Saturday 23 July 2016
Thursday 21 July 2016
Poke it!
Now look! Work can be busy enough as it is without folks wandering in asking if we have bloody Pokemon creatures flying about. So what does the boss do? She and the rest wander about the garden finding the things and offers half price entry to anyone who finds one! Now we will be filled on Saturday (when I have to return) with folks pointing their mobiles at corners looking for beasties.
Thankfully today offered none of these but we had the usual granddad with child, other visitors and rather a lot of strange requests.
The problem is everyone thinks we will know everything and sadly we don't (even if I pretend I do) and as nobody with knowledge has written a book on this or that we canny supply one can we?
This was added to by a slow talking caller with a request he knew little about! In short a good day with lots of interest and I even took some cash!
It is sometimes quite funny when visitors arrive. We see all sorts and as you can expect many of them are characters of one sort or another. Next week with the kids on Holiday and our 'Star Wars day' complete with Darth Vader and Stromtroopers we might get a right weird collection coming in!
Anyone up for it?
The heat, much as we love it, has been interfering with the internet. I understand the copper wiring has not liked it and BT's old fashioned areas have suffered. Twitter was slow, other things did not connect and I am considering moving too Fibre if I can find the prices. This country cannot deal with heat, not excessive cold, nor too much rain (I note here they plan to build houses in an area that floods!) and any other weather pattern. Now the sun has gone and cloud covers us we complain again! Typical!
Wednesday 20 July 2016
Flowers, Football and Fullish Moon
The wee 'I sell anything' shop next door ought to have been doing a roaring trade with his flowers today. Blazing sun, record temperatures, and near naked sweltering peoples passing by all day. he may have been better selling cold drinks mind you.
Nothing I like better than blue sky and hot sun. However as a few weeks ago the thing appeared and I spent a mere 30 minutes burning myself I find my skin has not yet recovered properly. The sun is far hotter than I thought! These few days it has been even hotter and most of the time I have avoided it. Those lying about the park will have problems in days to come.
The main problem is we are not used to it. Therefore when the sun comes we jump into it and we burn. In hot societies they avoid the heat of the day and work in the cool times. This nation is not bright enough for that.
It is however becoming nearer the norm tomorrow and rain and hail have fallen not far north of here and of course Scotland lies under a cloud again.
What is it about clouds that fascinates me? Later this afternoon these chaps arrived bubbling up high overhead. I think it is the sheer size of them, nothing but accumulated moisture I suppose but stretching for thousands of feet up into the air and on occasion reaching for hundreds or thousands of miles into the distance. I am not one who sees a cloud shaped like the Bank of England then rushes to send a picture to the 'Daily Mail,' in fact I would rather just enjoy watching them pass by. On my last flight from Edinburgh many years ago the cloud covered quite a large chunk of the voyage and at times there were strange shapes cutting through the cloud for no obvious reason. This in my little head was fascinating to watch.
I think I may need help....
I did sit for ten minutes when some cloud was above us earlier and wondered about those who choose to kick a ball while the majority slumber. I understood them of course but what went through my mind was the thought in their heads 'I could have made it!' All the while they of course know they could not but the dream does not die, not even at my age (27).
The recycled folks will be pleased with me on Friday when they collect the stuff however!
Tuesday 19 July 2016
Hurrah! Normality Returns (If that is the right word)
I knew it was a bug that had disturbed my Blogs equilibrium not my incompetence. All has returned to normal now so I can fill the page with blurred, out of focus, shots of rubbish that you all love, what?... oh!
On Saturday, for reasons that were not apparent, the Royal British Legion were in attendance in the town centre. Also on parade stood this excellent wee 'Ferret' vehicle once used by the British Army throughout the world. Owned by a local chap I was interested to see inside of the vehicle as I had seen them around for many years.
It appears it was not that popular with the gentlemen who once drove them however. A passing chap indicated he had driven them in Germany during 1970 on the autobahn at 70 miles and hour. The thing was these boys did not like turning and on corners, being top heavy had an inclination to topple over. However off road it could at slow speeds take a 45% angle easily!
