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I arrived at St Mary, a journey from Wortham, following a slow moving delivery driver, looking for some obscure house looking onto the common.
Across fields,, mostly flat but with barely without a straight bit of road.
THe church is on a slight rise above the road, and to my dismay there were two cars parked in the churchyard, thus spoiling my exterior shots.
Inside I saw two chaps of a certain age dismantling a stage under the chancel arch.
I take a couple of shots, then one of them somes to speak to me. I was expecting to be told to keep away, or better still, leave as it was clearly unsafe for me to be there. But no, I was warmly greeted and given my own personal tour by the two wardens with whom we shared two mutual friends, John and Simon, or at least they knew them too.
There had been a celo concert the night before, but I was welcome to clamber of the stage to get shots of the fixtures and fittings, including a fine table tomb, though am wondering how Simon got a shot from above, maybe he grew wings and flew?
Lots of good memorials, interesting glass and lots of hatchments.
Under the care of the CCT, St mary is open every day, and you should visit it.
-----------------------------------------
It was May 2001, and I was cycling out across the gently rolling acres of north Suffolk. Redgrave is one of those large and relatively self-sufficient villages that you get more in the north and west of Suffolk than around Ipswich. However, this was not apparent to me, as I approached it from the direction of Wortham Common. I had cycled through the Long Green, a strange, otherworldly place. The Commons and Greens around here were still, until half a century ago, intensively grazed. Now, they have been let go back to nature, and are in many places covered in gorse and furze, with outcroppings of angular trees. Occasionally, as at Wortham, there are settlements which seem carved out of the common land. There’s nowhere else in Suffolk quite like it.
I left this behind, and a deep cutting of a lane led me up and out into open fields. The sun came out, and the tower of St Mary was ahead of me. It is a curious sight. Suffolk has a handful of towers rebuilt in the 18th century. Mostly, they are red brick, as at Layham, and rather less successfully Grundisburgh. However, Redgrave’s tower is white brick, and would be quite at home in the City of London, if a little more austere than most there.
Attached to it is a huge church. St Mary is big; it is a little-known church, but has more to offer than most. Simon Jenkins ignored it in England’s Thousand Best Churches; most probably, he didn’t know about it. It would fit quite comfortably into his three star category along with the likes of Westhall which he also missed. Incidentally, when I met him and pointed out his omission of Redgrave and Westhall, he looked at me as if I was some kind of sad lunatic. I suppose that he’s approached by someone with a similar complaint at least twice a day.
I stepped inside to a vast space. This church is full of light. The clerestory and aisle windows are huge, and although the east window is full of coloured glass, it too is vast, one of the widest I've seen. It would take hundreds and hundreds of people to fill this place, more than a thousand perhaps; but it was a gentle reminder to me that our medieval parish churches were not built for congregational Anglican worship.
St Mary has one of Suffolk's three best brasses, the 1609 memorial to Anne Butts. It has been reset in the sanctuary floor. She was related to the Bacons, that mighty Suffolk family, and her inscription reads:
The weaker sexes strongest precedent
Lies here belowe; seaven fayer years she spent
In wedlock sage; and since that merry age
Sixty one years she lived a widowe sage
Humble as great as full of Grace as elde,
A second Anna had she but beheld
Christ in His flesh who now she glorious sees
Below that first in time, not in degrees.
Mortlock thought it the finest post-Reformation brass in England.
To get to it, you will have to pass an awesome table tomb in the north aisle. On it lie, life-size, Sir Nicholas and Lady Anne Bacon. Lady Anne was the daughter of Anne Butts (and Sir Nicholas her son-in-law) so we may assume that they are responsible for the quality of her memorial. But the grandeur of theirs quite outshines her, and everybody else. It is by Nicholas Stone, famous for the Coke memorial at Bramfield; she died in 1616, he in 1624. There is an excellent modern window behind it.
The Bacons are responsible for most of the thirteen hatchments here - more than in any other church in Suffolk. Others are for the Holt and Wilson families (who later intermarried). The latest is dated 1929.
One of the Holts can also be found up in the sanctuary. He's life-size, as you might expect here. He was Lord Chief Justice of England in the first decade of the 18th century, and he sits in his judge's robes. He's flanked by two voluptuous figures who are Justice and Mercy, and the whole piece is by Thomas Green of Camberwell. I know this, because he signed it in very large letters. Perhaps he was particularly proud of it.
In this great palace of slightly absurd grandeur, mention should also be made of the vast wooden decalogue hanging in the north aisle. I've never seen Moses and Aaron look so important. It once stood at the east end of the chancel, has ridiculously large scrolls, and would certainly have concentrated the mind. All of this is overseen by that lovely glass in the huge east window. Mortlock tells us it is by a local firm, Farrow and son of Diss. I thought it splendid, quite in keeping with this mighty place. Also in keeping is the white stone pulpit, which is rather camp, although one assumes this was not the intended effect.
In 2004, three years after my first visit to Redgrave church, the parish walked away from it. The cost and effort of maintaining this vast barn full of priceless treasures had become too great a burden for the small congregation, so they locked the doors and decamped to the village hall, declaring that St Mary was now no longer their responsibility. As you may imagine, this caused a certain amount of consternation. While Redgrave church is a building of national significance, there is a certain protocol required if you want to declare a building redundant and have it conveyed into the stewardship of the Churches Conservation Trust. Not being able to pay the repair bills is not considered a good enough reason to declare redundancy. Even so, the parish persisted, which rather placed the Diocese in a quandary. While their first responsibility was to the parishioners, they clearly did not have the resources needed to look after St Mary, and yet the church commissioners would have looked with some doubt on any attempt to declare the building redundant.
It was, in modern political parlance, uncharted territory. Nevertheless, it was obvious that the ultimate destination must be to ensure the future security and upkeep of the building, and so after eighteen months or so of what one imagines must have been fairly tense meetings, the church was conveyed into the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.
And in the meantime, something else had happened. The shock of the incident had galvanised some local people, including a few of the former congregation, to get together and form a group to look after St Mary. With the support of the Churches Conservation Trust this has become one of the most successful support groups in the county, putting on exhibitions and concerts for which the church is eminently suitable. Before the end of the decade, the Daily Telegraph newspaper awarded Redgrave church the prize of English Village Church of the Year. On that occasion I was asked by BBC Radio Suffolk to do an interview about the church while standing in the nave, and as I looked around I thought it seemed a happy ending.
In fact, within a few months I was back at Redgrave church for a quite exciting reason. The Eastern Daily Press of 13th July 2010 takes up the story: It had remained hidden for centuries. But the entrance to a 500-year-old vault beneath a medieval Suffolk church has been discovered after a woman accidentally stamped her foot through one of the floor tiles. While rehearsing a scene from an upcoming performance of the musical Quasimodo at St Mary's Church, in Redgrave, near Diss, actor Kathy Mills dislodged a marble flagstone near the altar and her foot disappeared into a dark void below. Mrs Mills, who is in her 60s, suffered a swollen ankle, but the pain soon subsided when she was later told she had uncovered a tomb never seen in living memory with coffins inside suspected to contain the remains of the village's past aristocracy.
Just weeks before a geophysicist had used an advanced radar to map out where the long-forgotten vault was, but if it was not for Mrs Mills' freak accident they would never have been certain of where its boarded-up entrance was or what hid inside. The church is now hosting an open weekend to give the public a chance to glimpse through the hole and see exactly what they've been walking above all these years. St Mary's Church will be open to the public this Saturday and Sunday, between 10am and 4pm, where a video camera will beam images from inside the vault onto a projector screen.
“I was just doing a rehearsal for the production and I walked onto the flagstone, whether it was already loose I'm not sure, but my foot went down,” said Mrs Mills. “They lifted it up (the flagstone) and you could just see some mud and sand underneath. It's possible my foot went down eight inches. I wondered where I was going. It was quite a shock. I was thrilled when they told me I had discovered this vault they did not know was there. One or two people call me the Tomb Raider.”
Rumours had circulated for decades that under the ancient slabs of the 14th century church, now owned by The Churches Conservation Trust, laid a labyrinth of passages and tombs. Bob Hayward, chairman of the Redgrave Church Heritage Trust, said stories had passed through the generations of how people walked through the tunnels as recently as the 1920s, but records of their existence cannot be found. In a bid to establish fact from fiction, the group employed Malcolm Weale, of Geofizz Ltd, from East Harling, near Thetford, about two months ago to analyse what lied below. Using a ground penetrating radar, Mr Weale identified a large void, about 6ft deep, spreading under the altar and into the adjacent vestry. The Trust was prepared to leave its investigations at that until the day of Mrs Mills' fateful accident just over a week ago.
When the damaged flagstones were lifted and a light was lowered down, a tunnel was discovered with a set of steps descending into the ground visible in one direction and a cluster of about six coffins tucked inside a dark chamber in the other. It appears timbers holding up the floor tiles had rotted. Mr Hayward said: “It's exciting. You think you know these places but you don't until something like this happens.”
It is thought the coffins belong to descendents of the Holt family. Sir John Holt became lord of the manor in 1703 and a large memorial to his life sits above the newly uncovered vault. However it is believed to have been built in the late 1500s by the Bacon family, but their remains are located in another tomb beneath the church's font. Archaeologists will be descending into the vault at the end of the year to assess whether any of the other supporting timbers are rotten and to record what's inside, but the coffins will remain as they are found.
Now, this was something I had to see. The hole was about 20cm by 40cm. Bob Hayward very kindly opened it up the hole for me and allowed me to lower my camera into it - it wasn't safe to go down there, because of the high concentration of carbon monoxide.
How exciting! My photograph showed the high-vaulted tunnel of 18th Century brick, and in a room beyond there were five lead coffins, almost directly under the magnificent Holt memorial.
This was a fascinating experience, and all in all St Mary is a fascinating church, one of the best in East Anglia, despite what that Jenkins book says. It is not understated, it never attempts to be tasteful or refined. After the thrill of exploring the tunnel, I sat for a moment on the steps leading up to the organ at the west end, surveying the wonderful brick floors, the expanses of light beneath the arcades, the awesome seriousness of the chancel. If, at that moment, a group of 18th century ladies and gentlemen had stepped out of a Samuel Richardson novel and into this church, I should not have been the least bit surprised.
And curiously, Redgrave village is not the largest population centre in the parish. That honour goes to Botesdale, down on the main road, and part of the extended village of the Rickinghalls. Botesdale has its own church, but strictly speaking it is a chapel of ease to this one. The most famous residents of the parish these days are not Bacons, Holts or Wilsons, but the extremely rare great raft spiders which live in Lopham fen, to the north of the village. It is one of only two places they are found in the British Isles.
Simon Knott, September 2001, updated July 2015
for 365 and FGR invades Any Given Saturday.
Please View Big On Black -- the focus is better that way.
My grandmother was born in Finland. Her family sailed across the Atlantic to Ellis Island and the United States when she was 3. From there, they traveled across the country to live in a tight-knit Finnish Community in Washington State just outside of Vancouver.
I asked her 10 years ago if we could sit down and talk about everything she remembers from growing up. I now have 5 letters, all handwritten by her, complete with hand-drawn maps, of everyone and everything she remembers. They are a treasure to me and I keep them in a safe deposit box. I know if I hadn't asked for her to write them down, the information would be forever lost when she passes away.
She is an amazing and strong woman, one whom I admire greatly. During WWII, when women were needed to take up the jobs the men had left behind, my grandmother flew P-38 Lightnings back and forth across the country so they would be on the correct coast when needed by the soldiers.
She met my grandfather at a church dance. At least that's what SHE says. He says he noticed her one day joyriding with a bunch of girls from his town as they drove down the main street in a convertible they "borrowed" from the neighbor three doors down. She says she would NEVER do anything like that. And then grins like she's back in that car again.
She raised 5 boys, was the child of an alcoholic father, and ran a peppermint farm that my uncle still runs today. She has traveled up and down the entire coasts of Central America - with this gift to befriend anyone. She talked to guerilla soldiers in the jungle, transvestites and drag queens outside a club, the owners of a small fruit stand - learning the life stories of them all and remembering the details so she can share them with me.
I have her eyes. They were a gift passed down to me through my father, and which I have given to my own daughter. I only hope that I have her spunk when I am coming around the bend towards the end of my days. That I have the strength of character that she posses.
I am exceptionally proud to be her granddaughter.
Back when I were a nipper, I was given a book, a big book of trains from around the world, and on the cover was a Japanese Bullet Train, and I have always wanted to ride one ever since. There is one at the NRM in York, but that doesn't work, so for me, the real highlight of this trip would be riding on a real bullet train. Several times. I was so excited I was vibrating.
After the usual breakfast at the Gate Hotel, we took the Metro to Ueno then the overground line to Tokyo Station, simply re-tracing our steps of two day's before on the guided walk. Heck, we were experienced Metro travellers now, we knew stuff. And after sending the cases on via the courier, we only had either a night case of a bag of camera equipment with us to weigh us down.
And we did it will little problem and with an hour to spare, with the idea that I could snap the bullet trains to death while we waited.
At the Shinkansen platforms, we validate our pass and are let through; we had reserved seats the day before, so we could relax and wait for our train happy that we would have a seat. Which meant I could go to the end of the platforms to take shots. I could also go to the middle and all point between to snap away, Man, it were proper lush. I just knew that me deal old Dad would have loved this, waiting on the end of platforms in Tokyo, waiting for the next Bullet train to either arrive or leave.
Not only was I snapping them, but within the hour, we would be climbing on one to travel south to Kyoto.
At 11:03 we lined up where it said on the platform our carriage would stop, which it did We filed on, slumped into our armchair-like seats, all of which pointed the direction of travel. And we zoomed off, accelerating wat seemed as fast as a Formula 1 car, but this being an 18 coach train. I waited with excitement untol it was time for the train to depart; expecting something sensational, but we didn't even hear the doors swish closed; only with a wave from the guard on the platform, the train pulled away, rapidly accelerating along the platform and out into the grayness outside.
The line weaved through the massive tower blocks we had seen on the previous day, I tried to recognise the World Trade Centre, but it must have looked like any of a dozen other buildings. The suburbs slipped by, then we were in the countryside, nipping in and out of tunnels, past steep hillsides planted with green tea plants.
We stopped at various stations, picking a few more people up, but our coach was less than half full.
