal Tunbridge Wells originally produced Christmas cards before becoming a major publisher and printer of tourist albums, guide books, and postcards.
These mainly captured worldwide views as real photos, or were printed in black & white, monochrome, and color.
They also published many advertising, comic, silhouette, novelty, panoramic, and notable artist-signed cards in named series as well. The huge number of titles that Photochrom produced may well exceed 40,000.
In 1896 they took over Fussli’s London office established three years earlier, and began publishing similar photo-chromolithographic postcards after securing the exclusive English licence for the Swiss photochrom process.
This technique was used to produce a great number of view-cards of both England and Europe. While they captured the same fine details as the Swiss prints, their colours were much softer and reduced.
Apart from their better known photochroms, they produced their Celesque series of view-cards printed in tricolor.
One of the largest unnamed series that Photochrom produced was of view-cards printed in brown rotogravure. Many of these cards were simply hand coloured with a dominant red and blue, which gives these cards a distinct appearance. They are similar to cards produced in their Photogravure and Velvet Finish Series.
Photochrom postcard series include:
-- Night Series - Line block halftone over a blue tint depicting London.
-- Carbofoto Series - Black & white real photo cards.
-- Sepiatone Series - Sepia real photo cards.
-- Grano Series - View-cards printed in black & white.
-- Exclusive Photo-Color Series - View-cards printed in colour.
-- Duotype Process Series - View-cards printed in two tones.
Llandudno
Llandudno is a seaside resort in Conwy County Borough, Wales, located on the Creuddyn peninsula, which protrudes into the Irish Sea. The town's name is derived from its patron saint, Saint Tudno.
Llandudno is the largest seaside resort in Wales, and as early as 1861 was being called 'the Queen of the Welsh Watering Places' (a phrase later also used in connection with Tenby and Aberystwyth; the word 'resort' came a little later).
-- History of Llandudno
The town of Llandudno developed from Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements over many hundreds of years on the slopes of the limestone headland, known to seafarers as the Great Orme and to landsmen as the Creuddyn Peninsula.
The origins in recorded history are with the Manor of Gogarth conveyed by King Edward I to Annan, Bishop of Bangor in 1284.
-- The Great Orme
Mostly owned by Mostyn Estates, the Great Orme is home to several large herds of wild Kashmiri goats originally descended from a pair given by Queen Victoria to Lord Mostyn.
The summit of the Great Orme stands at 679 feet (207 m). The Summit Hotel, now a tourist attraction, was once the home of world middleweight champion boxer Randolph Turpin.
The limestone headland is a haven for flora and fauna, with some rare species such as peregrine falcons and a species of wild cotoneaster (cambricus) which can only be found on the Great Orme.
The sheer limestone cliffs provide ideal nesting conditions for a wide variety of sea birds, including cormorants, shags, guillemots, razorbills, puffins, kittiwakes, fulmars and numerous gulls.
There are several attractions including the Great Orme Tramway and the Llandudno Cable Car that takes tourists to the summit. The Great Orme also has the longest toboggan run in Britain at 750m.
-- The Development of Llandudno
By 1847 the town had grown to a thousand people, served by the new church of St. George, built in 1840. The great majority of the men worked in the copper mines, with others employed in fishing and subsistence agriculture.
In 1848, Owen Williams, an architect and surveyor from Liverpool, presented Lord Mostyn with plans to develop the marshlands behind Llandudno Bay as a holiday resort. These were enthusiastically pursued by Lord Mostyn.
The influence of the Mostyn Estate and its agents over the years was paramount in the development of Llandudno, especially after the appointment of George Felton as surveyor and architect in 1857.
Between 1857 and 1877 much of central Llandudno was developed under Felton's supervision. Felton also undertook architectural design work, including the design and execution of the Holy Trinity Church in Mostyn Street.
The Llandudno and Colwyn Bay Electric Railway operated an electric tramway service between Llandudno and Rhos-on-Sea from 1907, this being extended to Colwyn Bay in 1908. The service closed in 1956.
-- The Beach and The Parade
A beach of sand, shingle and rock curves two miles between the headlands of the Great Orme and the Little Orme.
For most of the length of Llandudno's North Shore there is a wide curving Victorian promenade. The road, collectively known as The Parade, has a different name for each block, and it is on these parades and crescents that many of Llandudno's hotels are built.
-- Llandudno Pier
The pier is on the North Shore. Built in 1878, it is a Grade II listed building.
The pier was extended in 1884 in a landward direction along the side of what was the Baths Hotel (where the Grand Hotel now stands) to provide a new entrance with the Llandudno Pier Pavilion Theatre, thus increasing the pier's length to 2,295 feet (700 m); it is the longest pier in Wales.
Attractions on the pier include a bar, a cafe, amusement arcades, children's fairground rides and an assortment of shops & kiosks.
In the summer, Professor Codman's Punch and Judy show (established in 1860) can be found on the promenade near the entrance to the pier.
-- The Happy Valley
The Happy Valley, a former quarry, was the gift of Lord Mostyn to the town in celebration of the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887. The area was landscaped and developed as gardens, two miniature golf courses, a putting green, a popular open-air theatre and extensive lawns.
Ceremonies connected with the Welsh National Eisteddfod were held there in 1896, and again in 1963.