Some would say this is typical of British Army approach to equipment.
This is indeed news in a nation used to cold, rain and hail.
Today, while I sat indoors at the museum, people outside suffered high temperatures, at the moment it is 28%C around 82% F. This is how it ought to be but as always we are complaining it is too hot, 70% is good enough for the UK population. Indeed one woman went past using a brolly as a parasol to keep the heat off, something not seen outside of aged photographs! No doubt it will not last but if it falls to that 70% level I will be happy enough.
Oh yes, the trains are delayed as the rails are too hot and speeds have been reduced.
This one is good. Turkey President Erdogan is attacked by a Coup. The people stand up and halt the coup although many die during it and a round up begins of those who have rebelled against the state.
However it now becomes obvious the President is rounding up all opponents of his reign, not from anger at rebellion, nor from Islamic zeal but just to keep himself in power. WikiLeaks, those nasty folks that steal secret documents from folks such as he, promises to release thousands and thousands of Turkish emails many implying this 'coup' was staged by the President himself and he was behind it all the time.
Gosh who would have thought...?
Of course having been an Ally of the west for a while he has some room to maneuver and those US bases watching Putin's Russia will prevent the US indicating dislike, or indeed much else at the moment.
Don't ya just love a dictator? Come back Ataturk, your country needs you!
He's getting closer,I wonder if he will reuse any of previous Presidential contenders speeches the way his wife did the other day? Maybe he can afford to hire scriptwriters or possibly just spout any old rubbish from the lectern as many of his audience will cheer him anyway.
Talking of problems here our new Prime Minister has finished establishing her right wing government taking time to lie in her teeth to Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and revealing the emptiness of her concern for the poorest. She had said she offered a vision, "A vision of a country that works not for the privileged few but works for every one of us," yet the new Secretary of State for the DWP, that's the benefits people, is a Minister who has little concern for the poor having voted against every benefit and voted for every cut to any and all benefits introduced by the previous Dickens character Ian Duncan Smith. Damian green, for it is he, now has the opportunity to ensure that those with debilitating illnesses, loss of limbs, sickness or death are declared 'fit for work' and their benefits removed from them post haste. We will see soon whether this woman really wishes to serve the entire nation, maybe we are again 'all in it together?'
We might need this...
Saturday 16 July 2016
The Saturday Post
I am irked!
That is not the picture I was going to post, that picture posted squashed.
This one will post squashed also but I was experimenting with all the knowledge of someone who knows absolutely nothing and have come up with no answer.
A search of the useless Blogger Help was useless.
Others had similar problems but nothing helped.
See, the pic is squashed, narrowed, elongated and yuk!
Good job it's an old one
The whole Blog is squashed, narrowed and slimmed down.
I have reset to template defaults yet this happens.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
I'm off in a huff.
Thursday 14 July 2016
Delight, Poetry, Painting and Theresa & Boris.
We drinkies from now until Tuesday for me. I am assured I will not be required at the museum till then, the painting is finished even if I now have a mound of things just lying about like Syrian migrants looking for a home, and I have nothing imposed upon me till Tuesday.
And tonight and tomorrow and Saturday there is football to be perused, proper football featuring Scots teams, none of that foreign rubbish (except for our foreign players that is).
How lovely!
When on my way to a BA (failed) via the Open University some years back we began with Victorians society (meaning of course English Victorians Bah!) and pre-raphaelite painting was among the items noted. One of the paintings that thrust upon me was this one of 'Mariana' by Millais who sounded like one of those immigrants Brexit was supposed to stop. This was based on a Shakespeare play, 'Measure for Measure' and a Tennyson Poem. In the play she was awaiting marriage but as her dowry sank in the sea he hopped it and found someone else. The poem follows:-
"Mariana in the Moated Grange"
(Shakespeare, Measure for Measure)
(Shakespeare, Measure for Measure)
With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the pear to the gable-wall.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
The cock sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her: without hope of change,
In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "The day is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,
And o'er it many, round and small,
The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said "I am aweary, aweary
I would that I were dead!"