Sadly, outside it rained, and so Mount Fuji was hidden from view, we had even been given tickets on the left side of the train so we would be on the correct side for the view. Maybe on our way back? Who knows?
Every time a member of staff came though the carriage, they would stop at the door the other end of the compartment, then and salute; we don't get that on the train up to London back home, I thought. Not only that, they are smartly turned out with white gloves. Smart.
I was happy enough on the train, looking out the window watching the countryside slip by, changing from the urban landscape of Totyo, to the rolling hills further south and then the endless paddy fields as we neared Kyoto, where we were to get off. It was still pouring with rain, with no views of mountains or volcanoes; mores the pity.
We arrive at 14:00, and right away find somewhere to have lunch; a noodle bar on the station, which again was very good indeed as it was more noodles and tempura prawns. We order by pointing at pictures on the menu, then pay by thrusting wads of notes at the lady behind the till. She bows. We bow. We all bow.
We find the taxi rank and show him the address to the hotel, so we set off into the drizzly grey weather. and the heavy traffic, in which we crawled to the centre of town and our hotel.
We have no trouble in checking in, and our cases were waiting. Jools decides to do some washing as the wash room is one our fllor, and we had already accumilated several pounds of loose change with which to feed the machines.
With the portable wifi device that the tour company had provided us with, we were able to get online, get the news, check mails ad have the Radcliffe and Maconie show streamed; almost like being home.
So once we had made a coffee, we went out into the early evening to see what was around. What we found was a covered shopping area, several streets in fact, all lined with shops and all having neon signs flashing away. Three guitar shops, two record shops among others.
It was a modern shopping centre, along three covered roads. On one of them there was a temple, just taking up the place where you would expect a shop.
In the narrow streets beyond, we spy a shop selling creme brulee donuts, so Jools and i have one and a coffee, which is just dandy.
We walk back to the hotel under our newly purchased umbrellas, thus keeping dry. It was beginning to get dark, and the neon lights reflected off the road in a most attractive way.
Later in the evening, we decide not to go out into the pouring rain, wandering around a strange new city with little idea of where we would be going, so instead we go to the restaurant in the basement, and order pork or something which should have come with vegetables. It did, but just one mange tout, which counts as one of your five a day; right?.
We round the night off with cards in our room accompanied by cheap local beer bought from a drug store.
Back when I were a nipper, I was given a book, a big book of trains from around the world, and on the cover was a Japanese Bullet Train, and I have always wanted to ride one ever since. There is one at the NRM in York, but that doesn't work, so for me, the real highlight of this trip would be riding on a real bullet train. Several times. I was so excited I was vibrating.
After the usual breakfast at the Gate Hotel, we took the Metro to Ueno then the overground line to Tokyo Station, simply re-tracing our steps of two day's before on the guided walk. Heck, we were experienced Metro travellers now, we knew stuff. And after sending the cases on via the courier, we only had either a night case of a bag of camera equipment with us to weigh us down.
And we did it will little problem and with an hour to spare, with the idea that I could snap the bullet trains to death while we waited.
At the Shinkansen platforms, we validate our pass and are let through; we had reserved seats the day before, so we could relax and wait for our train happy that we would have a seat. Which meant I could go to the end of the platforms to take shots. I could also go to the middle and all point between to snap away, Man, it were proper lush. I just knew that me deal old Dad would have loved this, waiting on the end of platforms in Tokyo, waiting for the next Bullet train to either arrive or leave.
Not only was I snapping them, but within the hour, we would be climbing on one to travel south to Kyoto.
At 11:03 we lined up where it said on the platform our carriage would stop, which it did We filed on, slumped into our armchair-like seats, all of which pointed the direction of travel. And we zoomed off, accelerating wat seemed as fast as a Formula 1 car, but this being an 18 coach train. I waited with excitement untol it was time for the train to depart; expecting something sensational, but we didn't even hear the doors swish closed; only with a wave from the guard on the platform, the train pulled away, rapidly accelerating along the platform and out into the grayness outside.
The line weaved through the massive tower blocks we had seen on the previous day, I tried to recognise the World Trade Centre, but it must have looked like any of a dozen other buildings. The suburbs slipped by, then we were in the countryside, nipping in and out of tunnels, past steep hillsides planted with green tea plants.
We stopped at various stations, picking a few more people up, but our coach was less than half full.
Sadly, outside it rained, and so Mount Fuji was hidden from view, we had even been given tickets on the left side of the train so we would be on the correct side for the view. Maybe on our way back? Who knows?
Every time a member of staff came though the carriage, they would stop at the door the other end of the compartment, then and salute; we don't get that on the train up to London back home, I thought. Not only that, they are smartly turned out with white gloves. Smart.
I was happy enough on the train, looking out the window watching the countryside slip by, changing from the urban landscape of Totyo, to the rolling hills further south and then the endless paddy fields as we neared Kyoto, where we were to get off. It was still pouring with rain, with no views of mountains or volcanoes; mores the pity.
We arrive at 14:00, and right away find somewhere to have lunch; a noodle bar on the station, which again was very good indeed as it was more noodles and tempura prawns. We order by pointing at pictures on the menu, then pay by thrusting wads of notes at the lady behind the till. She bows. We bow. We all bow.
We find the taxi rank and show him the address to the hotel, so we set off into the drizzly grey weather. and the heavy traffic, in which we crawled to the centre of town and our hotel.
We have no trouble in checking in, and our cases were waiting. Jools decides to do some washing as the wash room is one our fllor, and we had already accumilated several pounds of loose change with which to feed the machines.
With the portable wifi device that the tour company had provided us with, we were able to get online, get the news, check mails ad have the Radcliffe and Maconie show streamed; almost like being home.
So once we had made a coffee, we went out into the early evening to see what was around. What we found was a covered shopping area, several streets in fact, all lined with shops and all having neon signs flashing away. Three guitar shops, two record shops among others.
It was a modern shopping centre, along three covered roads. On one of them there was a temple, just taking up the place where you would expect a shop.
In the narrow streets beyond, we spy a shop selling creme brulee donuts, so Jools and i have one and a coffee, which is just dandy.
We walk back to the hotel under our newly purchased umbrellas, thus keeping dry. It was beginning to get dark, and the neon lights reflected off the road in a most attractive way.
Later in the evening, we decide not to go out into the pouring rain, wandering around a strange new city with little idea of where we would be going, so instead we go to the restaurant in the basement, and order pork or something which should have come with vegetables. It did, but just one mange tout, which counts as one of your five a day; right?.
We round the night off with cards in our room accompanied by cheap local beer bought from a drug store.
What we today call 'Frangipani' or 'Plumeria' hails originally from Central America, notably southern Mexico. It was given its Latin name by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708) and Carolus Linnaeus for the "King of Botany", Charles Plumier (1646-1704), who'd been a star pupil of Tournefort's and had given an early description of this marvellous shrub or tree.
But Plumier was not the first to have described our shrub. The first account which reached Europe about it dates from the middle of the sixteenth century. It is found in the writings of two Aztec converts to Christianity. In 1521 the important Aztec city of Tlatelolco (now part of Mexico City) had fallen to the Spaniards under Hernán Cortés. Very soon afterwards, a Christian mission was established and one of its first tasks was to educate the indigenous people to the culture of Christianity. To that end a Colegio Imperial de Santa Cruz was established under Franciscan authority. It was here that Martinus de La Cruz and Juan Badiano - both converts - set about writing in Nahuatl and Latin an herbal of Aztec medicine. This herbal arrived in Europe in 1551/1552, generated some interest but then remained obscure until it was rediscoverd in the 1920s. The manuscript and another work of the same kind are two of the most important sources for the botany but also the anthropology and language (and much more) of the Aztecs.
The herbal describes two kinds of what we call Plumeria or Frangipani: Cacaloxochitl and Tlalcacaloxochitl. The first is probably Plumeria rubra or acutifolia, the second possibly pudica or inodora. The Aztecs apparently greatly favored Cacaloxochtitl, because of its wonderful fragrance. Even in the rain, the flowers in this photo emitted a lovely, sweet yet soft smell.
The raindrops might be taken as just as many reminders of the terrible fate of the many thousands of Aztecs at the hands of the Spanish conquerors. As evening falls...
9 MAN TOWN LEFT TO RUE MISSED CHANCES
“" We've got to be better than that..."” Manager Lee Ashcroft
Longridge suffered their 2nd League defeat of the season away at Coppull having missed chance after chance, and having given away 3 very poor goals in a 3-2 defeat.
The game finished 10 v 9 as both George Melling and Jordan Tucker were sent off in time added on by the Referee.
I was given some very tasty chocolate for Christmas, though the box featured an unwarranted critique of my figure. I was also given a copy of The World According to Cunk, by Philomena Cunk (ably assisted by Charlie Brooker, Ben Caudell, Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris).
Today We're Here group are wearing Box on Head.
Given the widespread destruction, housing was a priority. ADB built 8,500 new homes in Aceh and repaired 2,500 more.
Read more on:
Exposure: adb.exposure.co/back-to-life
Asian Tsunami of 2004: ADB’s Response and Lessons Learned: www.adb.org/news/features/asian-tsunami-2004-adb-s-respon...
given what a huge role this man played in exploration of the American West in the 19th century, i always find it startling that he's buried in the cemetery behind my sister's house in NY.
Pennsylvania War Dog Memorial
In Honor of the Heroes America Forgot
Few Americans are aware of the invaluable service given by War Dog teams during the Vietnam War. Dog teams consisting of Scout, Combat Tracker, Sentry and Mine and Tunnel dogs saved thousands of lives. Routinely braving danger these intelligent and adaptable dogs would locate injured GI's, search out Vietcong weapon caches, locate deadly booby traps and would alert and thwart enemy attacks and ambushes.
The handlers responsible for the dog teams lovingly cared for these brave animals. These soldiers literally carried food and water into battle for their faithful friends and protectors.
Despite the impassioned pleas of the handlers these Valorous animals were classified ad "expendable equipment" at the end of the Vietnam War and were abandoned to unknown fates in South Vietnam. the Courage and Loyalty of these dogs are honored only in the memories of the soldiers whos lives they protected.
The War Dog teams were so effective and efficient that the Vietcong High Command issued a bounty on them! Hundreds of War Dogs gave their lives in combat. This Memorial is dedicated in honor of all the brave War Dogs from every military conflict. Let us never forget the thousands of War Dog heroes that served with Valor during the Vietnam War....
"All gave some, some gave all"
Bristol Township Town Hall - 2501 Bath Road, Bristol PA 19007 - Google Map - additional views
"Gen. Stewart was delighted to provide his autograph for these artifacts. He said to send his greetings."
Even after the Challenger accident on January 28, 1986, not all training activity stopped. Some payload specialists continued to train, although most of them would never fly.
Twenty days after the accident, the preliminary crew activity plan for STS-61-K was issued, with a planned launch date of Aug. 18, and a landing seven days later on Aug. 25. The payload for this flight was the postponed Spacelab EOM-1 - STS-51-H - which was combined with its reflight, for EOM-1/2.
No orbiter was given in this plan, but published reports say EOM-1/2 would have flown Atlantis. Originally, EOM-1/2 would have flown Columbia:
"An excellent example of the need to change the manifest because of operational constraints is reflected by the landing weight on STS 61-K. This mission, an Earth Observation Mission (EOM) Spacelab flight, first was planned for OV-102 because of the desire for a high-power, long-duration mission (i.e., only OV-102 has the capability to carry a fifth cryoset to provide extra power). As the payload definition matured, the payload configuration changed from only a long module to a long module plus a mission peculiar experiment support structure (MPESS)." [Rogers Commission]
EOM was in turn a reflight of some Spacelab-1 hardware. From a June 1984 NASA release:
Release No. 84-029 June 7, 1984
NASA ANNOUNCES CREW MEMBERS FOR FUTURE SPACE SHUTTLE FLIGHTS
The flight crew for Space Shuttle flight 51-H and mission specialist astronauts for mission 61-E were announced today by NASA.
Veteran astronaut Vance D. Brand will command mission 51-H, scheduled for launch in November 1985, using the orbiter Atlantis. Brand was commander of STS-5, the first operational Shuttle flight in November 1982 and mission 41-B, the first use of the manned maneuvering unit in February 1984.
Other members of the 51-H crew are Michael J. Smith, pilot; Robert C. Springer, Dr. Owen K. Garriott and European Space Agency astronaut, Dr. Claude Nicollier, mission specialists; and Dr.
Michael L. Lampton and Dr. Byron K. Lichtenberg, payload specialists.
Payload on Flight 51-H will be Earth Observation Mission-1 (EOM-I), a reflight of nine Spacelab-1 experiments in the areas of space plasma physics, solar physics, atmospheric physics, astronomy and earth observations. A short Spacelab habitable module and a pallet of experiment hardware will occupy the cargo bay.
When 51H got postponed, Smith went to become pilot of 51L (and later, pilot of 61-I, see documentation on this Flickr account elsewhere.)
61K was to have carried seven crewmembers. Three are mentioned in this plan - S. David Griggs as pilot; Robert L. Stewart as Mission Specialist 2; and Owen Garriott as MS1.
The other astronauts, named in a November 1985 astronaut flight information manifest, are Vance D. Brand, who would have carried over from 51H as commander, and Claude Nicollier, presumably as MS3.
That means 61K would have carried two Payload Specialists. Four are named on the distribution list: Dirk Frimout, Michael Lampton, Byron Lichtenberg and Charles R. Chappell, all from Marshall SPC.
Published reports elsewhere state Lampton and Lichtenberg, the latter who flew on Spacelab 1 and the former who was Lichtenberg's alternate for that flight, would have flown.
When flights resumed, EOM was renamed ATLAS, and flew in spring 1992 as STS-45. There was a crew of seven, but ATLAS-1 was commanded by Charles F. Bolden Jr., as Brand had left NASA by then. Griggs died in 1989 and Brian Duffy was pilot of the flight.
Mission specialists were C, Michael Foale, David C. Leestma and Kathryn D. Sullivan - Garriott and Stewart also having left NASA by that time. Frimout took Lampton's place, the latter medically disqualified in 1991, and Lichtenberg flew - the only original crew member to do so!
Nicollier was still an astronaut, but presumably could not fly due to his training for STS-46, which also flew in 1992.