In June 1969, the Great Orme Cabin Lift, a modern alternative to the tramway, was opened with its base station adjacent to the open-air theatre. The distance to the summit is just over 1 mile (1.6 km), and the four-seater cabins travel at 6 miles per hour (9.7 km/h) on a continuous steel cable over 2 miles (3.2 km) long.
It is the longest single-stage cabin lift in Great Britain, and the longest span between pylons is over 1,000 feet (300 m).
The popularity of the 'Happy Valley Entertainers' open-air theatre having declined, the theatre closed in 1985. Likewise the two miniature golf courses closed, and were converted in 1987 to create a 280-metre (920 ft) artificial ski slope and toboggan run. The gardens were extensively restored as part of the resort's millennium celebrations, and remain a major attraction.
-- Marine Drive
The first route round the perimeter of the Great Orme was a footpath constructed in 1858 by Reginald Cust, a trustee of the Mostyn Estate. In 1872 the Great Orme's Head Marine Drive Co. Ltd. was formed to turn the path into a carriage road.
Following bankruptcy, a second company completed the road in 1878. The contractors for the scheme were Messrs Hughes, Morris, Davies, a consortium led by Richard Hughes of Madoc Street, Llandudno.
The road was bought by Llandudno Urban District Council in 1897. The 4 mile (6.4 km) one-way drive starts at the foot of the Happy Valley. After about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) a side road leads to St. Tudno's Church, the Great Orme Bronze Age Copper Mine and the summit of the Great Orme.
Continuing on the Marine Drive the Great Orme Lighthouse (now a small hotel) is passed, and, shortly afterwards on the right, the Rest and Be Thankful Cafe and information centre.
Below the Marine Drive at its western end is the site of the wartime Coast Artillery School (1940–1945), now a scheduled ancient monument.
-- The West Shore
The West Shore is a quiet beach on the estuary of the River Conwy. It was here at Pen Morfa that Alice Liddell (of Alice in Wonderland fame) spent the long summer holidays of her childhood from 1862 to 1871.
There are a few hotels and quiet residential streets. The West Shore is linked to the North Shore by Gloddaeth Avenue and Gloddaeth Street, a wide dual carriageway.
-- Mostyn Street
Running behind the promenade is Mostyn Street, leading to Mostyn Broadway and then Mostyn Avenue. These are the main shopping streets of Llandudno. Mostyn Street accommodates the high street shops, the major high street banks and building societies, two churches, amusement arcades and the town's public library.
The last is the starting point for the Town Trail, a planned walk that facilitates viewing Llandudno in a historical perspective.
-- Victorian Extravaganza
Every year in May bank holiday weekend, Llandudno has a three-day Victorian Carnival, and Mostyn Street becomes a funfair.
Madoc Street and Gloddaeth Street and the Promenade become part of the route each day for a mid-day carnival parade. Also the Bodafon Farm fields become the location of a Festival of Transport for the weekend.
-- Venue Cymru
The North Wales Theatre, Arena and Conference Centre, built in 1994, and extended in 2006 and renamed "Venue Cymru", is located near the centre of the promenade on Penrhyn Crescent.
It is noted for its productions of opera, orchestral concerts, ballet, musical theatre, drama, circus, ice shows and pantomimes.
-- The Llandudno Lifeboat
Until 2017, Llandudno was unique within the United Kingdom in that its lifeboat station was located inland, allowing it to launch with equal facility from either the West Shore or the North Shore as needed.
In 2017, a new lifeboat station was completed, and new, high-speed, offshore and inshore lifeboats, and a modern launching system, were acquired. This station is close to the paddling pool on North Shore.
Llandudno's active volunteer crews are called out more than ever with the rapidly increasing numbers of small pleasure craft sailing in coastal waters. The Llandudno Lifeboat is normally on display on the promenade every Sunday and bank holiday Monday from May until October.
-- The Ancient Parish Church
The ancient parish church dedicated to Saint Tudno stands in a hollow near the northern point of the Great Orme, and is two miles (3 km) from the present town.
It was established as an oratory by Tudno, a 6th.-century monk, but the present church dates from the 12th. century and it is still used on summer Sunday mornings.
-- Llandudno's Links with Mametz and Wormhout
(a) Mametz
The 1st. (North Wales) Brigade was headquartered in Llandudno in December 1914, and included a battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, which had been raised and trained in Llandudno.
Skirting the Fricourt salient, the British 7th. Division took the village of Mametz in the afternoon of the 1st. July 1916. However Mametz Wood to the north-east of the village held great German resistance. This blocked all Allied progress in a northeasterly direction.
After eight days of fierce combat, with heavy losses, did the 38th. Welsh Division capture the wood on the 12th. July 1916.
A monument to the 38th. Welsh Division was inaugurated on the 11th. July 1987. The monument takes the form of a plinth surmounted by a red dragon, the emblem of Wales. With its wings held aloft, it carries in its claws pieces of barbed wire, attesting to the fierce nature of the fighting.
The hostilities brought about the total destruction of Mametz village by shelling. After the war, the people of Llandudno (including returning survivors) contributed generously to the fund for the reconstruction of the village of Mametz.
(b) Wormhout
Llandudno is twinned with the Flemish town of Wormhout which is 10 miles (16 km) from Dunkirk. It was near there that many members of the Llandudno-based 69th. Territorial Regiment were ambushed and taken prisoner.
