firbeck
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Posts posted by firbeck
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Thanks for your kind words everyone. She perked up a bit at lunchtime, but the effort has taken it's toll and she's semi-comatose now.
I have the spot, under the plum tree by the pond wrapped in her favourite blanket, and I intend to plant some snowdrops, she loved the snow last month.
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I've been sniffing about trying to take my mind off my poor doggy.
The loco in the picture looks like a Robinson GCR J11 0-6-0, not the official pit shunter, bringing in a train from the Queens Road goods yard, I believe that there was an LMS connection from the Midland line that also served the Ordnance Depot.
I had a thought that the lines around the power station were electrified, I seem to remember seeing the overhead wires, there is a reference to this on the Internet, but not a lot.
According to my findings the colliery had on it's books an ex-North London Railway 4-4-0T, an Andrew Barclay 0-6-0 saddle tank in 1900 and this:-
A Vulcan Foundry 0-4-0ST built in 1895.
I also found this picture which shows something sitting outside the engine shed which is visible just below the main mine buildings, tucked next to the coal conveyor:-
I also found some track plans showing the connection from the GCR as shown on the photo:-
This map is only available in bits, but this is where the photo was taken, at the old toll bridge, sorry, it won't come out any bigger than that.
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Trams didn't need turntables, they just turned the poles round and pulled the seat backs over to face the other way, it may well have been for the trolleybuses.
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I'm writing this now, with difficulty, because I won't be in a fit state to do it later.
6 years ago we rescued our springer Meg from being put down, the owners were emigrating and couldn't be ars@d to sign the documents and take her with them, we also gathered that she had a horrible life with them and was cooped up in a small flat all day.
She's had a lovely life since, running around the countryside with her pal Scooby Doo, swimming in the river, generally making up for the bad times. She's never been the healthiest dog, occasionally having fits and having every illness going, but she's a love all the same.
Last friday, for no reason, she collapsed while eating her dinner, her back legs gave way. We took her to the vets who reckoned she had a trapped nerve in her back, steroids and anti-biotics would cure that.
No, she got worse, just lying about, not able to move. We took her back on Tuesday suspecting it might be the end, more tablets, try these, see how she goes on. She's worse, can't walk properly, can't poo, cries when she eats and tries to go to the toilet, lying about panting retching and looking awful, she's made her legs sore by pulling out her hair in frustration, I've been sitting up with her since 6:00 trying to get her going but she can't. Our Jack Russell is beside himself, he's guarding her now, he knows she's really ill.
We can't let her go on like this, we can't see her getting better and her quality of life is awful, she's panting now, I tried to give her a drink and she won't have it.
My missus has just phoned to say that she's booked her in to the vets at 17:40, I'm just having a weep, I don't know what else we can do but have her put to sleep as she's really suffering, if the worst comes to pass, I'm going to bring her back and put her to rest in the garden.
Sorry, I can't carry on any more.
Here she is how we want to remember her:-
Our lovely Meg.
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I've found a few pictures to go along with this thread.
Firstly, the Tamworth Mail double headed at Draycott on a summers evening in 1963, bad picture I know:-
Then I found this, taken off the footbridge north of Trowell station in January 1962, it's a 'Crab', heading south on the Midland main line with a van train, fish?, probably taken late afternoon when we were waiting for the Thames Clyde Express:-
As industrials were mentioned earlier, I haven't a picture of the shunter at Wilford which I think used to serve the power station and was owned by the Electricity Board, but these two were taken at Stanton Ironworks in 1965:-
Just up the road, a line came out of Stanton Ironworks and went up to Mapperley Colliery near Stanley Common. Even though the colliery had closed, two NCB tank engines were based in a small shed up a lane from West Hallam. These used to supply a small coal concentration depot that served Ilkeston, here's one of them going up the grade at West Hallam in 1965:-
The various steelworks and industrial lines at Staveley were operated by some interesting tank locos owned by BR and based at Barrow Hill Shed, this was taken in August 1965:-
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If this 'special' train came through Carlton and Netherfield at about 7:00 every evening then the only one I can think of is the famous 'Tamworth Mail' from Lincoln St Marks. We used to catch this regularly from Lincoln and it consisted of a variety of rolling stock, always a mail coach with pick up apparatus, parcels vans, wagons and usually only a couple of passenger carrying coaches. The locos pulling this used to vary considerably often a B1 or whatever was available, I can remember it being diesel hauled quite early on. I have a naff picture of it somewhere passing through Draycott double headed by a B1 and a Class 5, I'll see if I can find it. This train used to go on to Derby via the loop line at Spondon so it could face the right way to take the Birmingham line for Tamworth.
