firbeck

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Everything posted by firbeck

  1. What did I get for Xmas, ukulele, a posh one anall. As TV was so crap at Xmas I retired to the dining room and learnt all the chords, OK I'm a guitar player which helps, but the chords are different, new learning curve, love it.
  2. So where do you live Jan, how did you get involved on this Nottingham site if you have no connections with the city. As for the Alan Williams turret in Finchingfield it remains rotting away and unloved on the 'rescuers' business estate in the village. Quite frankly the parish council should have never allowed him to remove it despite his 'promises' of restoration, although used as a dumping place for the locals garden waste, it was intact and in it's original position, I even got the lift up seats to work. Now the base is rotting away in the corner of a field and the top is placed as some sort
  3. Hi Jane. If you're around Cambs are you aware of the reinforced main street through Cambridge. After Dunkirk we were reduced to more or less one small tank division positioned south of London. It was thought the invasion could take place on the north Norfolk coast and the plan was to move north up the A10 through Cambridge. To protect the historic buildings, a reinforced concrete raft was laid on the A10 right through Cambridge to absorb vibration from the tanks. A few years ago they were due to attempt to dig up the road outside Christ's College to put in a new sewer. I was called over to the
  4. Rog, Happy Xmas to you, long time since we met up. There's one of those arrestor devices at North Weald airfield which I believe is still in working order. About 20 years ago my son and I were fortunate enough to be invited to the practice day there prior to the Fighter Meet airshow. It was great, we had the VIP grandstand all to ourselves and of course as it was a non public event the aircraft were over the top of us. Two Dutch F16's arrived and after a scorching low level pass, one landed while the other circled. The next minute there was much activity around the arrestor gear which was has
  5. firbeck