The Site Mémoire de la Plaine au Bois near Wormhout commemorates the massacre of these prisoners on the 28th. May 1940. The men had been retreating towards Dunkirk ahead of the advancing Germans.
About 100 troops, having run out of ammunition, surrendered to the Germans, assuming that they would be taken prisoner according to the Geneva Convention.
However they were all imprisoned in a small barn, and the SS threw stick-grenades into the building, killing many POW's.
However the grenades failed to kill everyone, largely due to the bravery of two British NCO's, Stanley Moore and Augustus Jennings, who hurled themselves on top of the grenades, using their bodies to shield their comrades from the blast.
In order to finish off the remaining soldiers, the SS fired into the barn with rifles and automatic weapons. A few survived to tell the tale, but no-one was ever indicted for war crimes because of insufficient evidence.
A replica of the barn can be seen at the site of the massacre.
-- Llandudno's Cultural Connections
Matthew Arnold gives a vivid and lengthy description of 1860's Llandudno - and of the ancient tales of Taliesin and Maelgwn Gwynedd that are associated with the local landscape - in the first sections of the preface to 'On the Study of Celtic Literature' (1867).
Llandudno is also used as a location for dramatic scenes in the stage play and film 'Hindle Wakes' by Stanley Houghton, and the 1911 novel, 'The Card', by Arnold Bennett, and its subsequent film version.
Elisabeth of Wied, the Queen Consort of Romania and also known as writer Carmen Sylva, stayed in Llandudno for five weeks in 1890.
On leaving, she described Wales as "A beautiful haven of peace". Translated into Welsh as "Hardd, hafan, hedd", it became the town's official motto.
Other famous people with links to Llandudno include the Victorian statesman John Bright and multi-capped Welsh international footballers Neville Southall, Neil Eardley, Chris Maxwell and Joey Jones.
Australian ex-Prime Minister Billy Hughes attended school in Llandudno. Gordon Borrie QC (Baron Borrie), Director General of the Office of Fair Trading from 1976 to 1992, was educated at the town's John Bright Grammar School when he lived there as a wartime evacuee.
The international art gallery Oriel Mostyn is in Vaughan Street next to the post office. It was built in 1901 to house the art collection of Lady Augusta Mostyn. It was requisitioned in 1914 for use as an army drill hall, and later became a warehouse, before being returned to use as an art gallery in 1979. Following a major revamp the gallery was renamed simply 'Mostyn' in 2010.
Llandudno has its own mini arts festival 'LLAWN' (Llandudno Arts Weekend). It is a mini festival that rediscovers and celebrates Llandudno’s past in rather a unique way; via art, architecture, artefact, sound, performance, and participation.
The festival takes place over three days of a weekend in late September, originally conceived as a way to promote what those in the hospitality sector refer to as the ‘shoulder season’, which means a lull in the tourist calendar.
In January 1984 Brookside character Petra Taylor (Alexandra Pigg) committed suicide in Llandudno.
In 1997, the English cookery programme "Two Fat Ladies" with Jennifer Patterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright filmed an episode in Llandudno.
'Views in Camera, 2017'; Photographs taken around the Sheffield area in the last year, Part II - 223Mby MP4 video
** This is a 6min video so has to be downloaded to see the full version as only 3 minutes are shown in the Flickr interface.
** For non-Pro Flickr users, the download limit appears to be 3 minutes on download as well, and so there is a link here-
www.rail.tightfitz.com/Video/Views_in_Camera_-_II-conv.mp4
to obtain the full version for non-Pro users, right click the link and select 'Save Link As' to save the file to the desktop.
Well, the Xmas and New Year festivities are over, we managed just one day of snow, last Friday, the 29th December and since then, bad weather has arrived in the form of 'Storm Eleanor' prevails and we have had a couple of days of heavy rain and high winds, for the UK that is. As my end-of-year Flickr 'Xmas Card', this time around its the second part of the 'Views in Camera' piece, the last was uploaded on August 31st and the scene commenced at a cold and wet Woodhead Tunnel portal, last January, see-
www.flickr.com/photos/daohaiku/36942529635/
This, follow-up set, is an eclectic miscellany of shots taken between the end of August last year near, after the last video was finished and this one commences in an area just north-east of the centre of the city of Sheffield, close to the River Don in Neepsend, Shalesmoor and Millsands, commencing 3rd September, through to late October last year. The bulk of the 2nd half of the video was shot in the Millsands area of Sheffield on one late, sunny Sunday morning on 15th October and, like much of Sheffield, this area has seen a large down-turn in the once thriving heavy industries over the last 30 or so years. Some of these buildings are still in use, others have been re-used/purposed, and others demolished so this set of pictures is an attempt to grab a a record of what's left, before it goes forever. An earlier review of the desperate scene in Sheffield from the early 1980s to 1990s can be found in Adrian Wynn's great book on the subject, 'A View of Sheffield', published by Pickard Communications in 2007 and is highly recommended for a good view of what the changing scene was like in those days. In addition, Berris Conolly, another local photographer, has two books out, 'River Don, Seventeen Bridges' from views in 1989 & 2009 and 'Sheffield Photographs 1988-2008', published in 2008, see-
The video is in approximately 10 sections and is in chronological order of the 66 images taken and whilst there is some reference to the railways in this second video, most of the material is related, post the 1980s and 1990s changes, with what is still left to photograph from those times. As such this was series was prompted by the book indicated above, Adrian Wynn's book on Sheffield, from pictures taken in the late 1980s and early 1990s and theses provided a location for some of the shots here, to see for myself, how much things had changed over the past 30 years. I was thinking today, whilst gearing up to prepare this narrative, that Adrian has captured some very good historical records of the area which can be seen in the video; this not only being just a record but containing very pointed and stark political comment on those times.