The Grimsby fish used to pass through Vic in the evening, yes it did pong quite a bit and used to be hauled quite often by a rare East Anglia based Britannia pacific, I seem to remember this being discussed on here before.
I remember the GCR shed at the bottom of Queens Drive, but it was always empty, sometimes there would be something lurking about shunting at the goods depot, but in my day, locos at Vic came from Annesley or Colwick and were often stabled or turned on the turntables in the station.
Nottingham shed, 16A, could only be unofficially accessed through the cattle bays off Wilford Road, the official entrance was via a small entrance on Middle Furlong Road and you had to pass the shed foremans window to get in, if he was in, you stood no chance of getting near the place.
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Weybourne station a few minutes ago, it's a 2-10-0 Austerity by the way:-
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It's currently the 50th anniversary of the closure of the former M&GN railway.
If you're not sure what significance that had to Nottingham, well it was basically a holiday line that branched off the Nottingham/ Melton/ Corby line just east of Melton at Saxby Junction, that ran across to Norfolk and served the coastal holiday resorts, particularly Great Yarmouth, I remember well going to Yarmouth for my holidays in the mid 50's and Yarmouth Beach Station being stuffed full of holiday trains from the East Midlands.
I'm sure that many Nottingham folk used this service to go on holiday in the heyday of the railways.
One of the few bits of the line still in operation is run by the North Norfolk Railway from Sheringham to Holt and this weekend and the next, they are running a special service, packed with trains run by different, guest steam locos.
If you Google NNR and go on their website, you'll see what they are up to, but you may be impressed by the live web cams that are on offer from each station, check them out, it really is like a scene from the 50's that changes every few minutes.
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Pictures of the LNWR goods depot are very elusive, I can't find them on any site anywhere, only these:-
I noticed that Bingham model railway club had a layout of Manvers Street goods yard that was destroyed by fire last month, sounds very tragic, but they must have had photographs to build it in the first place.
A very interesting picture that I came across taken at London Road station:-
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I just watched a little tribute to Wendy Richards on GMTV, all done in the best possible taste and no Herr Clifford in sight.
I had forgotten that one of her first TV roles was as Private Walker's girlfriend in 'Dads Army', what they didn't mention was that she was the girls voice on Mike Sarnes 1962 hit 'Come Outside', can anyone remember that.
Incidentally, the funeral I went to yesterday was one of the saddest I've ever been to, not helped by the fact that during the service, the vicar announced that the poor womans cousin and friend had died of cancer two days before, that was hard to take, still, the thing with funerals is that you meet up with some good old pals that you haven't seen for years, but, it was a very emotional experience for everybody, I was utterly drained when I got back last night.
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Beefsteak.
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I'd be interested to know how much imput the sinister and self promoting Max Clifford has had to do with poor Jade Goody choosing the path to 'Meet her Maker' in the glare of publicity.
Is he doing all this for nothing, I doubt it. Is he doing all this for his 'best friend', yeah, right, I presume they spend cosy evenings together, Clifford, Jade, Jack and her lovely mother, discussing the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, with a bit of analytical discussion about Proust thrown in for a bit of light relief. I hope he's not working out the finances as well.......2 for your kids......one for me......a bit for Jack......4 for me........not much for your mother......alot for me.
