View allAll Photos Tagged Timewatch
This photo shows the station staff who worked at Sturminster Newton station on the old Somerset & Dorset line. The original image features on an interpretation board where the station used to be. I don't know the name of the photographer or the exact date. However, from the board I do know that the gentleman in the middle of the front row (with the dog) was William Henry Owen, Station Master there for 41 years until his retirement in 1921.
I am not a Liverpool supporter. However, this weekend is the 25th Anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster when 96 Liverpool football fans died due to the total incompetence and prejudice of Yorkshire's police. All matches in the top five levels of English football kick off 7 minutes late, 6 minutes representing the time that passed before the game was stopped with people already dead on the terraces and the seventh minute being that of silence. All of football will join together in memory of those who died (and the hundreds who were injured) in Britain's worst stadium disaster. For those abroad who may not know, the music below is Liverpool's anthem, sung by the crowd before every home game.
BITHBOX#033
GERRY AND THE PACEMAKERS "YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE"
This week's "Saturday Timewatch" goes way back to long before homo sapiens ever walked the Earth. The overall alligator family goes back some 37 million years. More recently, this American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) shown above is well represented in the Pleistocene fossil record going back 2.5 million years. However, in 2016, a nearly identical fossil skull to the above animal was discovered in Florida. That 'sister' species discovery, means that the American Alligator can now be traced back 8 million years to a near-identical but as far as i know 'unnamed' species.
By comparison, humans evolved comparatively recently from earlier hominids, around 200,000 - 300,000 years ago.
Today, Sunday 24th March 2024, is just 4 years and two days after the day before Britain's full lockdown in 2020. That also was a Sunday. In fact it was also Mother's Day.
Everyone knew at least the gist if not the detail of what was coming on Monday 23rd March 2020 when the Prime Minister was scheduled to broadcast to the nation. So it is no surprise that we, like so many others, took our last chance to get out and about. In beautiful spring weather, we chose a walk in deepest Dorset. It was a bittersweet day for obvious reasons.
Next day, Boris Johnson announced "From this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction - you must stay at home"
Four years later, with the benefit of hindsight, reading his full speech is very interesting. You can do so here www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-address-to-the-nation-o...
This qualifies as a 'Saturday Timewatch' because Ray Benson's Asleep at the Wheel have now been rollin' along the musical highway venues for 55 years. They are yet another hard working band who pretty much single-handedly have kept western swing alive. A couple of nights ago, we were delighted to see them perform live for the second time in a small theatre at Brenham, TX.
Below is the title track off their new and 63rd album (including compilations). Whilst Ray still leads on many tracks, fiddler Ian Stewart takes the strain off Ray for vocals on this one.
jukebox # 521
From an unknown date and an unknown photographer, this is a photo of Jesty's at 1, Straits, Easton, Isle of Portland. Compare and contrast to the photo of the same address today and you can see that the only external feature that survives is the first floor window.
At some point, a building extension has been added filling in the gap where the gate behind the cart used to be. This must have happened in relatively recent times as the gates were still there when "Portland Spice", a business previous to todays' Chinese takeaway occupied the site.
EDIT : Note that things have moved on and my comparison building immediately below is incorrect. It is across the street from "Flavour of Asia" correctly identified by David!
www.starnow.co.uk/christopherw33618
2020 Reel youtu.be/fXhm5se6H3c
2017 Reel www.starnow.com/media/778224
2016 Reel www.starnow.co.uk/media/623368
2015 Reel www.starnow.co.uk/media/500618
Crew CV crew.mandy.com/uk/crew/profile/chris-christopher-wilson
wartimeproductions.co.uk/index.html
In Film and Television
Bletchley Park and its tremendous story have featured regularly in film and television over the past few years. From the BBC’s Antiques’ Roadshow to Operation Mincemeat, the Timewatch Special, Codebreakers: Bletchley Park’s Lost Heroes and the blockbuster film The Imitation Game, all filmed on location at Bletchley Park.