1. Langsett Road. The very first shot can be found in Adrian's book with what was then, a boarded up derelict building next to the Masons Arms with the first of the three boards seen in his shot declaring- 'For Thou Can not Worship Both Money and The Lord. Evil Thatcher. Pension Snatcher' and on the third board, off to the right, 'For God's Sake, Vote Labour'. As the photograph shows here, the area to the right of the Mason's Arms has now been re-developed though the pub is still in the same style, if not in livery. Another obvious change in this, when compared to Adrian's shot in 1990, the 'wires are up', as the Sheffield SuperTram now plies this route along Langsett Road. The red brick section of the building on the right was where the first painted caption declared the choices between money and the Lord...
2. Burgoyne Road. These shots were taken whilst moving south-east along Langsett Road and this is another of the pictures which features in Adrian's book. The site is now bereft of the St. Bartholomew's Church which at the time of the 1989 picture was stood at the bottom of the road with, behind it then, the towering edifice of one of the Neepsend gas holders with folk atop the then popular 'Sheffield Ski Slope' visible. The church at that time was in the process of being demolished and so the gas holder was easy to see; since then, a year or so ago, that gasholder has now also been demolished and the Sheffield Ski Slope has also gone, gutted by fire a few years ago; the land is currently being considered for redevelopment into another sports facility. As a tribute to the old church, on the left at the side of the white Mercedes hatchback, stands the St. Bartholomew's Church centre.
3. Love Street. Moving towards the River Don and an area centred on one of Adrian's pictures taken on 'Love St', the street itself still extant and still with many old buildings around it, though from the look of some of them now; their time must be coming soon. The John & Matthew Woollens building can be seen in the third shot on the right, 'Bone Cutters' by all accounts but that went out of business as long ago as 1874 after which it became a Signage business run by one of the Woollens family, Edwin James, from Rotherham. The 2nd of the 3 'Love St' pictures shows the one most corresponding to Adrian's shot of the 'Cherry Flan' cafe which stood on the corner where the railings mark the edge of the car park. In his picture from 1992 and in this one, the still extant and thriving, Sheffield Workhouse, now called 'Mayfair Court', with many a flat up for sale within... also known as 'the Doss House' it was built in 1908 for single, down-and-out men... Also in the 2nd picture, some 'wag', has put up a poster for 'The Lady Boys' from Bangkok, appearing in Sheffield from time-to-time, this for two weeks at the end of November, 2015. To the left of the 'Lady Boys' sign is the land once occupied by the Britannia Works which were off to the left of the 'Cherry Flan' in Adrian's picture but the works are featured elsewhere in his book. The last shot of the 3, looks back along 'Lurve Street' and shows the 'new builds' which have gone up here-abouts behind the old 'Woollens Signs' building.
4. Well Meadow Street. Another series of shots prompted by one of Adrian's pictures, this time its the area around Well Meadow Street and this has changed, and is still changing, significantly. Adrian's picture in 1992, had its own pastel, colourful feal to it, taken in flat light and the 1st picture here, of a set of 9, reflects less of that feel but at least the buildings are being renovated and the view, apart from the 'yellow' roller door in the earlier picture, is pretty much the same; the roller door was at the bottom of the road where now palisade fence has been erected. Already on the lower right, some of the buildings have been let out with the area at the top of the street having been redeveloped into flats. The houses on the left which were actually derelict by 1992 with the windows boarded up, are finally being renovated; its good to see this happening where its still possible to retain the old history of the place. The second shot shows a closer view where the yellow roller door into the works of Samuel Peace & Sons Ltd. once stood, the area has now been opened out though the fence is a rather ugly replacement. The 3rd, 4th & 5th shots show the view up Well Meadow Street, which here runs parallel to Netherthorpe Road, and looks towards the new student accommodation near the large intersection at Western Bank and the University of Sheffield. The 6th shot looks back along the full length of the redevelopment with more graffiti'd hoardings up on the left, in preparation for more land to be given over to student accommodation and such like. In the 7th shot, the wooden canvasses erected around derelict land along Brownell Street, are an ideal location for the graffiti artists to have a field-day with their tagging and in some respects it does brighten up an otherwise glum area. The last 2 in the set of 9 at this location look back from the other side of the palisade fence seen earlier, and now on the site of the old Samuel Peace & Sons Ltd. Steel & File manufacturers; the University Arts Tower is in the background looking up Meadow Well Street once more. The final shot, to confirm where we are, with the presence of the camera, and me I guess, attracting some suspicion from the owners of the 'Hot Chilli' food establishment, who were clearly concerned about what was going on, until I explained what it was all about, and showed them, a copy of Adrian's 'A View of Sheffield', which resulted in them being highly interested in same picture from 1992. A link to more information about this important area and its conservation, can be found here-
www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/topic/7358-well-meadow-...
