Merthyr Imp

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Posts posted by Merthyr Imp

  1. Barton 100 by Alan Oxley published in 2008. A large-size softback book giving a history of the company, profusely illustrated, including sections in colour.

     

    Some highlights are a photo and brief details of Barton's experimental front wheel drive bus of the late 1920s, a pictorial section on gas-powered vehicles, the story of W963, and the history of the Skegness service.

     

    I don't know if the book is still in print.

     

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    Back cover, with a portrait of Tommy Barton proudly wearing his OBE.

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  2. Having bored everybody with first some of my old football programmes followed by some old theatre programmes I thought I'd now start a new series about books which I have accumulated over the years and which are of significant interest concerning Nottingham and Notts. A lot of people will already have many of these books, but there may be some that people have not come across.

     

    A large proportion of them deal with transport matters, including this first one. The only order they are in is the order they appear on my bookshelves. Other than a few suggestions and some guesswork I don't intend to provide details of where (and if) the books can be bought as that can easily be found with an Internet search. 

     

    First is this large softback book which appeared in 1998. T. G. Hepburn was a Nottingham man, and the book is made up of a selection of his railway photographs covering the period from about 1919 to 1979 together with some biographical notes on him  There are large number of high quality photos taken at both the Victoria and Midland Stations plus some at London Road Low Level and many at other locations in and around the city plus several at Grantham in particular. The book may still be available from the likes of Amazon.

     

    Front cover is a painting of a scene at the north end of Grantham station c1933.

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    Back cover shows B17 class 'Nottingham Forest' at Victoria on 3 June 1939.

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  3. In October 1995 D'Oyly Carte were back with 'The Mikado' and a new production of Offenbach's 'La Vie Parisienne'.

     

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    Sorry if the above hasn't come out very clear.

     

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    And that, as they say nowadays, wraps it up for this series, as that was my last visit to date to the Theatre Royal. My visits there which really started with D'Oyly Carte Opera in 1970 happened to finish with the same company 25 years later.

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  4. In April there was a production of a musical I recently mentioned in another thread on here - 'Me and My Girl'. Nobody well-known in it, perhaps accounting for the theatre being less than half full - this despite the show including g hit songs: 'Leaning on a Lamp Post', 'The Lambeth Walk' and 'The Sun Has Got His Hat On'.

     

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  5. February 1994, and Opera North again, with Chabrier's 'L'Etoile' (only just over half full) and old favourite 'La Traviata' (all but full).

     

    Then the following week it was some Andrew Lloyd Webber. Nobody well known in the cast, and being one of his lesser-known pieces the theatre was only two-thirds full.

     

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  6. This year I saw two of the plays in the summer thriller season - 'Peril at End House', an Agatha Christie featuring Hercule Poirot, and 'Fatal Attraction' (not the same as the film).

     

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    With Opera North's visit in October meaning 'La Boheme' again, that drew 1993 to a close.

  7. The following month D'Oyly Carte were back with productions of 'The Pirates of Penzance' and Offenbach's 'Orpheus in the Underworld'. I yield to no-one as an enthusiast for the works of Gilbert & Sullivan, but this version of 'Orpheus' was among the best things I've ever seen in the theatre.  Shame it was only about two thirds full.

     

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  8. 1 hour ago, DJ360 said:

     I'd never heard of Noel Gay but he was rsponsible for Run Rabbit Run, The Sun Has Got His Hat On and a number of other well known popular songs.  

    Col

     

    The Sun Has Got His Hat On (Hip, hip, hooray!) was from the musical 'Me and My Girl' for which Noel Gay wrote the music and which also included Leaning on a Lamp-post and The Lambeth Walk.

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