I sent this to Lampton, but he returned it unsigned (he may have thought it was backing for the photo I sent, which he did return signed.) Garriott signed this in-person at an Explorers Club presentation on 4 Sept. 2013 in New York, NY.
And when an opportunity came to send this to Stewart, I did so, through the Kitsap Community Prayer Breakfast at the Kitsap Golf and Country Club on 2 Oct. 2014 in Bremerton, Washington.
Nicollier signed this in-person during Family Day at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center, 25 April 2015.
The Stonington Free Library 1887-1996
By Taliaferro Boatwright
Adapted from the Stonington Historical Society's
Historical Footnotes by Jack Hinshaw, 1996
One dime, given by a guest to an ardent proponent of literature, marked the beginning of the Stonington Free Library.
As Mrs. Martha Todd Hill recounts in her charming Story of the Stonington Free Library, published in 1891, the fortunes of the Ladies Book Club were at a low ebb in 1887. Over the years the club had acquired a small collection of books, which it made available to subscribers at a modest fee. The collection was housed in a dismantled store, and was open to the public only on Saturday afternoons and evenings. Perhaps fifty people availed themselves of its services, which were scarcely appealing: the books were tattered and dusty, and none was new.
"One Sunday evening in May, 1887," according to Mrs. Hill, "a lady spoke of a new plan just undertaken in New Haven [to raise money for a local charity]. Turning to another guest, she requested him to give her ten cents. That dime began the Free Library. The guest returned the compliment by asking her and the lady of the house to do the same. Each lady asked two others, and the dimes came in, though it was never obligatory to entice two other victims." In a sense, the Free Library sprang from a sort of Pyramid Club, a chain letter scheme.
Mrs. Hill continues: "As soon as five dollars were collected, they were expended on fresh, attractive books which were conspicuously displayed in a private parlor. Every visitor, attracted by the sight of Little Lord Fauntleroy in his first glory, would ask 'Are these new books for the Book Club?' 'No, for the Free Library, whenever there is one."'
In this way, 330 dimes, representing as many givers, were gathered, most from donors who did not live in Stonington. With the $33 thus collected, thirty-eight books were bought. (In those days new books could be obtained for less than a dollar each). More significantly, perhaps, a committee was formed "to see if a Free Library [was] practicable."
The new library committee discharged its duties conscientiously. It asked itself whether people would use a Free Library, even though loan of books would be "gratis;" whether the ordinary citizens of the Borough could be trusted to care for illustrated books on loan; and what the rights of the owners of the books that were then the stock of the Free Library (that is, the members of the book club) would be. All these questions were resolved satisfactorily and the process of raising money in earnest was begun. Among other means adopted was the sale of the new game, Halma, which was popular in the 1890s.
With all signs favorable, the first meeting of the Stonington Free Library Association, as it came to be called, was held early in September, 1887, and the decision was made to establish a Free Library. The "Aunt Mary Howe House," on the corner of Main and Church Streets, was rented for $100 a year as quarters. Stiles T. Stanton was elected President, but on his death five months later, was succeeded by the vice-president, Reverend Albert Gallatin Palmer. The other officers were Rev. Charles J. Hill, secretary and James H. Weeks, treasurer. Annie J. Wilkinson was named librarian. In July, 1888 they filed a formal certificate of organization stating that "The Name of this organization shall be 'The Stonington Free Library Association"' and its object "is to be the promotion of literary interests in the Town of Stonington by sustaining a Free Library Reading Room and Museum.
By 1891 the Stonington Free Library had 2,830 bound volumes and 520 paperbacks on its shelves. Almost a thousand library cards had been issued, and over 700 were in active use. The circulation was reported as 12,000 volumes a year, a very respectable figure for a community of 2,500 souls.
The Howe house was an adequate home for the Free Library at first, but it proved to be small for the needs that developed. Before many years had passed, the people of Stonington showed with their support of the library that a new and larger building was needed to house the books and provide an adequate public reading room.
Two public-spirited men with Stonington roots, Samuel D. Babcock of New York and Erskine M. Phelps of Chicago, each pledged $8,000 if the residents of the town would raise $4,000. Fund raising began anew; this time the principal means was the staging of operettas with local talent, among them "Robin Hood," "HMS Pinafore" and "Bobby Shaftoe." Before long the challenge was met.
It was proposed that the library be built in Wadawanuck Park, the site until 1893 of the famous Wadawanuck Hotel, which had been razed. On September 15,1898 a meeting was held in Borough Hall to accept the property as a gift from the heirs of Samuel Denison. A provision in the deed stipulated that a building be erected on the property to be used as a circulating public library and reading room, and that one room be used by the Stonington Historical and Genealogical Society.
Messrs. Clinton and Russell of New York were hired as architects and Norcross Brothers of Worcester as contractors to construct the building. The new library was formally opened on March 25th, 1900. This handsome structure served the needs of the Borough and the surrounding area for many years. But eventually it was recognized that more space was needed, both for books and for an additional reading room. Through the generosity of Dr. Frederic C. Paffard a new section, designed by John E. Dodge of Stonington, was added on the north side of the old building and opened March 15th, 1956.
Thirty years later it was again apparent that more space was needed, and that the original part of the building needed a face lift. Mr. and Mrs. Jacques Wimpfheimer, owners of the American Velvet Company, donated $350,000 toward a new wing in memory of their son, Jocko, who died in Africa in 1987. Another $400,000, raised through donations, paid for renovations to the existing structure and to establish an endowment fund. The Stonington Garden Club gave $4,000 for new plantings, and the Village Improvement Association replaced the park benches in the square. Ken Best of the firm of Galliher and Baier in Simsbury, CT designed the wing to compliment the 19th century architecture of the original building.
The Wimpfheimer Wing, which was dedicated on July 6, 1990, added 1,000 square feet of floor space and doubled the library's shelf space. Renovations to the existing building included air conditioning and humidity control, a new circulation desk, new lighting, computer access and a large unfinished basement (now occupied by the Stonington Historical Society Library until its new building on Palmer Street is completed).
By January of 1996 the library had expanded its computer services to include reQuest, giving patrons an inquiry system to all Connecticut libraries, and offered access to the internet. For the prior fiscal year ending July 30, l995 circulation was almost 43,000 books, videos, books on tape and other materials. The same year saw six adult lectures, two poetry series and numerous children's story hours.
But, in the words of Mrs. Rose York, past president, "What's really special about this library is its atmosphere. It's small and we really try to please the public."
THE HISTORY IS USED WITH PERMISSION.
COPYRIGHT BY THE STONINGTON FREE LIBRARY
I've given my blog a make over, this is my new banner.
Go and have a look here and see what you think!
St Margaret of Antioch, Cowlinge, Suffolk
Given its proximity to the Cambridgeshire border, some people would argue that this Suffolk church is closer to civilisation than most, and yet St Margaret of Antioch, Cowlinge, has a decidedly remote feel to it. Gentle hills enfold these pretty villages, and St Margaret stands distant from the houses it serves. Cowlinge, pronounced coo-linj, stands about a mile north of the Haverhill to Bury road, not far from the better-known Denston. You approach it up a track from the north, where it is rather hemmed in, but the graveyard opens up widely beyond on the other side.
The first impression is one of redness. From the outside, Cowlinge seems a rather pretty accretion of centuries' work, its tower a typical red brick 18th century rebuilding - there are similar ones across the county at Grundisburgh and Layham. The chancel and nave appear to have met each other by chance as much as intention, and all is pleasantly patched up, with solid red-brick buttressing and just about every kind of window you can think of. There are aisles, there is a clerestory, but this is not a grand church. Rather, it is the kind of building a DIY enthusiast might put together if he wanted a late medieval one in his back garden.
And somehow, this makes it beautiful, especially if seen from the south-east or north-east. You might expect the interior to be similarly ramshackle, but you step through the north door into cool whiteness, and as you walk through this treasure chest of a church, unusual vistas open up at each turn. This is a complex church.
Facing east to start with, the first impression is of the wall-painting above the chancel arch, and the gated rood screen beneath. There are gates in the screens at nearby Withersfield and Denston, but unlike those these doors rise to the full height of the screen. The screen itself is perhaps not as beautiful as the parclose screen enclosing the chapel in the south aisle. Mortlock points out how similar it is to the one up the road at Dalham. The paleness of the wood is very pleasing.I thought it compared very well with the parclose at Dennington, which has been repainted gaudily. Another good parclose of the same age is at Westhorpe. A memorial window contains 1920s glass by Christopher Webb of Christ with the fishermen at Galilee.
One the wall beside the parclose in the south aisle is a small exposed area of wall painting. It appears to be an unbearded male saint holding something that may well be a chalice, in which case it is St John the Evangelist. The better-known wall painting here is the one I mentioned earlier, above the chancel arch. It is often referred to as a doom, but it is organised rather differently to others of its kind. Instead of the day of judgement, with God in Majesty overseeing the parting of the ways into hell on his right and heaven on his left, it depicts St Michael, to the south of the arch, balancing a set of scales in which a sinner is being weighed against his sins.
St Michael is a common feature of doom paintings - he appears nearby at Stoke by Clare and on the famous doom at Wenhaston. The unusual aspect of this one, however, is to the north of the arch, where the Virgin Mother of God stands. She reaches out with a wand, and tips the balance of the scales. Simon Jenkins, in his England's Thousand Best Churches, suggests that she is tipping the balance in the favour of the virtuous. This is, of course, exactly what she is not doing. The virtuous had no need of intervention; the good in them would outweigh their sins in any case. Mary is intervening on behalf of sinners who have prayed to her for her help, and she is tipping the scales in the favour of those sinners. It represents the efficacy of intercessions to Our Blessed Lady, and as such it was anathema to the 16th century reformers.
In common with other wall paintings, this priceless art treasure was whitewashed over rather than destroyed. It would be interesting to know when this happened. We know that during William Dowsing's iconoclastic progress through Suffolk and Cambridgeshire in 1644, he found no wall paintings still in existence. It has always been assumed that they were covered by the Anglicans when the new Church of England took possession of our parish churches a century earlier. But I do wonder if they might have been done away with a century before even that, perhaps around the middle of the 15th century, when the ruling classes were enforcing orthodox Catholic dogma in the face of the superstitions of the ordinary people. Part of this process involved setting up larger roods at the east end of the nave, and I think this wall-painting may have been covered before that happened here.
The chancel arch beneath the doom is also extensively painted, and also of interest on all of the pillars a large amount of medieval graffiti, some of which is described as being consecration crosses. This, of course, cannot be so, for the medieval church ordered its liturgical needs rather better than this, and these are no doubt the work of some bored 17th century vandal.
Stepping through into the chancel, it is at once one of the loveliest in Suffolk, and one of the most dominated, since Peter Scheemakers' ugly 18th century memorial for Francis Dickins glowers against the north wall. Dickins was responsible for the building of the tower. The figures are life size, and the monument is wholly secular, even pagan. They look like nothing so much as a couple on their way to a toga party pausing to pose with the FA Cup.
Near the north door, a plaque on the wall records the visitation of 1618 when permission was given for the local house of correction to set up seating here for its inmates. There are still banked benches below, but these are later, and were probably intended for the village schoolchildren. Seating on a similar scale can be seen at nearby Kedington, divided there into boys' and girls' sections. On a somewhat larger scale they can also be seen at Laxfield.
A fine view of this church can be had by climbing to the spacious gallery beneath Dickins' tower. Once up here, the space is dominated by another huge classical memorial to Dickins and above it a George II royal arms, which also records that George Finton and Henry Seabrook were the churchwardens who set it up in 1731.
St Margaret is everything a historic church should be. Well-ordered, welcoming, suited to its Protestant present and mindful of its Catholic past. It used to be left open all the time, but a traumatic assault on the building some five years ago by a mentally ill man suffering from a religious mania, during which both screens and the altar were set fire to, means that it is now kept locked, but with a very cheerful churchwarden who was most happy to come and open up.
IMPORTANT
All my 2015 pictures of Nepal are taken shortly before the heavy earthquake in April 2015! Most of these buildings are now damaged!
To me this is the real tragedy of this year! I wished the German Government had given money to poor Nepal for repairing this Heritage Sites instead of waisting Billions of Euro for the Millions of Muslim Invaders coming from Middle East and Afrika to Germany! They call them refugees - no, that are invaders!
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Bhaktapur (Nepali: भक्तपुर), literally translates to Place of devotees. Also known as Bhadgaon or Khwopa (Newar: ख्वप Khwopa), it is an ancient Newar city in the east corner of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, about 13 km from the capital city, Kathmandu. It is located in Bhaktapur District in the Bagmati Zone.
Bhaktapur was the largest of the three Newar kingdoms of the Kathmandu Valley, and was the capital of Nepal during the great 'Malla Kingdom' until the second half of the 15th century. Today it is the third largest city in the Kathmandu Valley, with a population of more than 80,000, of which the vast majority are still Newars. Historically more isolated than the other two kingdoms, Kathmandu and Patan, Bhaktapur has a distinctly different form of Nepal Bhasa language.
Bhaktapur has the best preserved palace courtyards and old city center in Nepal, and is listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO for its rich culture, temples, and wood, metal and stone artworks. This is supported by the restoration and preservation efforts of German-funded Bhaktapur Development Project (BDP).
The city is famous for special type of curd called "Ju Ju(king) dhau(curd). It is experienced by the curd makers that the taste of curd prepared in this location cannot be found elsewhere all over Nepal.
ETYMOLOGY
KHWOPA is the ancient name of Bhaktapur. The term "Bhaktapur" (Sanskrit/Nepali: भक्तपुर) refers to "The City Of Devotees". This Bhaktapur City is also known as "Khwopa" (Nepal Bhasa: ख्वप) or "Bhadgaon" (Nepali:भादगाँउ) or "Ancient Newari Town" throughout the Kathmandu Valley. "Kh0apa" actually refers to the masks which are believed to have been worn by gods and goddesses. Bhaktapur is popular for different forms of mask dances based on lives of different deities and therefore, it was named "Khwapa" which later came to become just "Khwopa," which is also near to meaning masks.
HISTORY
It is the home of traditional art and architecture, historical monuments and craft works, magnificent windows, pottery and weaving industries, excellent temples, beautiful ponds, rich local customs, culture, religion, festivals, musical mystic and so on. Bhaktapur is still an untouched as well as preserved ancient city that is itself a world to explore for tourists.