5. Cornish Street. In the same year, Adrian photographed the area closer to the River Don and the next 4 shots show the current scene along Cornish Street, Neepsend, it too not having changed much in layout since the earlier picture from 1992. There has however, been a good deal of 'tidying up' undertaken when compared to the derelict scene which pervaded many places in Sheffield in the 1980s and early 1990s. Serendipitously again, as walking along the street to find the same view as the earlier picture, and some 'interest' came along in the form of 'woman and child on bike', peddling along away from the river behind us, with the George Barnsley & Sons works, 'the world’s largest producer of files and cutting tools for the shoemaking industry', over on the right. Again, in Adrian's 1992 picture, the building was already in a sorry looking state with windows on the ground floor boarded up and the street and pavements looking worse than they do here. The house ahead of the cyclist at that time was also boarded up but now it has been re-opened and that area, right next to the river is looking, once more, to be on the up-and-up. The chimney stack in the background is now part of Cornish Place and from Wikipedia-
'...The building was formerly the factory of James Dixon & Sons, a Britannia metal, Sheffield plate and Cutlery manufacturer. In the late 1990s the disused building was cleaned and converted into apartments, it is regarded as the most impressive cutlery works that still stands in Sheffield[1] and rivals the cotton mills of Lancashire and the West Riding in terms of architectural quality and heritage. The most impressive parts of the building are the east and west ranges which have Grade II* listed status while the rest of the works have the lower Grade II rating. The 'Cornish' in the buildings name is thought to derive from the manufacture of Britannia metal which is made up of 93% tin which came from Cornwall...'
Moving around the corner and the state of the main building can be seen in the next 3 of the 4 pictures taken here. There are also further details about George Barnsley & Sons', here-
www.bcd-urbex.com/george-barnsley-sons-cornish-works-shef...
and here-
www.aworldinruins.co.uk/george-barnsley--sons
6. Bardwell Street. Not far away, and venturing closer to the railway in this part of the town, the next 5 pictures are centred around the Bardwell Street area and this road passes along under the MSLR's line form Sheffield Victoria, via Woodhead, to Manchester Piccadilly or, it did once! The first of the 5 pictures shows the well graffiti'd building which was once occupied by the Cannon Brewery and is now set to become ... more student accommodation; though the process seems a little slow. The next shot of the 5 reflects the one most closely resembling Adrian Wynn's shot, one of the oldest in his book and taken in 1982 and in his shot, being 1982, the Woodhead line is electric overheads are still present, complete with cables, but not for very much longer. Some of the buildings along Bardwell Street have also been demolished so it was difficult to get this shot exactly correct, the two camera lenses were also of somewhat differing focal length. The older picture was taken with at a wider focal length with the camera further along the road towards the railway over-bridge; this I didn't do as all the detail would then have been missed out due to the demolition of the buildings on the left in the present picture. There are still lots of identifiable features between 1982 and this, taken in October last year, 35 years apart, the arch of the MSLR's railway bridge being just visible at the end of the wall of the building on the right. The line formation is now of course overgrown with birch trees along its sides, but with the single line to Deepcar still present and in use, carrying the nightly steel train from the Aldwarke steelworks for rolling at Stocksbridge Works. Graffiti tag'ers have been out and about again, festooning the derelict parts of buildings with their bright artwork and with the 'House Skate Park', just around the corner near the black car, opposite the old Canon Brewery building, the Skating building also suitably decorated, see the shots in the end-of-last-year video, here-
www.flickr.com/photos/daohaiku/24276897661/
and the last of the 5 pictures in this series. The last two pictures of the 5 are taken from close to the indoor, 'House Skate Park' at the end of Bardwell Street and the line of the MSLR's Woodhead route can be clearly seen, being demarked by the line of tree-growth, marching up the 1-in-100 slope to the left and up towards Woodhead Tunnel. The panorama in the last of the 5 shots shows the end of Bardwell Street, now Road of course, in Neepsend with House Skate Park on the right, with its colourful outside adornments and yet more derelict buildings on the left. It seems devastating removal of old industry in and around Sheffield has left a nightmare of a problem for the planners to find a new use for, particularly the vast spaces of land these firms once used to occupy on the periphery of the town and closer to the centre, old Victorian buildings which also be dealt with, in one way or another; usually by demolition and re-use.
7. Burnaby Street. Another five shots taken on the bank up to Walkley and once more reflecting a shot taken by Adrian in his book 'A View of Sheffield - pictures from 1982-1992', this one taken in 1982 on Burnaby Street when much of this area was being re-developed on a grand scale to renew time-expired, and unwanted, 1960s housing. It took a while to try and get the angle exactly correct with respect to the 1982 which features, along with a single house being demolished in the centre foreground, the still extant U-shaped block of flats at Regent Court, painted white and right next to the River Loxley which flows into the River Don at Hillsborough. From the angle of the shadow of the northern-most, left, section of the 'U' shaped structure, I walked along the top of the bank until the angle matched and these 5 shots show the change in fortunes of the whole area since Adrian took his picture in 1982. The scene in the background of the 5 pictures looks over northwards towards Owlerton and Wadsley Bridge and the line of the Woodhead Route, the Stocksbridge Branch as it now exists. The 3rd and 4th of the five pictures is clearly getting closer but in Adrian's shot, the end of the U-shaped building has its 'top' facing the camera so clearly this shot isn't quite far enough along to the north. These pictures pan around to the north-east a little and reveal the hill rising to the Ski Slop area on the far right at Parkwood Springs but still the angle isn't quite right. The last of the shots, in my view, is just about spot-on. The end of the white Regent Court building is now facing directly towards the camera and at a realistically good angle down the bank towards the building; the re is even a somewhat similar house in the centre foreground, not in the process of being demolished, which doesn't look unlike the style of the one in the 1982 picture. This last picture was taken on the steps leading down to Hammerton Close from Lonsdale Lane withing spitting distance of Burnaby Street. The woodland in the left background of this picture are on the outliers of Beeley and Great Hollins Wood which runs on the north side of the Stocksbridge branch line through Middlewood and Oughtibridge and on through Wharncliffe Side to Deepcar and the exchange sidings at Ellen Wood which allows steel stock to be taken into the Samuel Fox steelworks at Stocksbridge.