And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and away,
In the white curtain, to and fro,
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low
And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creak'd;
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd,
Or from the crevice peer'd about.
Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,
The slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which to the wooing wind aloof
The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower.
Then said she, "I am very dreary,
He will not come," she said;
She wept, "I am aweary, aweary,
Oh God, that I were dead!
It must be said that by the time you get to the third stanza you wish she was dead also!
So we now have an idea of what May has for us. Out go the majority of the 'Posh Boys' and in come her mates and several women all sharing her vision and all looking for half a chance to take her place when she falls. There is no doubt the planting of Boris Johnson in the Foreign Office and one of the top four jobs in government was a shock. A shock best summed up by the US spokesman who managed to stifle his laugh and merely smile when asked about the appointment. Other leaders were less generous and made mocking comments while the personnel of the UK just placed their hands over their heads and wondered what Putin would make of it.
Dearie me, this is either a way to let him hang by his own rope or a mistake of gargantuan proportions. I await his meeting with Mrs Clinton who he likened to a 'sadistic nurse in a mental hospital' or Obama who he described as 'part Kenyan who harboured an ancestral dislike of Britain' or the Turkish president who, he stated in a poem, 'has sex with a goat.'
I should point out this man was born in New York and it is therefore possible he could become President of the United States!
So we now know the right wing leaning cabinet, Hunt remains the Health secretary as no-one else wills to take it, and we await the new 'caring' Tory party with delight.
Hmmm...
Tuesday 12 July 2016
Monday 11 July 2016
Tidy Workplace
Today, while the world turned unhindered by my presence, I moved the desk, which does not come apart, painted, hoovered and painted and hoovered and fought with the furniture to place it in a better position. How can such a small job take all day? When I think of 'The Venomous Bead's' new building and all the work required, with or without doors, I envy them the energy and talent that has gone into it. Moving in with the help of the men at full speed I envy not however. How could they create a new building so quick and I struggle to paint mine?
Of course the things I found behind the desk are interesting. No idea what some of them are but I am sure they will plug into some device unused since yon time. However it is wonderful to see clean walls, torn paper right enough but clean walls and a desk now better organised. Next stop bookcase corner, moving the books, moving the bookcases, painting, returning things in better order. That should take a week!
Theresa May
This is the woman who will become the new Prime Minister as of Wednesday evening. Who is she, what will she do?
She claimed years ago that the Tory Party must get rid of the 'Nasty party' image. Since then we have had years of Eton toffs running the country, more suffering for those on benefits, a rise in the number of Foodbanks from 66 to over a thousand, and a growing divide between rich toffs and the rest. She claims today she wishes to end this divide.
Now she is a Tory, and worse a woman! This never brings good things to the land. However I am of a mind that she does indeed wish to change the 'Nasty party' into a more open one, and as a woman she, unlike Thatcher, is actually female! This will bring a new view of the Tory boys to us all.
Stubborn and pig headed - she is a woman - she will push her ideas through. We wait and see what her new cabinet will look like, that should start appearing on Thursday or Friday, and this will give a hint to the direction she will take regarding her promises.
We can do nothing but hope she will remove the stain of the past six years. We can only hope something positive for most will arise. We can only hope she is not the serf of Mr Murdoch!
Theresa May has always been a private person not keen on PR or too much public attention. This role will change that but I suspect she is ready, she has been planning to reach for it for some time and now she is here we will see what she is made off.
Sunday 10 July 2016
Sunday Thoughts
Yesterdays early start was indeed a good idea.
I had the day planned, well after I returned I planned it, I would visit the expensive shop for the required stuff, consider painting this bit round the desk but knowing I had already decided to leave that till Monday, and sleep all afternoon.
Naturally this did not happen.
My aching knees took me to the overpriced shop and indeed back again.
I pushed aside the paint brushes, stuffed my face and considered my pillows.
The museum called.
No one had come in and the lass was on her own.