Loath her or love her, the truth is, Jade unbelievably stumbled into the limelight because of her own inadequacies in most things, physical and mental, but lets not critisize her for that, good luck to her for achieving her little bit of fame and fortune, how many people could handle that succesfully, the media created her, at least they seem to be giving her some respect at the end.
I also like the way that the glam, self promoting, obnoxious, not really very good, so called Bollywood star has added her two penneth, whatever you think of Jade, at least, she saw through her from the beginning.
Yes, there are people who are seriously ill who have received little publicity, but what do you expect, my long time friend and colleagues wife died last week, I'm going to the funeral on thursday, she was a love, but thats life and death, it ain't Jades fault that she won't be on the front page of the Sun.
Incidentally, if you really want to see how people can stoop so low, try this web site:-
http://www.whenwilljadegoodydie.com/
It will make you really puke, unless of course you hate the woman so much that it hurts.
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Littleboro
You're as bad as me at saving old tickets!!!
Did you know that the Argonaut was the Canadian built version of the C-54 or DC-4, known to them as the North Star and powered by RR Merlins, which apparently made the airliner version much noisier than the US radial engined equivalent ( compare the sound of a Lanc to a B-17 ).
Heres a picture of the fatefull G-ALHG which crashed at Stockport.
I flew out of EM on a Herald, as shown on your postcard, in 1966, the only picture I have of it is in this naff picture that I took at Jersey Airport while waiting to board for the flight home, you can probably just make out the distant tail.
We had a very eventful flight home, it was a lovely evening over the Channel and I was allowed to sit with the pilot until we got to the coast, then all hell broke loose when we had to fly through a savage thunderstorm, very exciting in a twin prop airliner that couldn't fly above the storm clouds.
The severity of the storm was really apparent after we landed at EM and it caught up with us on the ground, still, not as bad as a storm I experienced at Schipol a few years ago that nearly put me off flying for life, but thats another story.
Most of my EM pictures are on slides, but I found this colour print that I took in the mid 70's.
Anybody interested in some other local pictures, Hucknall and Tollerton.
Heres a couple of rarities, Avro Lincoln and 'Lincolnian' waiting scrapping at Tollerton in 1959, my brother took these while I was rummaging around in the Lincoln cockpit.
Another rarity, airworthy P-47 'Razorback' Thunderbolt at Hucknall Airshow in 1963, I have one of this in colour as well, it's not the one being currently restored to flight by TFC at Duxford, I believe that this example now resides in a museum in the USA.
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I think it probably was political, especially with the LNWR being involved as well. I'm sure that the problem still existed even after the link was put in at Colwick so that the Grantham trains could run into Midland, which I think was in the mid 60's. I feel certain that the track layout was changed when the Melton line was closed to all through traffic in December 1968, did you know that the last passenger train to use the route was the Royal Train in May 1968.
London Road 1963:-
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Limey
Yes, there's no sign of the track from the road down to Kings Mills, I can remember seeing wall to wall trucks parked on the track though, this was probably on a trip along the road to Melbourne, another one of our regular destinations, probably in the late 50's.
The hall was used as a POW camp for German officers in WW1, some of whom managed to escape in 1915. I recall the old rope bridge over the lane down to the Priest House. I also recall that the hall was used as the setting for a film in the early 70's, 'Alices Adventures in Wonderland' with an all star British cast including Peter Sellers, perhaps this led to it being restored after its WW2 misuse by the military.
I can also remember going to see the Tri-Star, for some reason we were standing on the perimeter fence on the north side of the airfield then found ourselves on the tarmac in front of the terminal when it was open for inspection, only for RR employees I recall, but we managed to get in somehow, I shall have to look for my slides.
Littleboro
Is the Argonaut in your shot G-ALHG, which was the one that crashed in Stockport in 1967, killing most of the passengers and crew, we were due to fly back from Jersey on one of these in 1966, but an overbooking caused us to come back on a BM Herald instead.
A couple of pictures probably taken at about the same time as yours.
Derby Airways Daks at Burnaston early 60's
Early days at EM, probably just after it opened.