8. Graffiti Millsands Area. Another derelict site on a fast-filling out area right next to the river at Millsands, a colourful extravaganza of graffiti tagging art which will be liked and hated in equal measure. This is a series of 18 shots taken at the derelict building site which sat amidst a plethora of old industrial businesses which were also festooned about the Sheffield area.. Here, this site was in and surrounded by- the Eclipse Patent Roof Glazing Works, the Don Confectionary Works, Millsands Forge & Rolling Mills, next to the river of course, and the Eclipse Lantern Works; Eclipse being, I guess the outfit that still makes hack saw blades. The artworks/tags here are set about a site which at this time during the middle of October, was still resplendent with Buddleia and other vegetation which, along with the still extant signage form past uses and the red brickwork, all conspired to make a garden scene with the paraphernalia of Sheffield's continued re-development, rising in the background. And this can be seen to good effect in the last shot in the series of 18 where a local heads towards the river with the old Eclipse Lantern Works behind her to the left and the Eclipse Glazing works off on the far left; the Lantern Works have now been partly taken over by car rental firm, EuropCar. I enjoyed photographing this area and liked the feel which was brought about by the combination of all the elements, old and new, constructed or natural and with the added bonus of reminders of past 'do's and dont's'...
9. The River Don Area. From the Graffiti on Bridge St. to the River at Millsands and yet more iconic buildings, with the odd hark back to the past once again, taken from Adrian Wynn's book. Almost the last picture in that book, taken looking towards the old Bridgehouses Goods depot, see-
www.disused-stations.org.uk/s/sheffield_bridgehouses/
west of the then closed Sheffield Victoria Station, is somewhat reflected in the 1st of the set of 18 pictures here, taken walking along the riverside and back. This first of 3, rendered in B/W, showing the Aizlewood Mill, with the Victoria Station site in the background, shows the changes in just over 30 years, the most noted changes being the closure of Victoria Station and the complete removal of the Bridgehouses Goods Depot, part of one of the goods depot buildings pokes into the picture of Adrian's, taken in 1986; the land on which the Goods Depot was located is still up for sale. The 2nd of the 3 shots shows a wider view along the river with, in turn, the Harlequin Public House, which the GCRS uses for their Sheffield meetings, the Aizlewood Mill and beyond that, the 'New Testament Church of God' building. At far left, the green bridge, installed when the Sheffield ring road was built, carries the now single line through the Victoria Station site, up to Deepcar; a set of arches which comprise the Wicker Arches, march off towards the right from the bridge. The last of the first three in the set of 18, is a close up of the old and new bridges, the older one carrying the lines to the north-west and just above this bridge deck is the northern portal of the Spittal Hill Tunnel, see-
www.flickr.com/photos/134774261@N07/33357890945
which carried 'Fiery Jack', the shunting locomotive with its 4 wagons between the Midland's Wicker Station, off to the right near the tall background building, and at this end, connecting with the MSLR's line to Manchester. The 1986 picture in Adrian Wynn's book, due to the complete lack of vegetation around the station site in those days, clearly shows the western portal of the tunnel, just under the Bridgehouses Goods building awning. After this, further views along the river from Nursery St., a close-up of the splendid Aizlewood Mill followed by Riverside House and then a view looking towards the railway bridge over the main road at Wicker. Following on from that, a short tour of the splendid structures which stand at the side of the River Don and the Upper Don Walk; the first showing the scene crossing Blonk St. bridge and looking towards Lady's Bridge and West Bar with the Exchange Brewery, occupied by the Tennant Brothers at one stage and with, in the 1960s and 1970s, that distinctive odour of fermenting hops, pervading the air in this area. Looking the other way, east towards Attercliffe and in the background on the arches, the Midland Main line passes over the River Don with the red-brick Victoria Hotel just beyond the white pedestrian bridge. A B/W rendition follows showing the scene looking past the Holiday Inn Express and the road up to the old Victoria Station site which is now blocked from view, taken in August 2017. Immediately following this shot, a very similar shot taken on my old Praktika film camera during the Sheffield Rag week 'goings on' in mid-September, 1968; the whole of the area then was open to view up to the Victoria Station site with Victoria Station Road running along the back beneath the series of black poster awnings; only the far left one having anything pasted on it... maybe 'SAVE OUR STATION'! The Effingham St gasometer is in the background and the square chimney close to the station site can be seen and this artifact is still in-situ today. The general state and mess the River Don was in at this time can be easily seen and its not clear to me whether it was a good idea wallowing around in the filth that was terms a river; much has changed since this time of course and now the River Don is 'clear as a bell'. The means of access, for those in the 'Rag Week Boat Race', can be seen and as I recall, this was my last picture here before heading off and delivering the goods, i.e. all the money I had collected for the 1968 Rag Week Magazine, full of useful venue information, advertising and to be frank, shear filth in terms of the cartoon jokes! Moving back along Castlegate now at the other side of the river and the splendid buildings on the eastern side of the river come into view, this glorious red/grey brick edifice at either side of Lady's Bridge was
Castle House but is now, partly, 'Cut Price Carpets' complete with 21st century appendage, a satellite dish; neglecting that, didn't the Victorians do well! The weir at Lady's Bridge is next, looking back towards the Victoria Station site and this one, for me, is very appealing in its colour and grandeur. Now on the opposite side of the river to earlier, some of the less impressive structures, still extant, one with square chimney, a soupçon of graffiti and green metal window frames. The 'New Testament Church of God Family Life Centre' now occupies a building not far from its rather impressive church, with two folk sat chatting over 'stuff' alongside the slowly flowing water of the Don; a beautiful scene. And, lastly is this almost final set, the camera now points once more across the river to the Aizlewood Mill on the right and the The Harlequin Freehouse on the left and under normal circumstance, that's where I would have headed next except there was a further shot I thought it worthwhile attempting to take to complete this second series of the 'Views in Camera'.