From time immemorial it lay on the trade route between Tibet and India. This position on the main caravan route made the town rich and prosperous.
DEMOGRAPHICS
At the time of the 2001 Nepal census it had a population of 72,543. The male inhabitants of this city wear a special type of cap called the Bhadgaunle Topi Nyatapola.
LANDMARKS
LAYAKU (DURBAR SQUARE)
Bhaktapur Durbar Square is a conglomeration of pagoda and shikhara-style temples, mostly dedicated to Hindu gods and goddesses grouped around a 55-window palace of brick and wood. The square is one of the most charming architectural showpieces of the valley as it highlights the ancient arts of Nepal. The golden effigies of the kings perched on the top of stone monoliths, the guardian deities looking out from their sanctuaries, the wood carvings in every place — struts, lintels, uprights, tympanums, gateways and windows — all seem to form a well-orchestrated symphony.
The royal palace was originally situated at Dattaraya square and was only later moved to the Durbar square location. The square in Bhaktapur was severely damaged by an earthquake in 1934 and hence appears more spacious than the ones at Kathmandu and Patan.
NYATAPOLA TEMPLE
Nyatapola Temple is a 5-story pagoda located in Bhaktapur, Nepal. The temple was erected by Nepali King Bhupatindra Malla during a 5-month period from late 1701 into 1702. It is the temple of Siddha Laxmi, the Hindu goddess of prosperity.
BHAIRAB NATH TEMPLE
This is another pagoda temple of lord Bhairab, the dreadful aspect of Lord Shiva. It stands a short distance away from the temple of Nyatapola and was originally constructed by King Jagat Jyoti Malla on a modest scale. It was later remodelled by King Bhupatindra Malla, a zealous lover of the arts, into what it is now a three-storeyed temple.
DATTATRAYA TEMPLE
The temple of Dattatraya is as old as the Palace of Fifty-five Windows. Consecrated by King Yakshya Malla in 1427 AD, this temple, according to popular belief, was built out of the trunk of a single tree. It was subsequently repaired and renovated by King Vishwa Malla in 1458 AD.
Just beside temple is a monastery (Math) with exquisitely carved peacock windows. These famous windows were carved during the reign of King Vishwa Malla. The monastery is full of artistic facades of latticed windows and engraved columns.
CHANGU NARAYAN TEMPLE
Changu Narayan is an ancient Hindu temple located near the village of Changunarayan in the Kathmandu Valley on top of a hill at the eastern end of the valley. It is 6 kilometres to the north of Bhakathapur and 22 kilometres from Kathmandu. The temple is one of the oldest Hindu temples of the valley, and is believed to have been constructed first in the 4th century. Changu Narayan is the name of Vishnu, and the temple is dedicated to him. A stone slab discovered in the vicinity of the temple dates to the 5th century, and is the oldest such stone inscription discovered in Nepal. It was rebuilt after the old temple was devastated. Many stone sculptures here date to the Licchavi period. Changu Narayan Temple is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
The temple is a double-roofed structure where the idol of Lord Vishnu in his incarnation as Narayana is deified. The exquisitely built temple has intricate roof struts showing multi-armed Tantric deities. A kneeling image of Garuda (dated to the 5th century), the vahana or vehicle of Vishnu with a snake around its neck, faces the temple. The gilded door depicts stone lions guarding the temple. Gilded windows also flank the door. A conch and a disc, symbols of Vishnu, are carved on the two pillars at the entrance. Non-Hindus are not allowed inside the temple.
TA PUKHA (SIDDHA POKHARI)
Ta Pukhu (Siddha Pokhari) is a big rectangular water pond near the main city gate. It was built during the reign of King Yakshya Malla in the early 15th century and is associated with a number of myths. From this spot a wide range of snowy peaks are visible on clear days.
KAILASHNATH MAHADEV STATUE
Kailashnath Mahadev is the World's Tallest Lord Shiva statue. The height of this statue is 143 feet high and is situated 20 km from Kathmandu, epal. The statues construction work was started in 2004 and was completed in 2012. The statue's inauguration took place on the 21st of June '12. This statue stands on the 32nd position in the list of all statues by height in the whole world. It has been made of copper, cement, zinc, and steel. To make this gigantic structure possible there were many professional workers and statue makers from India.
FESTIVAL
Bhaktapur is also known as city of festivals and celebrations. The city celebrates festivals each month starting from new year festival to the Holi puni at the end of the year.
- Bisket Jatra (New year festival)
This ancient annual festival of bhaktapur takes place at the New Year of the Bikram Sambat calendar. A few days before the New Year, usually at Chaitra 27 or Chaitra 28, if 31 days in month, the goddess 'bhadrakali' and the god 'bhairab' are enshrined in their raths, or immense chariots & pulled through the narrow streets of Bhaktapur by crowds of young men.
The chariots rest at certain time-honored places in the city and people come out to throw offerings of flower, rice, coins and red sindur powder. On the last day of the old year a towering wooden pole known as ' lyesing dha: or lingo' is erected at the edge of town. Long banners hang from the pole, symbolizing snakes - Nag and nagini. On new year's day, the erected pole is brought down symbolizing victory over evil! People enjoy New year day along with victory over evils. On baisakh 5, the chariot is again pulled to narrow street of bhaktapur and brought to its origin place, Taumadhi square marking end of Bisket Jatra.
- Kumar Khasti (Sithi Nakha)
Before modern piping system, wells and kuwas were the basis for water supply in bhaktapur. In this auspicious day, people clean wells and worship Naag favoring good fall in monsoon. They celebrate by eating delicious delicacy like bara and chatamari.
- Gathamaga charya
Gathamaga is made up of straw that symbols a devil. Locals make gathamaga in their locality and burn fire to remove devils of their locality. It is also said that mosquitos loses its one leg in this day.
- Sa: Paaru (Gai Jatra)
The celebration of Gai Jatra Bhaktapur is interesting among Kathmandu and Lalitpur. In this day, Tall bamboo poles wrapped in cloth and topped horn of straw and an umbrella is carried around the town in memory of dead. The photo of dead is hung in this pole called Ta macha.
Also a colorful procession known as Ghing tang gishi is main attraction of this festival. People enjoy and dance in beats of music and play with stick in accordance to the beat. People decorate themselves in mask, paints and even in female outfits.
GUNLA
Gunla is the name of 10th month of Nepal Era calendar. It is sacred month dedicated to Lord Buddha celebrated in Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur.
But In Bhaktapur, last day of Gunla Panchadan is celebrated differently. The Five Buddhas are brought to Taumadhi square accompanied with Gunla Baja, a special musical instrument played only in Gunla and Buddhas are rounded around bhaktapur town.
- Pulu Kisi (Indra Jatra)
The son of Lord of heaven, is believed to have been kidnapped by a devil named Maisasur who then tied Indra's son in a pole and killed. Indra was shocked to hear his son's death and sent an elephant, pulukisi to find and kill Maisasur. But legend says Pulukisi couldn't find maisur till date. This jatra is a play to that legendary story where pulu kisi is rounded the town to search for Maisasur.
- Sithi Nakha
In Bhaktapur a palanquin with an image of the hindu goddess Bhagawati is carried in colorful procession through Nyatapol square this day.
- Dhanya purnima (Yomari purnima)
In this day Farmers of Kathmandu valley worship to Annapurna, the Goddess of grains, for good rice harvest and enjoy feast after all the hard work of the season. Yomari is the chief item on the menu in this day. So is called Yomari puni.
- Maghe sankranti (Ghya-chaku sankranti) (Makar Sankranti)
This festival marks the winter solstice and Newars partake of a feast. The days special menu include butter (ghyu), molasses (chaku) and yam.
In Bhaktapur, on this auspicious day samyak Dan is performed by Buddhist. The shakyas and Bajracharya gather in a samyak ground near Napukhu pond accompanied with panchabuddhas and samyak buddhas. They are offered chaku balls and rice. Bhaktapur is the only one in valley that conducts samyak Dan once in a year.
SHREE PANCHAMI
People regard this day as propitious day for starting new enterprise. Devotee throng Devi shrine to seek blessing. In Bhaktapur, People visit Sashwo:dega in this auspicious day where the idol of Buddhist deity Mahamanjushree is kept. Hindus regard it as saraswoti and worship whereas Buddhist worship it as Manjushree.
IN POPULARE CULTURE
Portions of the movie Little Buddha starring Keanu Reeves and Bridget Fonda were filmed in the Bhaktapur Durbar Square.
2015 EARTHQUAKE
The Magnitude 7.8 2015 Nepal earthquake that struck on 25 April 2015 damaged 116 heritages in the historic town of Bhaktapur. Of them, 67 were completely damaged while 49 suffered from partial damages. The quake has badly damaged the Durbar square, a significant heritage site included in the UNESCO world heritage list. The main premises of Taleju Temple here also witnessed damages in the disaster.
The building of the municipality office, temples of Rameshwor, Batsala, Narayan, Siddilaxmi, Biswaroopa, Siddiganesh, Sweetbhairav, Siva Mahadev, Degaina, sattal, pati and pujari mathas were damaged by the quake.
The reconstruction and new construction of the damaged heritages will cost over Rs 293 million, underlining the need of starting the renovation soon.
The Magnitude 8.4 (1934 Nepal–Bihar earthquake) demolished several buildings that were never rebuilt, however they can be seen in the earlier drawings. Chyasilin Mandap has been rebuilt.
WIKIPEDIA
Given the opposition in Islam to the depiction of human and animal forms for religious art and architecture, it was shoking to see two huge portraits of the Imam Khomeini and Ali Khamenei, the current leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, in the courtyard of the historic Friday Mosque of Isfahan. Maybe these images are considered to belong to the secular sphere, with no connection whatsoever with religiosity despite being in a mosque.
Cineaste365 (January 22, 2014 - DAY 103) - When I first watched “Café de Flore”, the first thing that stood out for me about Jean-Marc Vallée’s film is how the film employs many cuts.
To quickly show the life of each person, we are given various short cuts of different duration. For example, for Antoine, may he be listening to music, dancing in his hotel room, looking at Rose, looking at his children, doing a DJ gig in some part of the country. The approach to how these characters are presented was creative, stylish in many ways but for the most part, establishing the livelihoods of each of these individuals.
From their past to their present, how a happily married man got divorced, how a wife lost her soul mate and how a loving mother of a 7-year-old with Down’s Syndrome, lost her son, despite his age, fell in love with a girl who also has Down’s Syndrome.
The presentation of the film is well-done and I like the various shifts in storyline. Some may find it a bit too jarring and non-formulaic but for me, I enjoyed this fresh presentation by Jean-Marc Vallée.
But the film’s strength which those who are familiar with surreal films versus those who despise surreal films or films that are not straightforward, will enjoy the fact that there is quite a bit of symbolism employed, but also a lot of interesting situations which people have debated about online. Is the film about reincarnation? Is it about one dealing with their own personal coping mechanism?
If anything, the film will have each viewer coming up with their own interpretation depending on your perspective of the film or its characters. And just when you think you know what is going on, then comes a photograph right at the end of the film that may surprise you. And just when you think that was the end, another visual image shows up at the end before the ending credits.
And once again, everyone will have their own opinion of what these images mean.
I won’t get into my feelings about what I think the connection is between each of these individuals but I will say that “Café de Flore” was rather bold.
Typically, when one storyline is about soulmates, may it be finding your soulmate or having found your soulmate, how perhaps that concept that was held when was younger, changes as one becomes older and then it becomes the conundrum within realist vs. idealist.
For Antoine, his relationship with Carole when they were teenagers were pretty much sex, drugs and rock n’ roll (music). As they became older, she held onto the believe they were soul mates but as a popular, successful DJ, there’s no doubt that Antoine lived a rock star life and had his opportunities to mess around. And of course, which led to his relationship with Rose.
The performance by Kevin Parent and Evelyne Brochu felt natural, while Helene Florent’s performance as Carole, was magnificent yet painful. Carole’s life is nothing but painful since her divorce and the look of anguish on her face while sleepwalking, looks as if she is being tormented and the fact that she has nightmares of mentally disabled child and Antoine was rather fascinating.
Which brings us to Vanessa Paradis, the singer and actress who gives one hell of a performance as Jacqueline, overly-protective mother of her son Laurent, who has Down Syndrome. Because her scenes are from the 1960′s, the way people view her and her child, as if they are abnormal. So much to the point that she has to let it out and scream!
But it’s seeing this mother turning to something different, when her son falls for Veronique, another girl who has Down’s Syndrome and they become inseparable. Jacqueline begins to feel insecure and possibly jealous that her 7-year-old son, no longer sees mom as her #1 person in the world.
How these two timelines intertwine is rather fascinating, so much that I watched the film three times in a day, because I enjoyed it and each time, I discovered something new.
As for the DVD release, while I wish there was a Blu-ray release of “Café de Flore”, similar to what our European counterparts have received. I would love to have watched this film in HD but as for the DVD, picture quality is OK but there is quite a bit of compression during low-light scenes. Audio is in Dolby Digital stereo.
Unfortunately, we get a barebones DVD from Adopt Films. No trailer, no featurette, no audio commentary, nothing.
While filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée is earning a lot of praise for his Academy Award nominated film “Dallas Buyers Club”, one should still watch his film “Café de Flore”. Is it a masterpiece? Of course, it’s a film that will be subjective, because not everyone will understand it. But for those who take the time to watch this film thoroughly and think about the characters and their relationship and how the timelines correspond with each other, you realize that “Café de Flore” is no doubt a wonderful film.
Wish I could have came up with an even more creative photo...but I'm too tired at the moment.
Back when I were a nipper, I was given a book, a big book of trains from around the world, and on the cover was a Japanese Bullet Train, and I have always wanted to ride one ever since. There is one at the NRM in York, but that doesn't work, so for me, the real highlight of this trip would be riding on a real bullet train. Several times. I was so excited I was vibrating.
After the usual breakfast at the Gate Hotel, we took the Metro to Ueno then the overground line to Tokyo Station, simply re-tracing our steps of two day's before on the guided walk. Heck, we were experienced Metro travellers now, we knew stuff. And after sending the cases on via the courier, we only had either a night case of a bag of camera equipment with us to weigh us down.