So scruffily & unshaven I toddled down there for an afternoons running around, and it got quite busy after I arrived. I considered sleeping at the desk but was unable as people kept coming in and speaking loudly. Tsk!
When my now tired and aching knees got me back home and up the stairs I struggled to feed myself a morsel and later toddled off to bed.
I couldn't sleep.
I was too tired!!!
This is the weather vane that sits astride the steeple in St Michael's church. I often noted it way above me and still don't know if it moves or not but thought I ought to capture it for histories (History's?) sake.
I suspect the bird (chicken?) was added during the restoration work in the 19 century. Much was done then and a lot of controversy abounded. One woman, who's father had been vicar at one time, fell out with the then vicar over changes, possibly within the building or the grounds. Being a woman she did not leave money to the church as was usual for such folks, no her quite large estate (she had a large house, servants and acres of grounds which are now a park) was left to build another church rather than develop St Michael's. Her church was built after she died, large enough for 300 people but with space and buttresses sufficient to enlarge the church to 600 as and when. That has not happened. The church, now a High Church, or Anglo Catholic if you prefer, has sold the large 7 bedroom vicarage provided and where the new man sleeps is unknown, the park possibly.
Her church has a few members and still operates but St Michael's remains the main one for the town. St Peters does not have a spire or wee hen sitting above it.
Quite what drives some men to sitting at the top of church spires hundreds of feet above the ground to fix these things is beyond me. My skin creeps at the thought and vertigo becomes my name.
I'm sick of all this tennis on TV! Bring on the football!
Saturday 9 July 2016
Early Start
This is the world at shortly after five in the morning. OK I tweaked the picture a wee bit by pressing one of the many buttons on this camera but it is a decent image in the end. How lovely to be out there before the dog walkers. How nice to see dozens of rabbits running as I approach, how hard is it cycling up a slope before breakfast?
The council have done an excellent job of improving this area, money well spent and much used by the locals. The locals have fought of an attempt to turn part of this area into allotments for desperate gardeners and if memory serves well they also stopped a developer enriching himself near here. Well done to them, the council would not spend this money then sell it soon afterwards. The designated housing blocks near here are far away from the town itself, other peoples worry now.
I found these mill stones embedded by the council next to a hump in the ground. There must have been some sort of mill here but this is the first I knew about it. Oh the fun and excitement here never ends!
This treehenge must have stood here for thousands of years, well at least since last year when the council workers knocked it up out of left over fallen trees! The things you find round the corner!
I'm now off to the museum, once again no-one has turned up. Volunteers need shooting!
Friday 8 July 2016
Watching Paint Dry
So far I have managed to paint half a room.
The painting is quite straightforward. I take the paint, apply it to the roller and spread it over the wall, the ceiling, the floor, the furniture and myself. This in spite of acres of plastic sheeting, spending half the day just shifting things into spaces that don't exist and being as careful as I always happen to be. had it not been for the window I would paint naked as it would be easier to clean afterwards. This suggestion has not met with support from colleagues who muttered "Cap'n Ahab, thar she bows!" In a rather unkind manner.
This morning, intending to continue on this side, I replaced the items from the other back where they belong. This was going well until I decided to change things and naturally it has all fallen apart. The exercise of moving things this way and that might be good for me but it is a pain just the same.
As I spent all day at the museum yesterday (95 children from that school!) I was not inclined to do anything that evening. I still wasn't this morning. However I managed to get something done except for the vast amount of stuff all over the floor placed in such a manner to ensure I fall over it constantly.
Much of the time has been spent considering better bookcases (of the cheap variety) that would be more appropriate for that corner. Also deciding whether to move everything around and as always realising there is only one place they can all fit. That and scraping white dots from almost anything to hand fills the day.
The Conservative Party leadership election continues apace, a slow pace that is. The rigged Tory only election has been easy to read, with all decent characters, that is able men, ruled out, only inept half wit men were able to stand, they are left with a choice between two women who have all the ideology of Margaret Thatcher but without the intellect. This is so Theresa May, seen in this rigged picture, will be able to continue destroying the nation as ably as Cameron and Osborne had been doing up till now.