10. Rutland Road. Parkwood Springs. Unfortunately, the shot I had anticipated taking, from the site of the old Neepsend Engine Shed just off Rutland Road, which in the past had been easily accessible by walking across a piece of open ground, had now been completely taken over by a new-build industrial building and not only that, the space was all nicely palisaded off, the building occupying the whole of the space. This was just behind the camera in this final shot and, as luck would have it, on the other side of the road, 'there's a picture there', flashed straight into mind as a building on Botsford St., just a 'stones-throw' north of the M.S.L.R.'s now single line formation to Deepcar, was in view and with suitable brick-work, graffiti and blue van, probably makes a better picture than the rather mundane one I was thinking of showing just a set of rails disappearing towards the Sheffield Victoria site! Some heavy gradient filtering required in this one as the sun continued in full throttle and the shadows split the scene in half still, a worthy piece to end this 2nd of the 'Views in Camera' Video...
Although I have used as reference, 'A View of Sheffield, pictures 1982-1992' and this has been useful, there are many more images from this period in Adrian's book which speaks of the enormous changes which were taking places in Sheffield in the 1980s and 1990s and I can only recommend this for further viewing; the half dozen or so 'Then' pictures which I have used as reference, reflecting on a small portion of that 35 years ago vista.
A very Happy New Year to all interested views, many thanks for the comments and information provided over the last year, appreciate it all and am looking forward to a new, but maybe differently-accented, 2018...
E.& O.E.
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Prima a esibirsi a Unaltrofestival, il 2 settembre 2016, Birthh.
Birthh è l’oscuro alter-ego di Alice Bisi, “la coscienza di una diciannovenne che spende la maggior parte del proprio tempo a pensare a eventi apocalittici”. Un personaggio che, per prendere in prestito il titolo di una delle canzoni del disco, si definisce “Queen Of Failureland”, una giovane regina che non trova pace: “I thought love was enough / But truth is love is dead”. Born In The Woods non è solo la voce di questo personaggio, è il suo stesso corpo: con i suoi colpi di cassa a mimare un inquieto battito cardiaco, i respiri affannosi tra i versi, le sue chitarre nauseanti, i suoi cori caldi, quasi tangibili, intrecciati a tappeti sintetici che avvolgono ed entrano nelle vene.
Il suono di questo tormento mostra una grande attenzione per i particolari e un gusto per le atmosfere downtempo e ambient. «Ho preferito che i suoni del Wurlitzer e di gran parte delle chitarre avessero un certo timbro lo-fi, a fare da contrasto ai suoni precisi e netti dei beat e degli arpeggiatori. Anche l’organo e l’armonium sono stati inseriti con lo stesso scopo. Mancano quasi del tutto gli elementi della batteria acustica. Abbiamo lavorato molto per aggiungere suoni percussivi presi dalla quotidianità (snap, battiti di mani, acqua, porte che sbattono…) e integrarli dentro ritmi frammentati, a volte disorientanti. In gran parte dei brani non abbiamo usato nemmeno il basso: mi piaceva l’idea di poter fare un disco di musica elettronica senza l’ausilio di questo elemento centrale: per ottenere quella profondità abbiamo optato per delle casse con una frequenza bassissima».
Born In The Woods unisce la sensibilità di una scrittura cantautorale, dalle evidenti radici folk, alle ricercatezze degli arrangiamenti elettronici. Il vero elemento distintivo del disco restano le armonie vocali (artificiali e non), che portano le canzoni a climax dai toni quasi gospel, e fanno parlare l’intensa voce di Birthh direttamente al cuore.
La quarta edizione di Unaltrofestival torna nella città di Milano con una programmazione senza eguali, a settembre, Giovedì 1 e Venerdì 2, al Magnolia Estate, immersa nel verde che circonda l’idroscalo
This photograph was published in the Illustrated Chronicle on the 29th of March 1916.
During the Great War the Illustrated Chronicle published photographs of soldiers and sailors from Newcastle and the North East of England, which had been in the news. The photographs were sent in by relatives and give us a glimpse into the past.