    Jimmy Hill

    It was their centre half Curtis, he was supposed to be Coventry's ' hard man' and came off worse, he broke his leg, we could hear the crack from where we were standing. Jimmy was not impressed and had a right go at Wignall who I seem to recall wasn't even booked, I think the result was 3-3. I was only thinking the other day what had happened to Jimmy Hill now I know he's succumbed to the dreaded Alzheimer's poor man. RIP JH.
  6. I didn't always agree with him, but, let's face it, Arthur Scargill predicted this 40 odd years ago. Never mind, wer'e now going to start fracking in our national parks, is this the way forward then? Anyone been to the East Anglian coast recently, miles of wind turbines spoiling the view, built at great cost abroad and producing bugger all energy. More are planned affecting the fishing industry and the wildlife, walk along the beaches of Norfolk and find the dead guillemots and seals, killed by the chemicals they use to keep the turbine bases and oil rigs free of crustaceans.
  7. Meg Ryan, wierdo, she seems to have vanished at last.
  8. I can't say I thought Robert Shaw was so offensive, thought he did a good job as the renamed but clearly Sailor Malan in the BoB movie,.......... 'Watch out for the Hun in the Sun'. The actors who's films I can't watch are Gene Wilder and the dreadful Ben Stiller, Jim Carey can do my head in, but he has his moments, I love the Truman Show and not for the obvious reason either.
  9. Which version the original or the later one with Jeff Goldblum.
  10. Interesting stuff MI, thanks for that. I was always under the impression that the line was due for closure under Beeching, traffic was always sparse with no trains on Sundays or Bank Holidays. In the late 50's a railcar service to Sheffield was introduced via Wollaton, but to recall, they only ran every four hours or so. I very rarely travelled over the line, any journeys up north tended to be via Derby, the times always seemed to be more convenient. I recall going on a Class 5 hauled excursion to Belle Vue which travelled via Butterly and Ambergate, all my mates were sitting on the level cro
  11. 'Pearl Harbor' or how Ben Affleck won the war including the Battle of Britain. 11 US pilots took part in the BoB including the famous Billy Fiske, some of their stories are remarkable, it's always been a mystery to me why Hollywood have'nt made a film about them. '1941' the most embarrassing film Speilburg ever made. 'Monuments Men' George Clooney had clearly not read the book. All the later 'Star Wars' films, hopefully the new one is better.
  12. Don't forget the cricket!! We had agreed to meet up sometime, but, sadly, it never happened, we were never in the right place at the right time. I've just been going through my dad's albums again, there are quite a number of photo's taken at Barry Scrapyard, some interesting locos on there. Dad had a pal who lived in South Wales and used to go and stay over there, they even came over and stayed at my place in Finchingfield once. A puzzle to me is a picture of rusting 8F 48773, I always thought it had been taken straight into preservation from withdrawal in the NW at the end of steam in 1968.
  13. Rob was a great guy, we were on personal e-mail terms, didn't realise he was a pal of yours.
  14. Judging by those pictures the incident looked a bit nasty to me, the wagons look quite badly damaged and the junction looks wrecked, so what caused it. I recall an accident at Stanton Gate in the 60's, another coal train, wagons all over the place, some nearly ended up in the Erewash canal, I believe an 8F was involved in that one.The smashed wagons were lying about for a while after that one, four wheeled steel unfitted jobs, not them posh 'Merry Go Round' air braked thingies.
  15. Yes,I remember that one at Lenton, I stood on the Lane bridge and saw the piled up wreckage, it was horrific, didn't a guard get killed in that incident. It still doesn't answer my questions about the accident at Trowell, surely someone on here must know more about it.
  16. Can anybody tell me a bit more about what happened and how long the Wollaton line was closed for, I've been googling but can't find out a thing about it.
  17. I was sorting out the contents of a big old Victorian pine chest that sits in the living room and came across my late fathers photo albums. I knew that somewhere in there were photos he took of the coal train crash at Trowell, but I couldn't recall when it was, luckily he'd put the date on the photos. I don't know much about the incident, whether anyone was injured or who/what was to blame. All I remember was that the Trowell to Radford line was closed for a while and at one time was being considered for permanent closure, I recall going up to Nottingham and seeing the rusty state of the trac
  18. Was that when Andy Grey claimed what was essentially an own goal. Fortunately Braintree was out of the reach of the dreaded Camms, I caught the train instead which meant I got home in time for Match of the Day in order to suffer it all over again.
  19. I remember going to an open day and display at Shakespeare St Fire Station back in the 50's. In those days the fear of nuclear attack meant that dark green auxiliary fire engines were kept there. These were always kept on the right hand side of the line up and consisted of a land rover and trailer pump and the inimitable Bedford 'Green Goddess', can anybody recall this. At the open day a full demo of fire fighting skills was demonstrated including entering a smoke filled building when smoke bombs were lit that promptly blew back across the crowd. To this day I can still smell that smoke, it ha
  20. You've tapped into my Photobucket account, that's appalling, I'd never do that to anybody. I'm not impressed.
  21. I thought it was all McCartney's idea, didn't he prepare the tapes himself at his own studio at home.
  22. Yes it was. The spring operating the shutter on my Prinzflex 35mm had snapped and I cobbled together a system using an elastic band instead, it sort of worked. The film was Ilford colour slide 35mm, probably 100 ASA. I recall that when Alberta opened up to climb the gradient up to Wollaton, a hot cinder landed on my head and set my hair on fire, I was too busy trying to put out the flames otherwise I would have swung round and taken another pic.
  23. Sorry, I was very disappointed with James Taylor's last album, I found it so repetitive and pretty boring, October Road on the other hand I found very creative, original and self deprecating. Don't forget it was McCartney and Harrison that discovered James Taylor when they signed him up to Apple Records after finding him busking on the streets in London in 1968. I thought that the gulf between the creativity of Rubber Soul and the previous album 'Help' was immense, the process had already started when Revolver was released, so George was right,they could have come out as a double album. Would
  24. Not according to what I read, hardly owt was filmed at Scampton.
  25. So what's the source of the picture published by Methyr Imp on 18th Dec 2014 and the same one published by Fredjee on the previous page, 2/12/15.All my pics put on this posting were taken by myself or my brother, so who is actually responsible for taking this photo, or is it just blatant plagiriaism.