And we did it will little problem and with an hour to spare, with the idea that I could snap the bullet trains to death while we waited.
At the Shinkansen platforms, we validate our pass and are let through; we had reserved seats the day before, so we could relax and wait for our train happy that we would have a seat. Which meant I could go to the end of the platforms to take shots. I could also go to the middle and all point between to snap away, Man, it were proper lush. I just knew that me deal old Dad would have loved this, waiting on the end of platforms in Tokyo, waiting for the next Bullet train to either arrive or leave.
Not only was I snapping them, but within the hour, we would be climbing on one to travel south to Kyoto.
At 11:03 we lined up where it said on the platform our carriage would stop, which it did We filed on, slumped into our armchair-like seats, all of which pointed the direction of travel. And we zoomed off, accelerating wat seemed as fast as a Formula 1 car, but this being an 18 coach train. I waited with excitement untol it was time for the train to depart; expecting something sensational, but we didn't even hear the doors swish closed; only with a wave from the guard on the platform, the train pulled away, rapidly accelerating along the platform and out into the grayness outside.
The line weaved through the massive tower blocks we had seen on the previous day, I tried to recognise the World Trade Centre, but it must have looked like any of a dozen other buildings. The suburbs slipped by, then we were in the countryside, nipping in and out of tunnels, past steep hillsides planted with green tea plants.
We stopped at various stations, picking a few more people up, but our coach was less than half full.
Sadly, outside it rained, and so Mount Fuji was hidden from view, we had even been given tickets on the left side of the train so we would be on the correct side for the view. Maybe on our way back? Who knows?
Every time a member of staff came though the carriage, they would stop at the door the other end of the compartment, then and salute; we don't get that on the train up to London back home, I thought. Not only that, they are smartly turned out with white gloves. Smart.
I was happy enough on the train, looking out the window watching the countryside slip by, changing from the urban landscape of Totyo, to the rolling hills further south and then the endless paddy fields as we neared Kyoto, where we were to get off. It was still pouring with rain, with no views of mountains or volcanoes; mores the pity.
We arrive at 14:00, and right away find somewhere to have lunch; a noodle bar on the station, which again was very good indeed as it was more noodles and tempura prawns. We order by pointing at pictures on the menu, then pay by thrusting wads of notes at the lady behind the till. She bows. We bow. We all bow.
We find the taxi rank and show him the address to the hotel, so we set off into the drizzly grey weather. and the heavy traffic, in which we crawled to the centre of town and our hotel.
We have no trouble in checking in, and our cases were waiting. Jools decides to do some washing as the wash room is one our fllor, and we had already accumilated several pounds of loose change with which to feed the machines.
With the portable wifi device that the tour company had provided us with, we were able to get online, get the news, check mails ad have the Radcliffe and Maconie show streamed; almost like being home.
So once we had made a coffee, we went out into the early evening to see what was around. What we found was a covered shopping area, several streets in fact, all lined with shops and all having neon signs flashing away. Three guitar shops, two record shops among others.
It was a modern shopping centre, along three covered roads. On one of them there was a temple, just taking up the place where you would expect a shop.
In the narrow streets beyond, we spy a shop selling creme brulee donuts, so Jools and i have one and a coffee, which is just dandy.
We walk back to the hotel under our newly purchased umbrellas, thus keeping dry. It was beginning to get dark, and the neon lights reflected off the road in a most attractive way.
Later in the evening, we decide not to go out into the pouring rain, wandering around a strange new city with little idea of where we would be going, so instead we go to the restaurant in the basement, and order pork or something which should have come with vegetables. It did, but just one mange tout, which counts as one of your five a day; right?.
We round the night off with cards in our room accompanied by cheap local beer bought from a drug store.
YORK, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 19: during the BUCS Men’s Northern Tier 6 Group C match between York St John University 8ths and Leeds Trinity University 4ths at Haxby Road on October 19th 2022 in North Yorkshire, United Kingdom. (Photo by Matthew Appleby)
By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.
[1 Corinthians 3:10-15 NIV]
5 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:
1. Like it or not, we are ALL sinners: As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” (Romans 3:10-12 NLT)
2. The punishment for sin is death: When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. (Romans 5:12 NLT)
3. Jesus is our only hope: But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. (Romans 5:8 NLT) For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 NLT)
4. SALVATION is by GRACE through FAITH in JESUS: God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Ephesians 2:8-10 NLT)
5. Accept Jesus and receive eternal life: If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9 NLT) But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:12 NLT) And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life. (1 John 5:11-12 NLT)
Read the Bible for yourself. Allow the Lord to speak to you through his Word. YOUR ETERNITY IS AT STAKE!
LUGNuts' founder Lino Martins has graciously given me permission to replicate his series of automotive illustrations based on various mixed alcoholic drinks.
The third in this series is a Lego -model replication of 'FrankenBerry' - 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.
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In Lino's own words:
"Here is my final installment of the holy trinity of cars. If you’ve been following my formula (advancing decades and increasingly larger rims) you may have predicted that Franken Berry would go in this direction. This is a 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme customized as a Donk. The donk phenomenon originated in the American south amongst the rap and hip hop scene. “Donk” is sort of a blanket term given to cars with outsized rims but depending on car model and decade, these typically full-sized American-made sedans can be categorized as donks, boxes, or bubbles with many other sub-categories as well. This ‘84 Cutlass is an example of a box hi-riser. There is nothing subtle about the candy sparkle pink paint scheme. Massive rims that each borrow design cues from Franken Berry’s eyes also feature strawberries on four of the spokes. Beefy truck axles are required to accommodate such large rims while truck horns configured below the front bumper gives this ride an attitude as big as everything else. While I designed this car myself it is not unheard of to have such graphics along the side. Many real-life donks feature fast food restaurant logos, candy or junk food themes. Donks are the youngest of the three car cultures featured so it makes sense that it represents “The Son” in this Holy Trinity. I truly had a blast drawing this triptych of vehicles and I look forward to drawing other odd pairs or trilogies. I have other artistic projects on the burner right now but if you have suggestions for other pairings for me to draw leave them in the comments. No guarantees, but who knows, maybe they’ll happen. Thanks for reading and liking my work."
Given a brief 90 seconds with their families, cadet candidates are ushered out of Eisenhower Hall and bus after bus sends them to Thayer Hall for inprocessing and company assignments. Afterward, the new cadets become acquainted with such things as drill and ceremony and chain of command as they begin their initial transformation from civilian to West Point cadet. Mike Strasser, West Point Public Affairs
North Toraja (or Toraja Utara) is a regency (kabupaten) of South Sulawesi Province of Indonesia, and the home of the Toraja ethnic group. The local government seat is in Rantepao which is also the center of Toraja culture. Formerly this regency was part of Tana Toraja Regency.
The Tana Toraja boundary was determined by the Dutch East Indies government in 1909. In 1926, Tana Toraja was under the administration of Bugis state, Luwu. The regentschap (or regency) status was given on October 8, 1946, the last regency given by the Dutch. Since 1984, Tana Toraja has been named as the second tourist destination after Bali by the Ministry of Tourism, Indonesia. Since then, hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors have visited this regency. In addition, numerous Western anthropologists have come to Tana Toraja to study the indigenous culture and people of Toraja.
GEOGRAPHY
Tana Toraja is located on the Sulawesi island, 300 km north of Makassar, the provincial capital of South Sulawesi. Its geographical location is between latitude of 2°-3° South and longitude 119°-120° East (center: 3°S 120°ECoordinates: 3°S 120°E). The area of the new North Toraja Regency is 1,151.47 km², about 2.5% of the total area of South Sulawesi province. The topography of Tana Toraja is mountainous; its minimum elevation is 150 m, while the maximum is 3,083 above the sea level.
Tana Toraja Regency (Indonesian for Torajaland or Land of the Toraja, abbreviated Tator) is a regency (kabupaten) of South Sulawesi Province of Indonesia, and home to the Toraja ethnic group. The local government seat is in Makale, while the center of Toraja culture is in Rantepao. But now, Tana Toraja has been divided to two regencies that consist of Tana Toraja with its capital at Makale and North toraja with its capital at Rantepao.
The Tana Toraja boundary was determined by the Dutch East Indies government in 1909. In 1926, Tana Toraja was under the administration of Bugis state, Luwu. The regentschap (or regency) status was given on 8 October 1946, the last regency given by the Dutch. Since 1984, Tana Toraja has been named as the second tourist destination after Bali by the Ministry of Tourism, Indonesia. Since then, hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors have visited this regency. In addition, numerous Western anthropologists have come to Tana Toraja to study the indigenous culture and people of Toraja.
GEOGRAPHY
Tana Toraja is centrally placed in the island of Sulawesi, 300 km north of Makassar, the provincial capital of South Sulawesi. It lies between latitude of 2°-3° South and longitude 119°-120° East (center: 3°S 120°ECoordinates: 3°S 120°E). The total area (since the separation of the new regency of North Toraja) is 2,054.30 km², about 4.4% of the total area of South Sulawesi province. The topography of Tana Toraja is mountainous; its minimum elevation is 150 m, while the maximum is 3,083 above the sea level.
ADMINISTRATION
Tana Toraja Regency in 2010 comprised nineteen administrative Districts (Kecamatan), tabulated below with their 2010 Census population.
The Torajans are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their population is approximately 1,100,000, of whom 450,000 live in the regency of Tana Toraja ("Land of Toraja").[1] Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk ("the way"). The Indonesian government has recognised this animistic belief as Aluk To Dolo ("Way of the Ancestors").
The word Toraja comes from the Buginese language term to riaja, meaning "people of the uplands". The Dutch colonial government named the people Toraja in 1909. Torajans are renowned for their elaborate funeral rites, burial sites carved into rocky cliffs, massive peaked-roof traditional houses known as tongkonan, and colourful wood carvings. Toraja funeral rites are important social events, usually attended by hundreds of people and lasting for several days.
Before the 20th century, Torajans lived in autonomous villages, where they practised animism and were relatively untouched by the outside world. In the early 1900s, Dutch missionaries first worked to convert Torajan highlanders to Christianity. When the Tana Toraja regency was further opened to the outside world in the 1970s, it became an icon of tourism in Indonesia: it was exploited by tourism development and studied by anthropologists. By the 1990s, when tourism peaked, Toraja society had changed significantly, from an agrarian model—in which social life and customs were outgrowths of the Aluk To Dolo—to a largely Christian society. Today, tourism and remittances from migrant Torajans have made for major changes in the Toraja highland, giving the Toraja a celebrity status within Indonesia and enhancing Toraja ethnic group pride.
ETHNIC IDENTITY
The Torajan people had little notion of themselves as a distinct ethnic group before the 20th century. Before Dutch colonisation and Christianisation, Torajans, who lived in highland areas, identified with their villages and did not share a broad sense of identity. Although complexes of rituals created linkages between highland villages, there were variations in dialects, differences in social hierarchies, and an array of ritual practices in the Sulawesi highland region. "Toraja" (from the coastal languages' to, meaning people; and riaja, uplands) was first used as a lowlander expression for highlanders. As a result, "Toraja" initially had more currency with outsiders—such as the Bugis and Makassarese, who constitute a majority of the lowland of Sulawesi—than with insiders. The Dutch missionaries' presence in the highlands gave rise to the Toraja ethnic consciousness in the Sa'dan Toraja region, and this shared identity grew with the rise of tourism in the Tana Toraja Regency. Since then, South Sulawesi has four main ethnic groups—the Bugis (the majority, including shipbuilders and seafarers), the Makassarese (lowland traders and seafarers), the Mandarese (traders and fishermen), and the Toraja (highland rice cultivators).
HISTORY
From the 17th century, the Dutch established trade and political control on Sulawesi through the Dutch East Indies Company. Over two centuries, they ignored the mountainous area in the central Sulawesi, where Torajans lived, because access was difficult and it had little productive agricultural land. In the late 19th century, the Dutch became increasingly concerned about the spread of Islam in the south of Sulawesi, especially among the Makassarese and Bugis peoples. The Dutch saw the animist highlanders as potential Christians. In the 1920s, the Reformed Missionary Alliance of the Dutch Reformed Church began missionary work aided by the Dutch colonial government. In addition to introducing Christianity, the Dutch abolished slavery and imposed local taxes. A line was drawn around the Sa'dan area and called Tana Toraja ("the land of Toraja"). Tana Toraja was first a subdivision of the Luwu kingdom that had claimed the area. In 1946, the Dutch granted Tana Toraja a regentschap, and it was recognised in 1957 as one of the regencies of Indonesia.
Early Dutch missionaries faced strong opposition among Torajans, especially among the elite, because the abolition of their profitable slave trade had angered them. Some Torajans were forcibly relocated to the lowlands by the Dutch, where they could be more easily controlled. Taxes were kept high, undermining the wealth of the elites. Ultimately, the Dutch influence did not subdue Torajan culture, and only a few Torajans were converted. In 1950, only 10% of the population had converted to Christianity.
In the 1930s, Muslim lowlanders attacked the Torajans, resulting in widespread Christian conversion among those who sought to align themselves with the Dutch for political protection and to form a movement against the Bugis and Makassarese Muslims. Between 1951 and 1965 (following Indonesian independence), southern Sulawesi faced a turbulent period as the Darul Islam separatist movement fought for an Islamic state in Sulawesi. The 15 years of guerrilla warfare led to massive conversions to Christianity.
Alignment with the Indonesian government, however, did not guarantee safety for the Torajans. In 1965, a presidential decree required every Indonesian citizen to belong to one of five officially recognised religions: Islam, Christianity (Protestantism and Catholicism), Hinduism, or Buddhism. The Torajan religious belief (aluk) was not legally recognised, and the Torajans raised their voices against the law. To make aluk accord with the law, it had to be accepted as part of one of the official religions. In 1969, Aluk To Dolo ("the way of ancestors") was legalised as a sect of Agama Hindu Dharma, the official name of Hinduism in Indonesia.
SOCIETY
There are three main types of affiliation in Toraja society: family, class and religion.