May keeps herself to herself, has until now few friends in government, a husband who is a director of Group 4, a company who have failed and failed again spectacularly yet for some reason keep getting government contracts to run prisons, escort prisoners, run security at events and the like. All fail, all cost vast sums and all contracts are renewed at great cost to the famous taxpayer.
As Home Secretary May has cut the numbers of police, prison warders, and wishes to do more of this. She hates the NHS and anything socialist, like care for others, and will undoubtedly be created Prime Minister in a few weeks time.
Her opponent whatsername is apparently a Christina and as such has been pilloried by the perverts in the media as you'd expect. Few have bothered much about her dubious CV, her lack of ability and experience and none have mentioned she is only there to allow Theresa May to win.
The nation trembles.
Wednesday 6 July 2016
50 years No Change
The elite who dominate television today are much more careful of the effects programmes can have than they were in the past. Or possibly it is that in the past TV producers were really trying to prove the power of TV and also wished to change society for the better, today TV people are the elite and wish to keep it that way. Therefore the screen is dominated by pap! Soap Operas dominate, drama is mere soap opera with guns and explosions and the day is filled with mind numbing emptiness.
Anything that shakes society is not allowed, any programme that investigates the powerful is hindered all the way, even the BBC news broadcasts are strictly limited by government influence these days, how bad is that?
During 1966, when I was a mere 15 years old and therefore open to radical thought, a programme appeared on screen during a series called 'The Wednesday Play.' Today this would be middle class angst at best or soap opera pap at worst but in 1966 these plays tackled social issues in a manner never seen before. Radical, outspoken and bringing the reality of life into the home for many thereby disturbing the nations settled existence.
One such programme was 'Cathy Come Home,' a play concerning the break up of the happy life of a young couple left to defend themselves against an uncaring state.
The story is simple enough, young and free they marry, get a house, get a job and begin a family. All goes well until illness means he loses his job, bailiffs throw them out of their house, they end up squatting in ruined homes, he runs off and eventually the kids are taken away from her.
Watching this in my happy Edinburgh home I was seriously touched by the image in front of me in the way only a 15 year old can be. The nation was touched also. How could such things be in our state? Questions were asked in parliament, debate raged in the media, and in the end nothing changed.
In the early 60's some were working to change the situation regarding housing in the UK one of them a Church of Scotland minister called Bruce Kenrick. This man worked in Notting Hill now the paradise of £1 million pound one bed flats but then a hell on earth of bed sits and crooked landlords. On top of this there were racial tensions as the locals objected to black and Irish immigrants moving into the area, many flats for rent had signs, 'No Blacks & No Irish.' Riots occurred in Notting Hill during 1958 in which local 'Teddy Boys' attacked those they disliked. All lived in squalid poor accommodation and the lack of decent housing was one cause of the problems.
Bruce Kendrick began the Notting Hill Housing Trust with no money whatsoever and this has since grown to manage some 28,000 properties. I spent a year working there moving people into new home back in the early 70's before you were born.
A few weeks after 'Cathy Come Home' was screened Bruce brought into being the housing charity 'Shelter' which has become established throughout the land campaigning for better housing for all. It is noticeable that since Thatcher their work has been harder still!
The quality of the production, using radical techniques unknown at the time to TV audiences heightened the power of 'Cathy Come Home.' It hit hard and has often been seen as the best TV programme ever offered. Maybe this is indeed the case, the effect has never left me and was one reason for my joining the charity work in Notting Hill in 1971. However the programme made little difference, governments then, Conservative and Labour, were concerned with keeping their jobs rather than running after TV programmes and public outcries. Fuss and bother has never moved an MP to radical action and it did nothing in 1966 and does nothing today under an ever more elite governing class than what existed in the 60's.