The Imitation Game
The Oscar-nominated movie, The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, was screened in cinemas around the world in 2014 and 2015. Filmed partly on location at Bletchley Park, the behind-the-scenes video can be viewed here.
Bletchley Park: Code-Breaking’s Forgotten Genius
In September 2015, BBC2 broadcast its documentary about Gordon Welchman, Bletchley Park: Code-breaking’s Forgotten Genius, filmed extensively on location at Bletchley Park.
The Bletchley Circle
The hugely popular ITV drama, The Bletchley Circle Series One and Two, was broadcast in the UK and the US and in the UK attracted an average of 5 million viewers per episode. Both series were filmed on location at Bletchley Park.
A whole new meaning is given to the phrase "rolling stock" in this gravity siding. Not my original but a photo of one displayed at Maiden Newton Station, Dorset. No date is given.
Those who know a lot more about the operation of railways than myself may well be familiar with the concept of a "gravity siding". I certainly wasn't! So this is what I understand to be happening here.
Arriving from the direction of the bridge, the steam locomotive has already pulled the two carriages into the platform at the extreme left. Once the passengers have departed, the engine has then pushed the carriages up the slope of the siding to the left of the water tower. Once uncoupled, the loco has returned into the platform and subsequently moved out of the way to its present position. Under the control of the guard, the carriages are then rolled back down the incline to the platform so that the engine can rejoin the set for the return journey out of Maiden Newton Station.
The Maiden Newton to Bridport (and eventually West Bay) branch line ran for about 10 miles off the still operational Yeovil Pen Mill to Weymouth route. Remarkably it survived the infamous Beeching "axe" but eventually bit the dust some 10 years later in 1975. It is still easy to see various bridges along the branch line and some sections of trackbed though most are very heavily overgrown. By the way, that property is still also standing and occupied.
"What shall we do with a drunken sailor?"
Following on from flic.kr/p/2rbqgsN this display indicated the typical sailor's diet in the time of the Mary Rose during first half of the 16th century. Remember that beer was a much safer drink than water in those days!
Taken from the narrow, very narrow, dead-end lane to West Chelborough, this week's Sunday Landscape features Castle Hill, East Chelborough.
It dates to the 11th-13th centuries and features a motte and bailey design introduced by the Normans. Whether it was used as a fortification, an aristocratic residence, an administrative centre or a combination of all three is not known.
I can't find any suggestion that there was an earlier hillfort here on top of which the 'castle' was built centuries later. However, I do wonder if that was the case given how many hillforts there are across Dorset.
Thanks to Mark Evans for inspiring this post of a photo taken 9 years ago at Manchester. You can see Mark's original below.
The main purpose is to share the Hale and Pace comedy sketch from which Mark captured a couple of frames. I'll readily admit I'd never heard of this clip let alone seen it. Apologies to those of you with White Rose heritage. It is just a bit of fun, though I fear if you are from across the Atlantic, you might not totally understand the humour! Fortunately one of the best traits of being English is the ability to laugh at ourselves and not take things too seriously. Enjoy the video.
BA operates a dozen Airbus A380 aircraft with eighteen A350 on order. However, this photo features all three of the airline's current long-haul Boeing aircraft.
Taken from inside Heathrow's T5 on a murky afternoon, an unidentified B777 stands in the foreground. Parked alongside is B787-8 Dreamliner G-ZBJI due to depart later for Durban, South Africa. In the distance B747 Jumbo G-CIVO, sporting a One World livery, is seen at the moment of rotation en route to Phoenix, Arizona. The fourth visible BA aircraft is an unidentified short-haul flight taxiing out for take-off.
This week's Saturday Timewatch goes back to the era of Roman Britain. When the Romans developed Bath's already existing warm water spring area into a fully-fledged bath complex, there was so much water flowing that they had to build an overflow and also a culvert to channel the excess water into the nearby river. It still exists and still flows to this very day.