FAMILY AFFILIATION
Family is the primary social and political grouping in Torajan society. Each village is one extended family, the seat of which is the tongkonan, a traditional Torajan house. Each tongkonan has a name, which becomes the name of the village. The familial dons maintain village unity. Marriage between distant cousins (fourth cousins and beyond) is a common practice that strengthens kinship. Toraja society prohibits marriage between close cousins (up to and including the third cousin)—except for nobles, to prevent the dispersal of property. Kinship is actively reciprocal, meaning that the extended family helps each other farm, share buffalo rituals, and pay off debts.
Each person belongs to both the mother's and the father's families, the only bilateral family line in Indonesia. Children, therefore, inherit household affiliation from both mother and father, including land and even family debts. Children's names are given on the basis of kinship, and are usually chosen after dead relatives. Names of aunts, uncles and cousins are commonly referred to in the names of mothers, fathers and siblings.
Before the start of the formal administration of Toraja villages by the Tana Toraja Regency, each Toraja village was autonomous. In a more complex situation, in which one Toraja family could not handle their problems alone, several villages formed a group; sometimes, villages would unite against other villages. Relationship between families was expressed through blood, marriage, and shared ancestral houses (tongkonan), practically signed by the exchange of water buffalo and pigs on ritual occasions. Such exchanges not only built political and cultural ties between families but defined each person's place in a social hierarchy: who poured palm wine, who wrapped a corpse and prepared offerings, where each person could or could not sit, what dishes should be used or avoided, and even what piece of meat constituted one's share.
CLASS AFFILIATION
In early Toraja society, family relationships were tied closely to social class. There were three strata: nobles, commoners, and slaves (slavery was abolished in 1909 by the Dutch East Indies government). Class was inherited through the mother. It was taboo, therefore, to marry "down" with a woman of lower class. On the other hand, marrying a woman of higher class could improve the status of the next generation. The nobility's condescending attitude toward the commoners is still maintained today for reasons of family prestige.
Nobles, who were believed to be direct descendants of the descended person from heaven, lived in tongkonans, while commoners lived in less lavish houses (bamboo shacks called banua). Slaves lived in small huts, which had to be built around their owner's tongkonan. Commoners might marry anyone, but nobles preferred to marry in-family to maintain their status. Sometimes nobles married Bugis or Makassarese nobles. Commoners and slaves were prohibited from having death feasts. Despite close kinship and status inheritance, there was some social mobility, as marriage or change in wealth could affect an individuals status. Wealth was counted by the ownership of water buffaloes.
Slaves in Toraja society were family property. Sometimes Torajans decided to become slaves when they incurred a debt, pledging to work as payment. Slaves could be taken during wars, and slave trading was common. Slaves could buy their freedom, but their children still inherited slave status. Slaves were prohibited from wearing bronze or gold, carving their houses, eating from the same dishes as their owners, or having sex with free women—a crime punishable by death.
RELIGIOUS AFFILATION
Toraja's indigenous belief system is polytheistic animism, called aluk, or "the way" (sometimes translated as "the law"). In the Toraja myth, the ancestors of Torajan people came down from heaven using stairs, which were then used by the Torajans as a communication medium with Puang Matua, the Creator. The cosmos, according to aluk, is divided into the upper world (heaven), the world of man (earth), and the underworld. At first, heaven and earth were married, then there was a darkness, a separation, and finally the light. Animals live in the underworld, which is represented by rectangular space enclosed by pillars, the earth is for mankind, and the heaven world is located above, covered with a saddle-shaped roof. Other Toraja gods include Pong Banggai di Rante (god of Earth), Indo' Ongon-Ongon (a goddess who can cause earthquakes), Pong Lalondong (god of death), and Indo' Belo Tumbang (goddess of medicine); there are many more.
The earthly authority, whose words and actions should be cleaved to both in life (agriculture) and death (funerals), is called to minaa (an aluk priest). Aluk is not just a belief system; it is a combination of law, religion, and habit. Aluk governs social life, agricultural practices, and ancestral rituals. The details of aluk may vary from one village to another. One common law is the requirement that death and life rituals be separated. Torajans believe that performing death rituals might ruin their corpses if combined with life rituals. The two rituals are equally important. During the time of the Dutch missionaries, Christian Torajans were prohibited from attending or performing life rituals, but were allowed to perform death rituals. Consequently, Toraja's death rituals are still practised today, while life rituals have diminished.
CULTURE
TONGKONAN
Tongkonan are the traditional Torajan ancestral houses. They stand high on wooden piles, topped with a layered split-bamboo roof shaped in a sweeping curved arc, and they are incised with red, black, and yellow detailed wood carvings on the exterior walls. The word "tongkonan" comes from the Torajan tongkon ("to sit").
Tongkonan are the center of Torajan social life. The rituals associated with the tongkonan are important expressions of Torajan spiritual life, and therefore all family members are impelled to participate, because symbolically the tongkonan represents links to their ancestors and to living and future kin. According to Torajan myth, the first tongkonan was built in heaven on four poles, with a roof made of Indian cloth. When the first Torajan ancestor descended to earth, he imitated the house and held a large ceremony.
The construction of a tongkonan is laborious work and is usually done with the help of the extended family. There are three types of tongkonan. The tongkonan layuk is the house of the highest authority, used as the "center of government". The tongkonan pekamberan belongs to the family members who have some authority in local traditions. Ordinary family members reside in the tongkonan batu. The exclusivity to the nobility of the tongkonan is diminishing as many Torajan commoners find lucrative employment in other parts of Indonesia. As they send back money to their families, they enable the construction of larger tongkonan.
Architecture in the style of a tongkonan is still very common. Various administration buildings were built in this style in recent years, e.g. the Kecamatan building in Rantepao.
WOOD CARVINGS
To express social and religious concepts, Torajans carve wood, calling it Pa'ssura (or "the writing"). Wood carvings are therefore Toraja's cultural manifestation.
Each carving receives a special name, and common motifs are animals and plants that symbolise some virtue. For example, water plants and animals, such as crabs, tadpoles and water weeds, are commonly found to symbolise fertility. In some areas noble elders claim these symbols refer to strength of noble family, but not everyone agrees. The overall meaning of groups of carved motifs on houses remains debated and tourism has further complicated these debates because some feel a uniform explanation must be presented to tourists. Torajan wood carvings are composed of numerous square panels, each of which can represent various things, for example buffaloes as a wish of wealth for the family; a knot and a box, symbolizing the hope that all of the family's offspring will be happy and live in harmony; aquatic animals, indicating the need for fast and hard work, just like moving on the surface of water.
Regularity and order are common features in Toraja wood carving (see table below), as well as abstracts and geometrical designs. Nature is frequently used as the basis of Toraja's ornaments, because nature is full of abstractions and geometries with regularities and ordering. Toraja's ornaments have been studied in ethnomathematics to reveal their mathematical structure, but Torajans base this art only on approximations. To create an ornament, bamboo sticks are used as a geometrical tool.
FUNERAL RITES
In Toraja society, the funeral ritual is the most elaborate and expensive event. The richer and more powerful the individual, the more expensive is the funeral. In the aluk religion, only nobles have the right to have an extensive death feast. The death feast of a nobleman is usually attended by thousands and lasts for several days. A ceremonial site, called rante, is usually prepared in a large, grassy field where shelters for audiences, rice barns, and other ceremonial funeral structures are specially made by the deceased's family. Flute music, funeral chants, songs and poems, and crying and wailing are traditional Toraja expressions of grief with the exceptions of funerals for young children, and poor, low-status adults.
The ceremony is often held weeks, months, or years after the death so that the deceased's family can raise the significant funds needed to cover funeral expenses. Torajans traditionally believe that death is not a sudden, abrupt event, but a gradual process toward Puya (the land of souls, or afterlife). During the waiting period, the body of the deceased is wrapped in several layers of cloth and kept under the tongkonan. The soul of the deceased is thought to linger around the village until the funeral ceremony is completed, after which it begins its journey to Puya.
Another component of the ritual is the slaughter of water buffalo. The more powerful the person who died, the more buffalo are slaughtered at the death feast. Buffalo carcasses, including their heads, are usually lined up on a field waiting for their owner, who is in the "sleeping stage". Torajans believe that the deceased will need the buffalo to make the journey and that they will be quicker to arrive at Puya if they have many buffalo. Slaughtering tens of water buffalo and hundreds of pigs using a machete is the climax of the elaborate death feast, with dancing and music and young boys who catch spurting blood in long bamboo tubes. Some of the slaughtered animals are given by guests as "gifts", which are carefully noted because they will be considered debts of the deceased's family. However, a cockfight, known as bulangan londong, is an integral part of the ceremony. As with the sacrifice of the buffalo and the pigs, the cockfight is considered sacred because it involves the spilling of blood on the earth. In particular, the tradition requires the sacrifice of at least three chickens. However, it is common for at least 25 pairs of chickens to be set against each other in the context of the ceremony.
There are three methods of burial: the coffin may be laid in a cave or in a carved stone grave, or hung on a cliff. It contains any possessions that the deceased will need in the afterlife. The wealthy are often buried in a stone grave carved out of a rocky cliff. The grave is usually expensive and takes a few months to complete. In some areas, a stone cave may be found that is large enough to accommodate a whole family. A wood-carved effigy, called Tau tau, is usually placed in the cave looking out over the land. The coffin of a baby or child may be hung from ropes on a cliff face or from a tree. This hanging grave usually lasts for years, until the ropes rot and the coffin falls to the ground.
In the ritual called Ma'Nene, that takes place each year in August, the bodies of the deceased are exhumed to be washed, groomed and dressed in new clothes. The mummies are then walked around the village.
DANNCE AND MUSIC
Torajans perform dances on several occasions, most often during their elaborate funeral ceremonies. They dance to express their grief, and to honour and even cheer the deceased person because he is going to have a long journey in the afterlife. First, a group of men form a circle and sing a monotonous chant throughout the night to honour the deceased (a ritual called Ma'badong). This is considered by many Torajans to be the most important component of the funeral ceremony. On the second funeral day, the Ma'randing warrior dance is performed to praise the courage of the deceased during life. Several men perform the dance with a sword, a large shield made from buffalo skin, a helmet with a buffalo horn, and other ornamentation. The Ma'randing dance precedes a procession in which the deceased is carried from a rice barn to the rante, the site of the funeral ceremony. During the funeral, elder women perform the Ma'katia dance while singing a poetic song and wearing a long feathered costume. The Ma'akatia dance is performed to remind the audience of the generosity and loyalty of the deceased person. After the bloody ceremony of buffalo and pig slaughter, a group of boys and girls clap their hands while performing a cheerful dance called Ma'dondan.
As in other agricultural societies, Torajans dance and sing during harvest time. The Ma'bugi dance celebrates the thanksgiving event, and the Ma'gandangi dance is performed while Torajans are pounding rice. There are several war dances, such as the Manimbong dance performed by men, followed by the Ma'dandan dance performed by women. The aluk religion governs when and how Torajans dance. A dance called Ma'bua can be performed only once every 12 years. Ma'bua is a major Toraja ceremony in which priests wear a buffalo head and dance around a sacred tree.
A traditional musical instrument of the Toraja is a bamboo flute called a Pa'suling (suling is an Indonesian word for flute). This six-holed flute (not unique to the Toraja) is played at many dances, such as the thanksgiving dance Ma'bondensan, where the flute accompanies a group of shirtless, dancing men with long fingernails. The Toraja have indigenous musical instruments, such as the Pa'pelle (made from palm leaves) and the Pa'karombi (the Torajan version of a jaw harp). The Pa'pelle is played during harvest time and at house inauguration ceremonies.
COGENDER VIEWS
Among the Saʼadan (eastern Toraja) in the island of Sulawesi (Celebes), Indonesia, there are homosexual male toburake tambolang shamans; although among their neighbors the Mamasa (western Toraja) there are instead only heterosexual female toburake shamanesses.
LANGUAGE
The ethnic Toraja language is dominant in Tana Toraja with the main language as the Sa'dan Toraja. Although the national Indonesian language is the official language and is spoken in the community, all elementary schools in Tana Toraja teach Toraja language.
Language varieties of Toraja, including Kalumpang, Mamasa, Tae, Talondo, Toala, and Toraja-Sa'dan, belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language from the Austronesian family. At the outset, the isolated geographical nature of Tana Toraja formed many dialects between the Toraja languages themselves. After the formal administration of Tana Toraja, some Toraja dialects have been influenced by other languages through the transmigration program, introduced since the colonialism period, and it has been a major factor in the linguistic variety of Toraja languages.
A prominent attribute of Toraja language is the notion of grief. The importance of death ceremony in Toraja culture has characterised their languages to express intricate degrees of grief and mourning. The Toraja language contains many terms referring to sadness, longing, depression, and mental pain. Giving a clear expression of the psychological and physical effect of loss is a catharsis and sometimes lessens the pain of grief itself.
ECONOMY
Prior to Suharto's "New Order" administration, the Torajan economy was based on agriculture, with cultivated wet rice in terraced fields on mountain slopes, and supplemental cassava and maize crops. Much time and energy were devoted to raising water buffalo, pigs, and chickens, primarily for ceremonial sacrifices and consumption. Coffee was the first significant cash crop produced in Toraja, and was introduced in the mid 19th century, changing the local economy towards commodity production for external markets and gaining an excellent reputation for quality in the international market.
With the commencement of the New Order in 1965, Indonesia's economy developed and opened to foreign investment. In Toraja, a coffee plantation and factory was established by Key Coffee of Japan, and Torajan coffee regained a reputation for quality within the growing international specialty coffee sector Multinational oil and mining companies opened new operations in Indonesia during the 1970s and 1980s. Torajans, particularly younger ones, relocated to work for the foreign companies—to Kalimantan for timber and oil, to Papua for mining, to the cities of Sulawesi and Java, and many went to Malaysia. The out-migration of Torajans was steady until 1985. and has continued since, with remittances sent back by emigre Torajans performing an important role within the contemporary economy.
Tourism commenced in Toraja in the 1970s, and accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s. Between 1984 and 1997, a significant number of Torajans obtained their incomes from tourism, working in and owning hotels, as tour guides, drivers, or selling souvenirs. With the rise of political and economic instability in Indonesia in the late 1990s—including religious conflicts elsewhere on Sulawesi—tourism in Tana Toraja has declined dramatically. Toraja continues to be a well known origin for Indonesian coffee, grown by both smallholders and plantation estates, although migration, remittances and off-farm income is considered far more important to most households, even those in rural areas.
TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE
Before the 1970s, Toraja was almost unknown to Western tourism. In 1971, about 50 Europeans visited Tana Toraja. In 1972, at least 400 visitors attended the funeral ritual of Puang of Sangalla, the highest-ranking nobleman in Tana Toraja and the so-called "last pure-blooded Toraja noble." The event was documented by National Geographic and broadcast in several European countries. In 1976, about 12,000 tourists visited the regency and in 1981, Torajan sculpture was exhibited in major North American museums. "The land of the heavenly kings of Tana Toraja", as written in the exhibition brochure, embraced the outside world.
In 1984, the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism declared Tana Toraja Regency the prima donna of South Sulawesi. Tana Toraja was heralded as "the second stop after Bali". Tourism was increasing dramatically: by 1985, a total number of 150,000 foreigners had visited the Regency (in addition to 80,000 domestic tourists), and the annual number of foreign visitors was recorded at 40,000 in 1989. Souvenir stands appeared in Rantepao, the cultural center of Toraja, roads were sealed at the most-visited tourist sites, new hotels and tourist-oriented restaurants were opened, and an airstrip was opened in the Regency in 1981.
Tourism developers have marketed Tana Toraja as an exotic adventure—an area rich in culture and off the beaten track. Western tourists expected to see stone-age villages and pagan funerals. Toraja is for tourists who have gone as far as Bali and are willing to see more of the wild, "untouched" islands. However, they were more likely to see a Torajan wearing a hat and denim, living in a Christian society. Tourists felt that the tongkonan and other Torajan rituals had been preconceived to make profits, and complained that the destination was too commercialised. This has resulted in several clashes between Torajans and tourism developers, whom Torajans see as outsiders.
A clash between local Torajan leaders and the South Sulawesi provincial government (as a tourist developer) broke out in 1985. The government designated 18 Toraja villages and burial sites as traditional tourist attractions. Consequently, zoning restrictions were applied to these areas, such that Torajans themselves were barred from changing their tongkonans and burial sites. The plan was opposed by some Torajan leaders, as they felt that their rituals and traditions were being determined by outsiders. As a result, in 1987, the Torajan village of Kété Kesú and several other designated tourist attractions closed their doors to tourists. This closure lasted only a few days, as the villagers found it too difficult to survive without the income from selling souvenirs.
Tourism has also transformed Toraja society. Originally, there was a ritual which allowed commoners to marry nobles (puang) and thereby gain nobility for their children. However, the image of Torajan society created for the tourists, often by "lower-ranking" guides, has eroded its traditional strict hierarchy. High status is not as esteemed in Tana Toraja as it once was. Many low-ranking men can declare themselves and their children nobles by gaining enough wealth through work outside the region and then marrying a noble woman.
WIKIPEDIA
Given out to the first 300 people to spend $35 on 4/10/10 at the opening of the new store in Garden City, New York.
Full review (including instructions) here
Given the right conditions even Burlington Northern Santa Fe D9-44CWs can look good. Of course, it helps that all three Dash 9s at the head of this train are wearing different liveries. This is Heritage III No. BNSF 4121, Heritage I No. BNSF 1087 and ex ATSF 'Warbonnet' No. BNSF 623 leading yet another double stack intermodal working around the 'S' curve just east of Cosnino Road, near Flagstaff, Arizona, on April 21st, 2007.
Pussy willow is a name given to many of the smaller species of the genus Salix (willows and sallows) when their furry catkins are young in early spring. Before the male catkins of these species come into full flower they are covered in fine, greyish fur, leading to a fancied likeness to tiny cats, also known as “pussies”. The catkins appear long before the leaves, and are one of the earliest signs of spring.
Pussy willow is a favourite flower for Chinese New Year. The fluffy white blossoms of the pussy willow resemble silk, and they soon give forth young shoots the colour of green jade. The Chinese enjoy such signs of growth, which represent the coming of prosperity. The stalks of pussy willow are frequently decorated with gold and red ornaments that signify prosperity and happiness.
The flowering shoots of pussy willow are also used both in Europe and America for spring religious decoration on Palm Sunday, as a replacement for palm branches, which do not grow that far north. Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox, Ruthenian, Polish, Bavarian and Austrian Roman Catholics, Finnish Lutherans and Orthodox and various other Eastern European peoples carry pussy willow branches on Palm Sunday instead of palm branches. This custom has continued to this day among Romanian Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Ruthenian Catholic, Ukrainian Catholic, Kashubian Catholic and Polish Catholic emigrees to North America. Sometimes, on Palm Sunday they will bless both palms and pussy willows in church. The branches will often be preserved throughout the year in the family's icon corner.
Volunteers working with the Flagstaff Ranger District brush crew were given an opportunity to work with some of the tools of the trade. Trail buiding experts Ron and Matt gave tips on removing branches, cutting down small trees, and working with the variety of saws used in hand-trimming and cutting.
The Coconino National Forest's Flagstaff Ranger District, Arizona Conservation Corps (AZCC), Recreation Equipment, Inc. (REI), and a fantastic group of volunteers met at Deer Hill Trail for a special National Public Lands Day trail project on September 30, 2017.
Deer Hill Trail is a 4.6 mile long trail running along the base of the eastern side of the San Francisco Peaks, devastated in the summer of 2010 by the Schultz Fire. The human-caused wildfire burned over 15,000 acres of forest in the area, and was followed by intense flash floods when monsoon storms arrived to dump heavy rainfall on the barren slopes. Deer Hill Trail, a favorite of equestrian riders who camp at the Little Elden Springs Horse Camp at the southern end of the trail, had been closed since the fire due to severe trail damage, hazardous conditions, and large fallen trees blocking the trail.
This final day of trail work was the culmination of over three years of effort by numerous volunteer organizations and sponsors, hundreds of local volunteers, and the Flagstaff Ranger District to clear and repair the trail to safe standards for equestrians, hikers, and mountain bikers. The many partner organizations who have helped coordinate trail repair efforts over the years are REI, Flagstaff Biking Organization, Seeds of Stewardship, Arizona Conservation Corps, and GORE.
Recreationists love this trail, the beautiful ponderosa pine forest it traverses, and its magnificent views of the San Francisco Peaks, Mount Elden, Sunset Crater, and surrounding area. Closed for over seven years, the trail was officially reopened immediately following this National Public Lands Day trail event. Flagstaff Ranger District trails coordinator Matt Engbring removed the "Trail Closed/Flood Damage" sign and presented it to the REI volunteer group leader Justin Ingles to commemorate the years of devotion and hard work to this project.
Photo taken September 30, 2017 by Deborah Lee Soltesz. Credit U.S. Forest Service Coconino National Forest.
Stagecoach London Limited Alexander Dennis TransBus Plaxton 34362 LV52HKO Which Is The Last Of This Batch Of Buses At Bromley Bus Garage The Rest Of This Batch Went To Catford Bus Garage When The Route 314 was Given Brand New Enviro 200'S 34362 Is Seen Here On Route 227 Seen In Division In Penge And At Clock House Station As TB 5 34362 Has Also Been Seen on Route 61 ,Route 246 And Route 314 34362 Is Also The Oldest Greatest Single Decker Bus In Operation At Bromley Bus Garage (TB)
2e Kaate Mulders - Korte Cross
For best view: Press L
© Jef Kusters - credit MUST be given at all times
Given to members of a chorus at Hammar Glassworks. Roland Karlsson was the choir leader. Only 16 bottles were made.
Whyalla. Population 21,200.
Hummock Hill was sighted and named by Matthew Flinders in 1802 and soon after given French names by Captain Baudin. The first pastoral runs were taken out here in the 1850s as it had the Middle Back ranges, coastal access and Port Augusta not too far distant. One of the early pastoralists was James Patterson who took out the Iron Knob leasehold of over 160 square miles in 1854 near Iron Knob. To the north and west of his leasehold was that of James Loudon who took out Caroona station in 1862. Other leaseholds in the region of Whyalla were Point Lowly, Pandurra and Middleback. In the early 1870s Loudon sold Caroona to Sir Samuel Davenport and Sir John Morphett and it was Davenport, with his interest in minerals and mining, who sent the first ore samples to England in 1878 for analysis. This resulted in a mining lease taken out in 1880 by Ernest Siekman. The lease lapsed as he did not pay the annual rental. BHP took out nine mining leases in 1896 and the future of iron Knob and the future Whyalla began. BHP began taking iron ore for smelting to Port Augusta in 1899 which took bullock drays two days. The Hundred of Randell which covered this area was declared in 1895 as interest in the ore deposits increased.
In 1896 the government released land fronting Spencers Gulf for lease. One of the first to take up land where Whyalla stands was Humphrey Cowled who leased 30,000 acres on the gulf which he called Nonowie. The town of Hummock Hill emerged in 1900 after BHP developed their ore leases. The ore was used for flux in the Port Pirie smelter and it was shipped across Spencers Gulf. Most of the early settler families at Hummock Hill also came by ship across the gulf from Port Pirie. These families remained the backbone of the Whyalla population until World War Two. In 1900 BHP proposed to the government of SA to enact a bill that would allow them to build a tramway from Iron Knob to Hummock Hill on the coast with a permanent leasehold of the route. Port Augusta Council opposed this as they wanted the tramway built to Port Augusta and its already existing port. There was some logic in this opposition as a tramway to Port Augusta would be 46 miles in length whereas the tramway to Hummock Hill was about 35 miles, not a significantly shorter distance. The government enacted legislation for a BHP tramway to Hummock Hill in 1901 and BHP had developed a small jetty and port by 1903. At the same time the town of Hummock Hill emerged partly on BHP leasehold land. By 1905 the settlement had its first school, a general store and a tin Institute in which the school was conducted. Church services were also held in the hall. In 1903 the community was pleased when Mr Delprat, the general manager of the Broken Hill mine visited Hummock Hill and Iron Knob. The first hotel opened in 1905 on the site that later became the Whyalla Hotel 20 or so years later. The beer was shipped to the hotel from Port Pirie. The isolation of Hummock Hill was reduced when a telephone service began in 1911. Gradually stone houses replaced early tin and timber houses and the town took shape. The government officially surveyed and changed the name of the town to Whyalla in 1914 which means “sound of the sea” in a local Aboriginal language. The new solid Institute was opened in 1920 by Mr Delprat the BHP manager in Broken Hill. At the time Whyalla had a population of around 1,000 people with sporting clubs, RSL, banks, and commercial enterprises. Water was shipped from Port Pirie when necessary. BHP established a dairy to provide milk for the residents and a small desalination plant was built to provide additional fresh water. The impressive red ironstone buildings, often in the Art Deco style were erected in the late 1930s or early 1940s as the city’s industrial base expanded to steel making and ship building. The iron stone Whyalla Hotel opened in 1933. It was enlarged in 1940. This was a company town run by BHP with the exception of the Post Office, the School and the Police Station run by the government and the commercial enterprises of the town. BHP was a paternalistic employer and during the Depression of the 1930s as work slowed BHP found other jobs for married male employees such as re grading the tramway from Iron Knob etc.
During World War One Mr Delprat had suggested a steel furnace and steel works in Whyalla but this did not happen. The steel industry in Australia began with a small furnace and plant at Lithgow in the Blue Mountains in 1901. This plant was superseded by the bigger steel works in Newcastle in 1915 and Whyalla jetty was then expanded to ship iron ore direct to Newcastle. The third steel plant in Australia was established at Port Kembla (Wollongong) in 1928 and Iron Knob ore was also shipped there. With the rise of Hitler and Third Reich in Europe in 1933 and the ominous threat of world war Australia began to be concerned about its future as it was clear we were no longer isolated from the rest of the world. In 1937 the SA government passed legislation for the Morgan to Whyalla Murray River water pipeline to ensure water reliability for Whyalla and this was an essential for the first production of steel by BHP. The 1937 act set aside 1,000 acres for BHP to establish the plant and adjacent harbour. Progress was not hasty and the furnace and harbour began in 1939. After the outbreak of World War Two work progressed quickly. The first steel was produced in 1941 and called pig iron. Port Kembla also produced pig iron or steel and its export to Japan in 1938 led to the Attorney General Robert Menzies being called Pig Iron Bob by striking wharf unionists. The union slogan at the time was “No scrap for the Jap.” At that time Japan was fighting the Sino-Japanese War and needed more steel. The industrial dispute at Port Kembla ended in January 1939 when the waterside workers loaded the ships at Port Kembla. In 1940 the Royal Australia Navy asked BHP if they could build ships in Whyalla and this became urgent with the war and work began in 1940 on the hulls of several ships before the steel blast furnace was completed. The town grew rapidly with an influx of new workers and the construction of the hospital, an abattoirs, the Spencer Hotel, and the establishment of a Whyalla newspaper in 1941/42. During the War the population rose from 1,350 in 1937 to 7,900 in 1944. During most of World War Two BHP employed around 2,500 men and women with a peak of 2,750 employees in 1941. During the War BHP also established an ammunitions annex to produce shells for war arms. In a couple of years Whyalla produced 748,000 shell cases. The Combined Unions Council negotiated with BHP for workers’ wages and conditions. The newly employed women to offset the war time labour shortage were employed in the war effort in the shell annex, the tool room and in ship building. The women received 90% of the men’s wages for the same job.
The first ship was launched in 1941 and named the HMAS Whyalla (650 tonnes) which is now part of the Information Centre and Maritime Museum. It was one of four corvettes made in Whyalla for the Royal Australia Navy and they mainly worked as minesweepers and surveillance. During and after World War Two Whyalla built 36 ships for the Australian Navy, four for Indian navy and 20 for the British Admiralty. After the War most of the ships built in Whyalla shipyards were mainly cargo and iron ore carriers. A total of 63 ships, one oil rig and two barges were built in Whyalla by 1978 when shipbuilding was closed down. Most of the corvettes manufactured in Whyalla had South Australian town names- Whyalla, Gawler and Pirie. Whyalla also built the Kalgoorlie corvette for the Royal Navy. Other SA named corvettes built interstate were the Kapunda, the Glenelg and the Wallaroo. After the war BHP built commercial ships and eventually in 1958 they decided to build an integrated steel works in Whyalla (completed 1965) to process the ore into steel. Railway lines and ships were among the steel products produced.