I just remembered how things were after the war, then there was an urgent need for housing and various governments wondered what to do. The Conservatives led by Churchill (a Liberal by nature) instructed Harold MacMillan to build 3 million in three years. This he did in less time! These council homes were on the whole decent enough and if the people were good the area was good. The people decide if it is decent not politicians. Until Thatcher all was well but the greedy money loving uncaring brute allowed these to be bought by the residents cheaply, these decent homes were soon sold for a fat profit (by Labour 'socialists' as well as Tories) and now we have a housing problem. I wonder why? New houses today will only be built by developers for fat profit not for the people.
Only strong political leadership can change a nation, we appear to have had little in the past and certainly have none whatsoever today.
Tuesday 5 July 2016
Normal Day
Back to normal today.
Busy morning tending to people who come to the museum to borrow things for other museums or discuss items from the recent deceased they will to donate, or a gas man wondering if he has to dig up the mains into the building.
All the usual stuff.
Oh and one young Star Wars Jedi came to see the exhibition and left happy to have stood near Darth Vader and some strange looking creatures I know nothing about. I can recognise Superman and Batman, Spiderman and Darth Vader but some of these things are beyond me and my will to ask about.
Still it brings people in, brings in enough to pay for the exhibition (privately owned exhibits, owned by a Mr Luke Skywalker!) and during the summer hols will entertain the kids, the weirdos and no doubt we will enjoy it also.
The eyes on these creatures is quite something but my wee camera does not capture it properly.
Just wandering amongst them made me wonder about the people who think up the variety of creatures shown here. Someone has to sit down and design them, where do they get their ideas from? I know the models used in the film, the huge space ships, the flying things and the lights were all made somewhere in the UK, and when put into a film look brilliant.
Not too sure about this creature, nor the lighting they have used on him!
What sort of superhero canny fly anyway?
Monday 4 July 2016
My Joy Continues
Returning home yesterday morning from St Paul's where I had been persuaded to add my name to the church booklet (does this mean I'm an Anglican heretic?) I discovered the place swarming with these bees. The kitchen was full of the brutes and having cleared them out I spent the rest of the day forcing more, in one's and two's, out of other windows.
Where did they come from?
I have a horrid idea that a Queen has found a home in the side of the house and we will have this lot all summer buzzing around the kitchen window, hovering across my delicacies and being annoyed by my swiping them with a rolled up newspaper.
Oh joy!
How old is this oak tree? This one has sat here near a p-lace called 'Hanging Hill' for many a day.
i wonder if it is 300 years old or thereabouts? They do last a long time.
Whether 'Hanging Hill' was used for hangings has not yet been proved but the name comes from somewhere. Possibly a corruption of an old English word, possibly where they hanged miscreants. Rough justice in these parts in days gone by. There again the justice was served by the local nobles and not near this place, and hangings took place shortly after sentence unless you were an important bod.
So who planted the trees down by the river? Did they occur naturally or was there a plan? I suppose we will never know. Today this is a pleasant but muddy wander along the unseen river at this point. That appears later when a wooden path has been constructed.
The far banks were until recently the grounds of a convent of some sort. Here the nuns and their visitors could relax and contemplate while pushing one another into the river for fun. Next time I take the bike out I will trundle down the councils newly laid path that runs around this area and see if I can find anything interesting.
Treasure chests, dead bodies, plastic bottles and empty beer cans possibly.
The rain clouds, complete with a tiny airplane, threatened me all the time I wandered along. Pah!
Now I have to spend the morning furniture shifting, wall painting (which will go on for ever at my rate) and go to the museum for an afternoons volunteer get together. When, ask I, will I get my siesta?
Saturday 2 July 2016
O.A.P.
I couldn't take it any more.
The red eyes this morning told a story.
Breakfast was poor.
Weather was windy.
The item I bought early on did not fit.
The trip I planned fell through.
I reviewed my life.
The years of stupid actions.
The mistakes.
The failings.
The time I stood among Hibernian fans instead of the Heart of Midlothian fans and cheered a goal.
The failings with women, "psst missus, fancy coming up and ironing my shirts?"
Failure in the hospital, "You cut off what when shaving the man?"
The failure at work, "I disagree boss..."