Remaining derricks on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, haven't loaded Portland stone onto small vessels waiting alongside the cliff for many decades, probably a century. Nevertheless, they remain a fascinating reminder of Portland's industrial heritage as a modern-day cargo vessel heads into Portland Harbour.
John Constable is best known for his landscape paintings around Dedham Vale, Suffolk. Less well known are a series of paintings from October and November 1816 when he and his bride took a 6 week honeymoon in Osmington, Dorset. Several of those paintings will feature here in the coming weeks, with comparison photos taken 200 years later.
First up is Constable's painting of Weymouth Bay, looking from the shore of Osmington Mills some 15-20 minutes walk from where he was staying. Note that the view today is essentially the same although the small fishing boats no longer use the tiny harbour.
One for the aircraft fans that frequent my stream. You know who you are! As you know I'm not a fan of planes on poles, much preferring them either in the air or undercover in a hangar museum so they are not rusting away. However, this was an unexpected "discovery" at Texas City. So this week's Saturday Timewatch goes back a century.
The historical claim by Texas City, though open to different interpretations, has some validity. Previously the U.S. Signal Corps possessed a small number of balloons and a dirigible. They also tested an airplane at Fort Myer, Va. in Aug 1908. Within a month, Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge, flying with Orville Wright, was killed when the plane crashed thus becoming the first military aviation casualty. After more testing with an improved Wright Flyer, the U.S. Army Signal Corps formally accepted this airplane, identified as "Airplane No. 1," on Aug. 2, 1909. By October 1912 they had 9 active aircraft.
This is where the story moves to Texas City. The 2nd Division of the United States Army deployed from Augusta, Georgia to Texas City in 1913 to guard the Gulf Coast from incursions during the Mexican Revolution. Nearly half of the nation's land military personnel set up camp! This was due to the perceived double threat that the Mexican Revolution might spill over across the border or that the neighboring country might become a German ally in the incipient World War. It was from within their ranks that the 1st Aero Division was formed, the Wright brothers trained over a dozen soldiers as military pilots. It is this official formation of an airborne unit upon which Texas City claims its place as "the birthplace of the U.S. Air Force".
However, it wasn't until 1947 that the U.S Air Force became a separate military service.
...with a remarkable zero comments...
jukebox # 522
With the long-term decline in traditional AM radio stations continuing, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find radio towers. They are disappearing just like gas holders in the UK! This tower in Bellville was originally used by KACO, a country station. Numerous owners and station idents came and went culminating in KULF. That finally closed down in 2022. The tower is now used by an amateur radio club.
Joe Ely's track is one of my favourites, so evocative of place and time. So permit me a memory.
It was back in the 1960s when most European stations closed down at midnight. At that time it was quite possible to pick up American AM stations that 'skipped' the Atlantic at night. One that regularly drifted in was clear-channel 50,000 watt WOWO out of Fort Wayne, Indiana. On my first ever US visit using the Greyhound to travel around, imagine my delight when the bus unexpectedly rolled past WOWO's massive tower situated on a hill outside of town!
Many towns across America are now by-passed by an Interstate road. That is the case in Columbus, TX, although it still has the signs of the motel strip that existed along what is now the Old 90 route.
As far as I can make out, the Baker Motel managed to survive until quite recently, possibly closing in 2016? Nowadays, all the accommodation is about a mile away where there is a junction on the I-10.
This week's Saturday Timewatch features a $1 coin found a few weeks ago in the washetaria / laundrette. Apparently they are not uncommon but I am pretty damn sure I've never seen one before.
This one is known as a Susan B. Anthony one dollar coin, minted from 1979-81 and again in 1999. You can read the Wiki here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_B._Anthony_dollar
As can seen from the photo below it dates from 1979. This coin has had quite a lot of use so the mint stamp is hard to read but is probably a 'P' for Philadelphia.