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Ashley
I presume you are referring to Meadow Lane football ground, I would have expected to see it shown on there by the time this map was drawn up.
Zoom in on the track arrangement and you will see the anamolly whereby excursion trains from Midland Station to the East Coast had to reverse back from Sneinton Junction into Low Level Station where an ex LNER loco would be waiting, the time I remember doing this it was a gleaming K3, the whole operations had to be repeated on coming back from the day trip, I would have thought it would have been a fairly easy exercise to install a set of points facing the direction of travel.
I bet that this excursion took this devious route.
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Hi PB,
Kegworth may have been a small village but East Midlands Airports was an RAF station.
It's interesting that there is very little information concerning the former RAF usage of Castle Donnington. All I can glean is that it was originally a satellite of Wymeswold and was the base for 10 Group OTU flying Wellingtons.
There is a photo of one of these in the RAF Museum archive, dated October 1944:-
By that time, Wellingtons weren't in operational use over Germany anyway and this one has a faired front turret.
Going by aircrew accounts from various sites, Lancasters were being used on missions from there, but as I said, info is scarce, it's omitted completely from the list of UK former RAF stations, most odd.
I recall cycling around the place prior to work commencing on East Midlands Airport, most of the buildings were scattered around the south of the existing airfield and very accesible.
I also recall that the race track at Donnington, which had been dormant up to the early 60's, was used as a storage facility for surplus army vehicles. As part of my old man's tandem rides at the time, we would go down to Kings Mills for a pint and a paddle and you could clearly see wall to wall vehicles parked on the old race track.
Does anyone else have a memory of this.
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About 10 years ago I went to the Jet Heritage Airshow at Cranfield, it was great, plenty of 1950's a/c flying about, formations of Hunters, Vampires, Venoms, Meteors, Canberras, whatever, so where are they now.
Well, they aren't about anymore, not many anyway, why, well they cost too much to operate.
A few years ago, the worlds only airworthy Sea Vixen was touted around the airshow circuit, wonderful beast, biggest, fastest heritage jet flying, but where is it now, it's still airworthy but no-one can afford to book it at airshows, it's rarely seen, but presumably the general public haven't a clue what a Sea Vixen is anyway, so who cares, impressive, but so what, only us select band of enthusiasts presumably get excited at the prospect of seeing it.
The Vulcan is a different story, everyone thinks they remember it, but do they really, it's a big old beast, the Cold War Warrior and Falklands War hero, a museum piece, it's flying days were pulled when the original RAF operators realised how much it would cost to keep it going.
Thats the problem isn't it, the cost.
TVOC were living in cloud cuckoo land when they started this project, they paid their 'directors' large sums of money to run the project, they incredibly managed to obtain a lottery funding, yet always kept their cards close to their chests.
It's one thing operating a Hawker Hunter, it's bloody expensive, but a Vulcan, beyond belief.
I think that they felt that a rich benefactor, ie Mr Branson, would come along and everything would be Hunky Dory. I'm afraid that RB has enough problems running his own empire, I don't think he should donate his own personal fortune to such a hobby, would you in his position.
Imagine, the cost in keeping the Vulcan airborn, the airframe requirements, let alone engine problems. It's been trouble to keep it up in the air this season anyway, silly things, but aren't they going to escalate into more serious matters.
OK, you will say, I'd sooner go and see the Vulcan fly rather than my tax payers money spent on one eyed Somali single mother illegal immigrants, fair enough, but we are in such a financial crisis, that how can anyone justify the government spending money to keep an airshow legend alive.
I really, personally want this project to succeed, but we have to get it all into perspective, no amount of signatures to 10 Downing Street will keep it going, and why should they consider it, it wouldn't matter which blurry party was in power, it ain't going to be considered in the scheme of things is it.