The failure at writing begging letters and end up sending them money.
I sat in the cupboard and downed cyanide tablets but they were out of date.
I went to drink turpentine but there was non.
The razor blades don't work.
There was nothing for it but the river.
So attached to an aged mill stone I jumped in, you can just make out the ripples.
I am 65 today.
Friday 1 July 2016
2nd Battalion Essex Regiment, Somme 1st July 16
The Somme battle was a result of war co-operation between the allies Britain, France and Russia for the offensive's in 1916. While Britain and France 'pushed' from the west Russia was to launch an attack in the east on the Austro-Hungarian forces.
The Germans however got in first by attacking at Verdun in such a manner as to 'Bleed France white.'
Such was the weight of the battle that the French began to drift from the Somme attack and left this to General Haig to command. Haig did not wish to fight at the Somme but the London government were in awe of France and insisted that he follow their lead as they had done the year before when forcing the then Commander in Chief Sir John French to fight at Loos. That was a disaster and the fighting there continued until 1918.
A huge logistical operation was undertaken and a line sixteen miles long became the battle line. Over 1500 guns were to spend an entire week firing at the German line in an attempt to break the enemy wire and damage their trench system. Shortly before the attack mines spread along the lone were to be exploded, damaging the trench system and the shock allowing the allies to penetrate the enemy line.
The majority of battalions participating in this battle were
the men who volunteered willingly in 1914. Over two and a half million men volunteered between August
1914 and December 31st 1915. Some had been in France since Spring 1915 and seen action of some sort, others arrived on the day of battle and few of these had fired a shot in practice let alone in anger.
On 1st July 1916 the mines went off, the barrage lifted to the second line and over 100,000 men left their trench and advanced on the enemy.
Only then were the failures to be revealed.
The enemy wire in many places was uncut, trenches often undamaged and the early firing of the Hawthorn Ridge mine ensued the Germans were ready and waiting when the attack came. Many of the million and a half shells had failed to explode or went off early. The shock element was limited and with both machine gun and artillery, and artillery which had been 'hidden' by the Germans, opening fire the attackers came under a hail of fire and advance bent over as though walking through heavy rain. In some places the front line and further was reached but in many the British fell within yards of their own trench.
Two men from this region fell that day.
Robert Leslie Ratcliff a 19 year old Bocking man was one. Born Bocking in 1897 a resident of Panfield Lane Robert enlisted in the 2nd Battalion of the Essex Regiment. It is most likely he did so with friends from
the area at the time. Also serving in the 2nd Battalion was 19 year old George
Leonard Smoothy from Chapel Hill. George came from a family of ten children, not
uncommon for the time. George had enlisted in the 12th Battalion of the Essex Regiment, a 'Kitchener battalion comprising local volunteers and been rejected because of faulty vision. However with a brother a 'regular' in the 2nd Battalion he turns up there in time for this battle. His brother fought through many major battles surviving the war yet died from appendicitis in 1919.
The battalion advanced and came under heavy machine gun and
artillery fire the moment they left their trench. Firing from the residue of the towns of Serre and
Beaumont Hamel on either flank hindered the advance however some parties
advanced 2000 yards into the enemy line reaching to Pendant Copse until enemy bombers forced a return to the trench system known as the
'Quadrilateral.' Here a
stand was made until relieved during the night.
Somewhere during the battle Robert and George fell, their bodies were never recovered and their names are engraved on the Theipval Memorial along with almost 72,000 others from the Somme conflict.
Battalion Casualties were 22 officers and 400 other ranks.
Total casualties that day were around 19,000 British dead and another 40,000 wounded. By the end of the battle, or series of 'battles' there were almost 400,000 British and similar German casualties. However in context of the time the 'Brusilov Offensive' where the Russian forces attacked across what is now Ukraine against the Austro-Hungarians some 1,350,000 were casualties.
By the end of the war Britian lost less men that France, Germany or Russia and their Generals were not hounded as some of the British Generals were by politicians, like Prime Minister LLoyd George trying to avoid responsibility for the deaths.
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