Long wave, medium wave or short wave?
No, nothing to do with radio stations but a malt extract used in the 20th century en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Malt Personally I don't remember this at all though I would just about be in an age group for which it was sold. As it is still available, I certainly know of Soreen, a type of malt bread loaf.
The photo was taken in the chemist 'shop' that is installed in Bradford-on-Avon Museum, using artefacts from the actual local chemists when it closed.
New title courtesy of Mark!!
Another totally unexpected 'discovery'. Born in Dinant, Belgium, where this photo was taken, Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone which he patented in 1846. Bought for £5 in a junk shop some 50 years ago, a saxophone is the only instrument I have ever owned. Frankly, cats howling made a more tuneful sound than I could manage and my enthusiasm quickly faded.
However, this is a perfect opportunity to add a 1954 tune to the jukebox by my favourite sax player of all time.
BITHBOX # 102
Coleman Hawkins "Time on my Hands"
The sound of NYC, after dark, plumes of steam rising from the city streets in a black and white film..........
This week's Saturday Timewatch goes back approximately 75 years to the short-lived steam era on Norway's Flam Railway. The line only opened in 1940 but by 1944 electric traction was already being introduced. So this is probably one of the few steam photographs taken in that era.
My photo is that of an old photo shown on the tv screen of the modern day service. The tv programme features interpretative material about the railway.
Given the circumstances, the photographic quality of this post cannot be good. However, what is particularly fascinating is that purely by chance, the location is almost identical to my previously posted photo taken just a few weeks ago....see below!
(...translates as Public Holiday for those who live offshore)
Today, the tradition of a wet Bank Holiday Monday continued. It has chucked it down all day. So here is a celebration of one of the very few interesting shops in Weymouth "Rude Not To".
Who remembers Mods and Rockers and their traditional Bank Holiday Monday punch-ups at the seaside resorts? For those who live abroad, the rockers (motorcycles) and mods (scooters) created the moral panic of the day in the red-top press. As always the youth sub-cultures of the day were demonised and most teens were supposed to belong to one or the other. That was rubbish.
Personally, I was never a 'rocker' even though I bought a motorcycle to be able to drive 30 miles to/from an early job. Likewise, even though I was heavily into soul and Jamaican sounds, I was never a mod! It was all great fun though. So it is a delight to have such a retro clothes shop in town. I never go in. However, I do like to loiter outside listening to the music emanating from within.
Representing the rockers, Gene Vincent has featured here before flic.kr/p/9mnLvc
So here is a classic tune representing the mods and yes, I do have the Island Records 45rpm : )
bithbox # 218
A rare find! I can find little information about this old school garage. However, it is still clearly open for business doing vehicle repairs. I don't know if that pump is still in use, possibly selling red (agricultural) diesel?
This week's Saturday Timewatch travels just a few miles up the road from Hell Lane, Dorset. This is where we found another classic phonebox put to new use but now in further need of attention (see below). It is interesting how these iconic boxes from the last century have found new lives.
Another Saturday Flashback to the age of steam. This week's photo shows 31806, originally built in 1926, "changing ends" at Norden on the Swanage Railway to then pull a passenger service south to Swanage. 31806 was withdrawn from British Railways service in 1964 but was thankfully preserved to still delight thousands today.
Today's "Saturday Timewatch" returns to Castletown, Portland, Dorset. The terraced dockyard street still has several boozers. However in the late 19th and early 20th century there were 7 pubs plus hotels, almost next door to each other. Rowdy behaviour, drunkeness and fighting, mostly from sailors on shore leave, gained such a reputation that the locals coined the name Drunkard's Row, still commemorated by a modern sign.
Below is a old photo (date unknown) taken off an interpretation board in the area.