Sorry to be so negative, but with all my own problems, I tend to live in the real world, if the government felt happy enough to chuck in mega bucks per month to keep this thing flying, while as a 58 year old British Citizen not qualified for benefits because I've been self employed, how would you feel, they ain't interested in me, so why should I think that they should care about a bloody old jet bomber, much as I love it, but lets not forget, God works in wondrous ways, anything could happen, them damn Rooskies were Anti-Christs after all.
No, I'm an atheist, just blurbing, thats all.
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Here's a little object for you to look out for.
A small, gleaming stainless steel bearing set generally in a circular concrete base, sometimes in walls, sometimes with a brick surround.
They are all over the place down here, at bridges, road junctions, rivers, anywhere of so called strategic importance.
Hardly anyone knows what they were for, some of you may know.
The spigot mortar, an infamous weapon, rejected by the regular army and dumped on the Home Guard, so dangerous that it was more likely to kill the poor sods required to fire it rather than the dreaded Hun invaders. This device was simply dropped on to the steel pin when it was required, how many of these fittings ever saw a spigot mortar in place is unknown, probably very few.
I live within the area of the famous GHQ defence line, the place is covered in bunkers and pillboxes of every kind. Some of these devices are amazing, the Allan Williams turret for instance. There was one set in the ground close to where I lived in Finchingfield, unfortunately a local do-gooder excavated it with a view to restoring it, it's remained rotting away in his yard for the past few years, despite my efforts to have it removed and restored at a proper museum dedicated to this sort of thing, Sywell by the way, give us your support.
AW turrets are very rare, few were built and installed, but it's not a publicly acclaimed item so who cares.
I consider that these WW2 reminders have so much significance to our past, especially when they are still within living memory, that all efforts should be made to prevent them being bulldozed into the ground and further items of British history be lost to future generations.
Thats my tuppence worth, either take the p1$$ or ignore it, it's up to you, a few constructive comments would be appreciated.
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lol! just tring to cool it
mg
I know friend, but it's too late, the Gestapo are too much for me.
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Funny, whatever I write keeps vanishing, it's been happening all day and at other times too.
Good luck Fynger, you're a cool dude, my son thinks so as well, I'm out of here for good, I've had enough of all this bullying pathetic crap, over to the king of the salt mines, he knows whats best for us all, he can go to bed happy in the knowledge that he won't have to exert his brain cell tomorrow.
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There it's in black and white for you .
And I had let the subject go , as you suggested, but no, you have to resurrect it don't you ??
No, I did write quite a concise reply, but strangely enough, it didn't arrive and vanished, thats by the by, lets forget it, I'm not the one in control am I, censorship was always a good tool used by the Nazis wasn't it.
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did ya like shirley maclean then firbeck
Yeah, she was quite stunning when she was younger.
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Of course you are allowed your opinion, I would be the first to defend anybody that right. It's just the way you try and put it across, always very heavily ,for want of a better word, . You even had a 'pop' at Plantfit for admiting that he may have been wrong on a subject. !!!!
Just try to think who you may be upsetting with your comments, everybody has a right to speak their minds not just Firbeck and Beefsteak!!!
Excuse me, where did I have a 'pop' at Plantfit, please stop digging a hole for yourself, it's embarrasing.
It looks like the end for my lovely spaniel.
in Owt' Abaaht Nowt !
Posted
IF I SHOULD GROW FRAIL
If it should be that I grow frail and weak
And pain does keep me from my sleep
Then will you do what must be done
For this last battle can't be won.
You will be sad I understand
But don't let grief then stay your hand
For on this day more than the rest
Your love and friendship stands the test.
We've had so many happy years
You wouldn't want me to suffer so
When the time comes,
Please let me go.
Take me to where my needs they'll tend
Only, stay with me until the end
And hold me firm and speak to me
Until my eyes no longer see.
I know in time you will agree
It is a kindness you do to me
Although my tail it's last has waved
From pain and suffering I have been saved.
Don't grieve that it must now be you
Who has to decide this thing to do
We've been so close, we two, these years,
Don't let your heart hold back the tears.
Our Moo-Moo, 1997-2009, Rest in Peace, my lovely little girl.