As a shipbuilding site and producer of ammunition shells Whyalla needed special consideration and defence during World War Two. Defence installations were erected on Hummock Hill during the Second World War (1942) as Whyalla was a potential Japanese bombing target. Four anti-aircraft guns were on the ready at Hummock Hill. Other defence installations were built south of Cowell at Port Gibbon to forewarn of a Japanese attack. Complacency about war threats was overturned when German shipping mines were discovered in Spencers Gulf in 1940 designed to impede BHP ore carriers to Newcastle and Wollongong. Across the Gulf Port Pirie produced half of Britain’s lead so it too needed special protection. A survey recommended special defences for both Iron Triangle cities but only Whyalla got special protection. As the threat of Japan increased anti-aircraft guns were sent to Hummock Hill and arrived on 4 February 1942. Ten days later (14 th February) Singapore fell to the Japanese and on 19th February 1942 Darwin was bombed and partially destroyed by the Japanese. The hummock Hill anti-aircraft guns were operational by 23rd March. One Royal Navy ship guarded the entrance to Whyalla for most of the War until 1944. Search lights were installed at Hummock Hill late in 1942. But no threat emerged during the War. Air raid practices were conducted by BHP from time to time warning people to take cover when the BHP siren sounded. Despite the practices and preparations no raid occurred but the need for precaution was not unfounded. Three of BHP’s merchant ships were sunk off the coast of NSW on their way to or from Whyalla with a total loss of 85 lives. By early 1944 Australia’s home defences were known to be out of danger but gunners at Whyalla had been withdrawn in August 1943 and their tasks taken over by civilian defence.
By 1943 Whyalla had a population of 5,000 people and people began to query the lack of local government as the city was run by BHP. Local government was instituted in 1944 with three elected and three BHP appointed councillors. 1944 was also the year the Morgan to Whyalla water pipeline was completed. In 1960 Whyalla became a city as it had around 14,000 residents. The Commission system of local government was ended in 1970 when locals could finally elect all councillors to their city. By 1976 Whyalla had 33,000 residents, the largest city outside of Adelaide but with the loss of shipbuilding in 1978 the city’s population declined to about 20,000. BHP sold their Whyalla works to OneSteel in 2000 which changed its name to Arrium. Sanjeev Gupta bought the insolvent Arrium steelworks in 2017 and has revitalised it albeit with recent difficulties. The Whyalla steel works are critical to the whole of Australia as steel is only made at Whyalla and Port Kembla. Whyalla is the only plant to make steel rail for all sorts of uses not just railways. In late 2024 Whyalla steel works employed 4,800 people directly and countless more indirectly in other firms. (Port Kembla employs around 3,000 people.) Perhaps the future of the city will be revitalised even more if the hydrogen hub proceeds. Whether that happens or not billions of dollars of investment are needed to move Whyalla steel works away from coal fired furnaces to gas or hydrogen fired furnaces. On the way to Hummock Hill lookout in Gay St. we pass the Whyalla Institute with a classical façade with the date as 1920. This was also the site of the first timber Institute opened in February 1905. The first Whyalla School opened in this Institute in April 1905.The current port of Whyalla exports iron ore and steel mainly. Port Bonython 16 kms north of Whyalla mainly exports crude oil and liquid gas from South Australia’s Cooper basin.
More relevant today than ever. Given the day after Martin Luther King's assassination. I don't give us much of a chance to be honest, but who knows.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhANTymDIYk
Robert F. Kennedy
Cleveland City Club
April 5, 1968 (Day After MLK Assassination)
This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity to speak briefly to you about this mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.
It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on.
Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by his assassin's bullet.
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of the people.
Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.
"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, “there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."
Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire weapons and ammunition they desire.
Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach nonviolence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.
Some looks for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear; violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleaning of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.
This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies - to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered.
We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear - only a common desire to retreat from each other - only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this there are no final answers.
Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is now what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of human purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.
We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of all. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.
Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanish it with a program, nor with a resolution.
But we can perhaps remember - even if only for a time - that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short movement of life, that they seek - as we do - nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.
Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again.
St George, Stowlangtoft, Suffolk
Given that our parish churches almost without exception underwent restorations in the 19th Century, it should be obvious that when we enter a medieval church, we are encountering a Victorian vision of the medieval. Even when the actual furnishings and fittings are medieval, the whole piece is still a Victorian conception.
Inevitably, the question arises of what was there before the restoration and what wasn't. The obvious answer is that we must assume that nothing is as it first appears.
A prime example of a church that assumes a continuity that may not actually be the truth is here in the flat fields between Woolpit and Ixworth. This part of Suffolk can be rather bleak in winter, but in summer the churchyard here is verdant and golden, as beautiful a place as any in the county. The church is large, and yet unusually narrow. It sits on a mound that has been cut down on one side by the road. In the churchyard you'll find the well-known memorial to the art critic Peter Fuller and his unborn son, killed in a car crash in 1990.
In the churchyard wall there is what appears to be broken medieval window tracery, which is worth noticing, for hereby hangs a tale.
St George is one of the great Suffolk churches. Although it may externally appear a little severe, and is by no means as grand as Blythburgh, Long Melford and the rest, it is a treasure house of the medieval inside. Unusually for a church of its date, it was all rebuilt in one go, in the late 14th century, and the perpendicular windows are not yet full of the 'walls of glass' confidence that the subsequent century would see. The tracery appears to have been repaired, and possibly even renewed, which may explain the tracery in the churchyard wall. However, it doesn't take much to see that the tracery in the wall is not perpendicular at all, but decorated. So it may be that the broken tracery is from the original church that the late 14th century church replaced. But the wall itself isn't medieval, so where had it been all those years? Is it possible that the current window tracery is not medieval at all?
Stowlangtoft church featured in Simon Jenkins' book England's Thousand Best Churches, which sends plenty of visitors to its locked door, and may help stave off the inevitable for a while, for there is no real congregation here any more and the church is moribund. Regular services are held across the fields at Pakenham, and St George is now only used on special occasions. The key is kept across the road, where the very nice lady told me in February 2018 that the church is now headed for redundancy. It seems likely that care of it will be conveyed into the hands of the Churches Conservation Trust.
You step in through the chancel door (the lock here is very awkward, but do persevere) and if you are anything like me you will head straight down to the west end where you will find the font. Likethe window tracery, it asks some questions. Unusually, it features a Saint on seven of the panels, Christ being on the westwards face. Mortlock dates it to the early 14th century, and the Saints it shows are familiar cults from that time: St Margaret, St Catherine, St Peter and St Paul, and less commonly St George. The cult of St George was at its height in the early years of the 14th century. Mortlock describes the font as mutilated, and it certainly isn't looking its best. But I think there is more going on here than meets the eye. Fonts were plastered over in Elizabethan times, and only relief that stood proud of the plaster was mutilated. These are all shallow reliefs, and I do not think they have been mutilated at all. To my eye at least, this stonework appears weathered. I wonder if this font was removed from the church, probably in the mid-17th century, and served an outdoor purpose until it was returned in the 19th century.
The story of this church in the 19th century is well-documented. In 1832, as part of his grand tour of Suffolk, David Davy visited, and was pleased to find that the church was at last undergoing repair. The chancel had been roofless, and the nave used for services. A new Rectory was being built. Who was the catalyst behind all this? His name was Samuel Rickards, and he was Rector here for almost the middle forty years of the 19th century. Roy Tricker notes that he was a good friend of John Henry Newman, the future Cardinal, and they often corresponded on the subject of the pre-Reformation ordering of English churches. It is interesting to think how, at this seminal moment, Rickards might have informed the thought of the Oxford Movement. Sadly, when Newman became a Catholic, Rickards broke off all correspondence with him.
During the course of the 1840s and 1850s, Rickards transformed Stowlangtoft church. He got the great Ipswich woodcarver Henry Ringham in to restore, replicate and complete the marvellous set of bench ends - Ringham did the same thing at Woolpit, a few miles away. Ringham's work is so good that it is sometimes hard for the inexperienced eye to detect it. However, as at Woolpit, Ringham only copied animals here, and the weirder stuff is all medieval, and probably dates from the rebuilding of the church. The glory of Stowlangtoft's bench ends is partly the sheer quantity - there are perhaps 60 carvings - but also that there are several unique subjects.
The carvings appear to be part of the same group as Woolpit and Tostock - you will recognise the unicorn, the chained bear, the bull playing a harp, the bird with a man's head, from similar carvings elsewhere. And then hopefully that little alarm bell in your heard should start to go "Hmmmm....." because some of the carvings here are clearly not from the same group. It is hard to believe that the mermaid and the owl, for example, are from the same workshop, or even from the same decade. The benches themselves are no clue, as it was common practice in the 19th century to replace medieval bench ends on modern benches, or on medieval benches, or even on modern benches made out of medieval timber (as happened at Blythburgh). Could it be that Samuel Rickards found some of these bench ends elsewhere? Could he have been the kind of person to do a thing like that?
Well, yes he could. As Roy Tricker recalls, the medieval roof at the tractarian Thomas Mozley's church at Cholderton in Wiltshire is East Anglian. Rickards acquired it after finding it in storage in Ipswich docks. It presumably came from one of the Ipswich churches. In the ferment of the great 19th century restoration of our English churches, there was loads of medieval junk lying around, much of it going begging. But was Samuel Rickards the kind of person to counterfeit his church's medieval inheritance?
Well, yes he probably was. The faux-medieval roundels in the windows of the nave are clearly not medieval at all, but were in fact the work of the young Lucy Rickards, daughter of Samuel Rickards himself. Some are clearly to the young girl's design, and Pevsner notes that others are copied from medieval manuscript illustrations in the British Museum, although the Holy Kinship and Presentation in the Temple roundels at least are very close copies of the Flemish roundels of the same subjects in Nowton church on the other side of Bury St Edmunds.
Truly medieval is the vast St Christopher wall-painting still discernible on the north wall. It was probably one of the last to be painted. The bench ends are medieval, of course, as is the fine rood-screen dado, albeit repainted. There is even some medieval figure glass in the upper tracery of some of the windows, including St Agnes holding a lamb and four Old Testament prophets. The laughable stone pulpit is Rickard's commission, and the work of William White. What can Rickards have been thinking of? But we step through into the chancel, and suddenly the whole thing moves up a gear. For here are some things that are truly remarkable.
In a county famous for its woodwork, the furnishings of Stowlangtoft's chancel are breathtaking, even awe-inspiring. Behind the rood screen dado is Suffolk's most complete set of return stalls. Most striking are the figures that form finials to the stall ends. They are participants in the Mass, including two Priests, two servers and two acolytes. The figure of the Priest at a prayer desk must be one of the best medieval images in Suffolk, and Mortlock thought the stalls the finest in England.
The benches that face eastwards are misericords, and beneath them are wonderful things: angels, lions and wodewoses, evangelistic symbols and crowned heads. A hawk captures a hare, a dragon sticks out its tongue. Between the seats are weird oriental faces.
Now, you know what I am going to ask next. How much of this is from this church originally? It all appears medieval work, and there is no reason to believe it might not have been moved elsewhere in the church when the chancel was open to the elements. What evidence have we got?
Firstly, we should notice that the only other Suffolk church with such a large number of medieval misericords of this quality is just a mile away, at Norton. I don't ask you to see this as significant, merely to notice it in passing. Secondly, I am no carpenter, but it does look to me as though two sets of furnishings have been cobbled together; the stalls that back on to the screen appear to have been integrated into the larger structure of stalls and desks that front them and the north and south walls.
However, if you look closely at the figures of the two Deacons, you will see that they are bearing shields of the Ashfield and Peche families. The Ashfield arms also appear on the rood screen, and the Ashfields were the major donors when the church was rebuilt in the 14th century. So on balance I am inclined to think that the greater part of the stall structure was in this church originally from when it was rebuilt. And the misericords? Well, I don't know. But I think they have to be considered as part of the same set as those at Norton. In which case they may have come from the same church, which may have been this one, but may not have been. Almost certainly, the stalls at Norton did not come from Norton church, and folklore has it that they were originally in the quire of Bury Abbey.
Other remarkable things in St George include FE Howard's beautiful war memorial in the former north doorway, and in the opposite corner of the nave Hugh Easton's unexpectedly gorgeous St George, which serves the same purpose. He's not an artist I usually admire, but it is as good as his work at Elveden. Back up in the chancel is a delightful painted pipe organ which was apparently exhibited at, and acquired from, the Great Exhibition of 1851.
But St George at Stowlangtoft is, of course, most famous for the Flemish carvings that flank the rather heavy altarpiece. They were given to the church by Henry Wilson of Stowlangtoft Hall, who allegedly found them in an Ixworth junk shop. They show images from the crucifixion story, but are not Stations of the Cross as some guides suggest. They date from the 1480s, and were almost certainly the altarpiece of a French or Flemish monastery that was sacked during the French Revolution. The carvings were once brightly painted, and piled up in a block rather than spread out in a line. The niches, and crowning arches above them, are 19th century.
One cold winter's night in January 1977, a gang of thieves broke into this locked church and stole them. Nothing more was seen or heard of them until 1982, when they were discovered on display in an Amsterdam art gallery. Their journey had been a convoluted one. Taken to Holland, they were used as security for a loan which was defaulted upon. The new owner was then burgled, and the carvings were fenced to an Amsterdam junk dealer. They were bought from his shop, and taken to the museum, which immediately identified them as 15th century carvings. They put them on display, and a Dutch woman who had read about the Stowlangtoft theft recognised them.
The parish instituted legal proceedings to get them back. An injunction was taken out to stop the new owner removing them from the museum. The parish lost the case, leaving them with a monstrous legal bill, but the story has a happy ending. A Dutch businessman negotiated their purchase from the owner, paid off the legal bills, and returned the carvings to Stowlangtoft. Apparently this was all at vast cost, but the businessman gave the gift in thanks for Britain's liberation of Holland from the Nazis. No, thank you, sir.
Today, the carvings are fixed firmly in place and alarmed, so they won't be going walkabout again. But a little part of me wonders if they really should be here at all. Sure, they are medieval, but they weren't here originally, and they weren't even in England originally. Wouldn't it be better if they were displayed somewhere safer, where people could pay to see them, and provide some income for the maintenance of the church building? And then, whisper it, when St George is taken on by the CCT they might even be able to leave it open.