This historic photo shows a 1942 photo taken by Dorothea Lange on the corner of 8th and Franklin, Oakland, CA. It was part of an exhibition about the Minidoka War Relocation Center, Idaho, one of 10 similar internment camps. (Note : Although her photo exhibit was in Idaho, I have geotagged it as Oakland)
After Pearl Harbor, all Japanese Americans were interned, almost 10,000 being sent to Minidoka. This was not a "concentration camp" such as those in Germany. However, it certainly destroyed existing lives. It is not clear whether the Masuda family, who before internment owned the Wanto Company store, were sent to Minidoka or another camp. However, what is clear is that many did not return to their previous lives after the war ended and that many lost everything as a result.
This week's Saturday Timewatch goes back to WW2. There are still quite a few buildings from that era that stand in and around Ringstead. Two, including this one, have recently been converted into very unusual holiday homes. In this instance, The Bunker was part of RAF Ringstead, a component of the Chain Home radar. That was a coastal early warning system that stretched from Cornwall in the west to Norfolk in the east.
You can see photographs of the modern inside here, courtesy of Sykes Cottages
www.sykescottages.co.uk/cottage/DorsetSomerset-Spring-Bot...
This week's Saturday Timewatch history slot is filled with a short-lived aviation oddity that I had never heard of until visiting the 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, Houston.
At first I thought that maybe Braniff had Concorde on order but at some stage had pulled out of the deal. No! Braniff did actually fly Concorde, as can be seen from the timetable shown below. However the story is a strange one and I have to admit does change a bit depending which source you read. However the bare bones are consistent. British Airways and Air France crews flew across the Atlantic to Washington Dulles DC. From there Braniff crews took over for subsonic flights to and from Dallas Fort Worth, TX.....no supersonic flights were allowed over North American land.
Details are less certain but the following seem likely to have been true.
I read somewhere, but can't find it again now, that lawyers literally transferred ownership to Braniff for each flight and then back again. What seems more likely is that a legal lease existed and quite definitely all-American documentation was placed in the cockpit for the DFW flights whilst the European papers got stored on board (the forward loo is mentioned!) and vice versa.
40 years ago, in order to operate a domestic US segment, planes had to be temporarily registered in the US. Photographs confirm that upon landing from Europe the aircraft's G or F was covered over with tape, and an “N” followed by either “-81” or “—94” replaced the first two letters of the European registration. The last two registration letters were left in place. As a result, G-BOAC would become N-81AC, while F-BVFD would become N-94FD. A total of nine Concordes eventually wound up in the interchange program running for Braniff. However, none were repainted in Braniff colours as illustrated in the model above.
Initially fares for the Braniff leg were $15 higher than their usual first-class fares on their B727. However, sales were poor and they dropped to parity. Sales remained sparse and the service only lasted just over one year, January 1979 - May 1980.
There are around 600 ancient burial mounds aka 'tumuli' aka 'barrows' along the 17 mile / 27 km South Dorset Ridgeway. They mostly date from the Bronze Age, especially the early Bronze Age some 5000 years ago. This one also has a nicely preserved ring ditch around the main burial site.
Can you see three more? Look carefully and they are to the middle right of the photo. There is also a linear earthwork running diagonally across the photo from the bottom left corner. I'm not sure but it could be a much more recent grubbed-out hedgerow.
This week's Saturday Timewatch visits Grey Mare and her Colts, a long barrow megalithic tomb in deepest Dorset dating from between 3400-2400 BC i.e. a rather long time ago.
A replay for this track which is about the ancient site.
Dating from over 150 million years ago, these fossil seashells, mostly bivalves, are fairly easy to find on one part of Ringstead beach. They are all firmly embedded in a mostly horizontal rock pavement that can be seen as the tide goes out.
A nice find today was this chunk of ammonite. The Charmouth ammonites are usually dated to around 190 - 200 million years old.
Saturday Timewatch features an old photo of the railway station and Front St, Palestine, Texas. I don't know the exact date of this and am tempted to say around the turn of the 19th to 20th century. However, on the far side of the street, directly above the nearest point of the rail carriages, are those two cars parked up?? If so, the date moves forward to around a century ago.