The physical collection held by Newcastle Libraries comprises bound volumes of the newspaper from 1910 to 1925. We are keen to find out more about the people in the photographs. If you recognise anyone in the images and have any stories or information to add please comment below.
Copies of this photograph may be ordered from us, for more information see: www.newcastle.gov.uk/tlt Please make a note of the image reference number above to help speed up your order.
Public Domain Book: The Scottish clans & their tartans
history of each clan and full list of septs.
22nd ed.
Published 1931 by Musson in Toronto .
Written in English.
openlibrary.org/books/OL16640868M/The_Scottish_clans_thei...
One of my panoramas from Sandakphu trek (Bengal State, India) published in the Spring 2017 Issue 57 of Alpinist Magazine, an archival-quality, quarterly publication dedicated to world alpinism and adventure climbing.
Note: this photo was published in a Nov 3, 2011 blog titled "Woo Hoo Overtime!"
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I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that, until last night, I had never been to a professional football game in my life. Baseball, basketball, and tennis: yes, of course. High-school and college football games: sure, though that was a long time ago. Indeed, the last college football game I watched (in person) was in the mid-60s, when I was invited to the annual Harvard-Yale game by a Radcliffe student I had begun dating -- a development to which my MIT college roommate reacted, in shock, by howling, "Radcliffe? You're dating a Cliffie? She must be a pig!" After which he pulled out his flute, every time he thought she might be present when he returned to our off-campus apartment, and played "Old McDonald Had a Farm" until he collapsed in gales of laughter on the stairwell. Highly inaccurate, I hasten to note, and totally unfair. But I digress...
Anyway, a freelance writer, Mitch Ligon (whose photo you can see here in one of my Flickr sets), invited me to accompany him last night to the New York Jets - Philadelphia Eagles game out in the New Jersey Meadowlands -- another first-time experience. I was given a photographer's press pass, which gave me access to the locker rooms, press box, various other "inner sanctum" locations ... and, most important, the football field itself. I was given a red jersey to wear, told to stay outside the yellow dashed lines that ring the field, and turned loose for the evening. I felt somewhat inadequate, because I knew that the "real" professional photographers would be equipped with high-cameras and monstrous telephoto lenses beyond anything I had ever touched, or could possibly afford; and even though my Nikon D300 and 70-300mm zoom lens is fairly respectable in amateur circles, I had no idea if I would be able to take any decent photos at all...
The other problem is that I know little or nothing about the nuances of football, beyond the obvious fact that the quarterback either passes the ball, or hands off to someone who attempts to run the ball downfield. Punts and field-goal kicks are also a familiar concept, but if you don't have a good anticipatory sense of who is about to do what to whom, it's easy to miss the "moment" when the perfect shot might be available. Also, I didn't really know anything about the players, aside from the respective star quarterbacks: Philadelphia's controversial Michael Vick, and New York's newly-named starting quarterback, Mark Sanchez. I had looked at the team rosters on the Internet before the game, so at least I knew their jersey numbers (#6 for Sanchez, and #7 for Vick, as you'll see in the photos) -- but the "action" was often so far away (at the other end of the field) that I couldn't tell whether the starting quarterback, or one of the substitutes, was making the plays.
Nevertheless, by the beginning of the second quarter I was feeling a little more comfortable -- if only because I found it easy to follow along behind the other professional photographers as they marched (or ran) from one end of the field to the other, in order to get their equipment set up for what they expected would be the next great shot. By the end of the game, I had taken 1,100+ photos, including several of Michael Vick in a post-game locker-room interview; and from the sound of the clickety-click-clack of my fellow photographers, I could tell that many of them had taken several thousand. I'll spare you the technical details of my feeble attempts to get some decent shots; I had picked up some good tips from the sports-photography chapter of Scott Kelby's Digital Photography, and I did my best within the limitations of my equipment and my lack of familiarity with the situation.
What impressed me most about the whole experience was the scale of modern professional football -- the scale of everything. It's one thing to read that there are 80,000 people in a football stadium; it's another thing to actually be there and hear the simultaneous roar of those 80,000 people as a quarterback is sacked or a long pass is completed. It's one thing to read that a professional football player is 6 feet, 5 inches tall and weighs 350 pounds; it's another thing to stand next to several dozen such giants. Heck, I thought there were only 20 or 30 such giants on each team; I had no idea that there were 64 of them (a number which will be pared down as the pre-season comes to an end), or that there might be 20-30 different coaches. And then there are the hundreds of "staff members" scurrying around all over the place, carrying out their various duties and assignments; and there are the security guards and State Police, who spent most of the time scanning the stadium crowd rather than watching the players, presumably watching for scuffles or fights or ... well, who knows what. There are cheerleaders too, in this case bearing the official name of New York Jets Flight Crew; I had expected half a dozen, but there were two dozen perky, long-haired beauties, with permanently frozen smiles, who who danced and pranced before the crowd at every conceivable opportunity.
All of this has resulted in the photos you'll see in this album. I had to delete roughly a hundred of my original images, because they were out of focus, or because a referee decided to walk in front of my camera at the wrong moment; and another 900 were "okay," but not terribly exciting. I'm sure that none of them are as crisp, sharp, and well-composed as those taken by the Sports Illustrated photographer and the other professionals on the field; but I did end up with 72 "keepers" that I hope you'll enjoy...
... and, yes, I probably will attend another football game or two in the years ahead. Whether I'm lucky enough to get down on the field again is anyone's guess....