The unexpected is what American road trips are all about. This required a u-turn.
At a height of 19 1/2 feet and weighing 500 lbs, Howard Huge was made sometime in the 1960s by International Fibreglass of Lawndale, CA. Although Roadside Giants were a common sight along US highways 50 years ago, all the original molds were destroyed so only approximately 185 remain.
Howard was stored in Maine for over 30 years. The Fat Ass Ranch and Brewery, near Fredericksburg, won a nationwide auction in 2017 and Howard arrived on site in December 2018.
Regular viewers might remember that on the Isle of Portland, "ope" refers to an opening down to the sea. One of the lesser known examples is Longstone Ope. Long since abandoned, the site of the old Longstone Quarry still has a derrick that used to load stone blocks down onto a waiting vessel for onward transport.
A derrick can be seen at a distance in the old photo below.
The blocks of stone will be originals that were never shipped. However, I am not sure whether my more recent photo below (2015) shows the same derrick that has somehow survived or a more modern replica.
(Note : I have added the photos to the flickr map but for some reason they are not currently showing)
Regulars will know that I'm more of a wine than beer drinker. However, this one not only tickled my taste buds but also curiosity as to the origin of the name and label. I quote from the Brewery Roman website :
"The noose-wearers :
Gentse Strop owes its name to the proud people of Ghent who are nicknamed “stroppendragers” or noose-wearers. In 1540, the people of Ghent refused to pay an additional war tax, with the result that Emperor Charles V had the ringleaders parade through Ghent with a noose around their necks, as a sign that they deserved to go to the gallows. Still today, the noose continues to symbolise proud resistance against any form of tyranny and misplaced authority."
Tarr Steps crosses the River Barle in Exmoor. It is constructed of large flat slabs of stone which are supported on stone piers. The date of this bridge is unknown. Some people claim Tarr Steps goes back to the Bronze Age though the official listing suggests a Medieval origin.
As a nipper in the mid 20th century, unlike quite a few around this neck of the flickr woods, I never did go bunking engine sheds or locomotive works. Perversely, living just about as far as you can get from the sea in England, I was simply far more interested in ships!
For those out of Britain, 'shed bashing' was undertaken by rail enthusiasts who either officially or unofficially visited the numerous engine sheds to see what was in there. Happy days!
This is the scene inside one of the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway sheds. There was no interpretation board or anyone around to ask so I don't know the identity of the steam locomotive being rebuilt in this photo.
Crowdfunded by the people of Sturminster Newton, Geoffrey the Bull (named by Oliver Currie aged 7) commemorates the town's livestock market that closed on 30th June 1997 ending a 700 year old existence in this small rural market town.
Look what has found the light of day from the vaults! It is my first ever passport dating from July 1967.
Rather than a full passport lasting 10 years, this was known as a British Visitors Passport, was printed on lightweight card and was valid for just one year. Inside it gives my full name, date of birth, place of birth, height, colour of eyes, distinguishing marks and home address. There is my photo and my signature.
For foreign exchange purposes, it shows the National Provincial Bank issued me with £45. If I remember correctly, that was £5 less than the maximum £50 set by the government for an individual travelling abroad.
There is just a single stamp in the passport, dated 5th August 1967, at the port of Ostend, Belgium.
(Note : Even though it is more than 50 years later, for security reasons I have blanked out certain details, just to be on the safe side)
I might have this completely wrong. However, I reckon this old, disused shed might have started life elsewhere during World War 2 as an air raid shelter. Apart from a nearby airstrip, Portland Harbour and Dockyard are only about one hour away by road. There must surely have been many such shelters in the surrounding urban areas of Portland and Weymouth.
To narrow this down I think it may have been an Anderson Shelter, with a modified entrance door when it became an agricultural or forestry store shed.
Any thoughts on the subject are welcome!