Sunday Bridges: Macclesfield Canal #1

This is bridge #1 on the Macclesfield Canal at Marple.

In this direction it is actually the last one as under the bridge is the Peak Forest Canal.

Opened in 1831, the Macclesfield Canal was one of the last narrow canals to be built running 26¼ miles from Marple Junction to the stop lock at Hall Green near Kidsgrove on the Trent & Mersey Canal.

It was fine when I set off but when I got off the bus the rain started and it was chucking it down by the time I got here.

I took this quickly, holding my umbrella in one hand and the camera in the other.


This is a gray scale look from bridge #1 into the Marple basin. You can see the original colour version on Geograph.

I was heading to the Ring o' Bells pub just beyond Bridge #2. Recently the pub's cat was hailed a hero for rescuing an injured duck. See the video on the Manchester Evening News.

For more Sunday Bridges visit San Francisco Bay Daily Photo.

ABC Wednesday F is for Fairlie Old Pier

Glen Sannox at Fairlie Pier, Summer 1957.

Nigel Mykura writes

This is the Glen Sannox Clyde steamer docked at Fairlie pier south of Largs. The wooden pier is no longer there though its remains can be seen on satellite photos.

The Glen Sannox was the first ro-ro (roll-on, roll-off), ferry of the Caledonian Steam Packet Company and this was her first season on the Fairlie/Arran run. She also went to Millport on Cumbrae and lots of other Clyde routes. Before the Glen Sannox cars were run on to the ferry using two dodgy planks of wood. Trains ran from both Kilmarnock and Glasgow to connect up with each sailing of the Arran ferry. The number of passengers using this link often required two trains for each sailing on each route. The services from Glasgow also frequently split with one section going to Fairlie Pier Station and the other one to Largs.

I don't remember the size of the pier as the last time I was there was 1963, but I am guessing that this photo was taken from another ferry approaching or leaving the pier. All of the people on the pier are staring at something to the south of the pier, presumably the steamer the photographer was on. There appears to be propeller wash from the second ferry in the right foreground.

There is now a modern jetty just to the north of this position which is not extant. It is also interesting that despite it being high summer, two of the four men on the pier are wearing flat caps and long overcoats. The small green van on the pier appears to have the word SIMPLEX on the side. Already loaded onto the Glen Sannox (or just about to come off) is a red railway freight box car with British Railways in yellow lettering on the side. There is a set of chain slings attached to the box-car indicating trans-shipment by crane at some point. The only recognizable cargo is a load of gas canisters on the trailer on the pier.

Fairlie Brodick Pier 1967.

I travelled on the ferry between Fairlie and Brodick on Arran in 1967. On my page Fairlie not Arran I describe how I discovered that I'd taken a photograph of Fairlie rather than Brodick. The page carries that picture and other shots of the village by later photographers.

I thought this other of my 1967 photos (that had "Brodick" scribbled in pencil on the back) was taken from the ferry looking across the pier at Fairlie and away from the village.

I've just discovered that this one is actually of Brodick Pier. A fuel depot has been built where the cars are parked.

So the one I thought was right was wrong and the one I thought was wrong was right.


Remains of Fairlie Pier.

Thomas Nugent writes

Only one truncated wooden pile was visible at this fairly low state of the tide. There are more piles under the water, but these were not visible today (19th June 2010).

The building in the background is a sewage pumping station which was built in the 1990s in the style of a Victorian railway shed in order to blend-in with the surroundings.

Remains of Fairlie Pier.

The old MOD jetty is visible in the background.


Pier Road.

Virtually all trace of the pier is gone. It was located at the end of the railings.

Some reminiscences of Fairlie can be found on my earlier post Fairlie 1967.

More information on the village can be found on the Fairlie Parish Church website.

For more F posts visit ABC Wednesday.

The photographs by Nigel Mykura and Thomas Nugent are licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

XI Calico Cat Contest Entry

across the pond
to an unknown friend
fond kisses

© Gerald England

was my entry for the recent Calico Cat Contest where authors were asked to compose a haiku to complement Origa's sumi-e "Sympathy. Orang-utan and Lizard".


Rice paper 'Double Shuen', Japanese sumi ink, Chinese watercolours, Copyright © Origa .


is the Russian translation of my haiku.

The contest attracted 134 poems by 58 poets from 20 countries and mine didn't make the last 28 selected for the final.

The winning poem and comments on the winner and runners-up can be found at Results of the XI Calico Cat International bilingual haiku contest.

ABC Wednesday: E is for Elgol, 1988

Elgol is a little settlement on the Scottish island of Skye. From the quay there you can get boat trips on Loch Coruisk that offer views of the sharp mountain called the Black Cuillin.

We went there in 1988 and were greeted by this wee beastie. Down below you can see the jetty and the cars parked above. There was a three-hour wait for a boat trip so instead we left Elgol and drove to Kylerhea and straight onto the ferry off the island (no bridge then). We ended up at Plockton and took a seal-watching trip from there.

You can see more photographs of Elgol on Donnie Mackay's Elgol blog.

For more E posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday D is for Dog Tired

An oldie taken in July 2007 at St Anne's on the Sea.

For more D posts visit ABC Wednesday

The Purple Hours & Lisa Conesa

On my Collected Works site I've just posted The Experiment which was first published in The Purple Hours, an anthology edited by Lisa Conesa.

Steve Sneyd mentions this anthology in an article on the The Science Fiction Poetry of Robert Calver from the out of print Hilltop Press publication Gnawing Medusa's Flesh archived on the Aural Innovations website.


He writes

The one UK genre anthology of any real scope since 1969 was produced for a special purpose. Lisa Conesa, herself a poet and editor of the notable fanzine Zimri in the early and mid 70s, persuaded the organisers of the 1974 Tynecon convention to include a poetry reading - she called it a Poetry Soiree - in the program. Prior to the event, she approached a variety of writers, including SF professionals who wrote poetry, SF fans ditto, and little magazine poets, for work to include in an anthology to mark the soiree.

Handsomely designed and produced by Harry Turner, the 44-page book, entitled The Purple Hours, includes work by a roll call of British SF names - Aldiss, Ballard, Brunner, Moorcock.

It also includes four poems by Robert Calvert - "The Clone's Poem", "The Gremlin", "The First Landing On Medusa", and "The Starfarer's Despatch". Calvert was also among those who read at the poetry soiree itself, along with Brian Aldiss, and South African-born poet Jeni Couzeyn, who wrote a series of poems inspired by Aldiss stories, although she did not appear in The Purple Hours.

My Collected Poetical Works site is intended to be a complete collection of my poetry and will eventually include all my published poems and a selection of unpublished work. I suspect it will take three years before we get to pieces written after the millennium!

ABC Wednesday C is for Cheadle Bridge

Cheadle Bridge was built in 1861 across the river Mersey connecting Cheadle in Cheshire with Didsbury in Lancashire.


Nowadays both sides are in the modern county of Greater Manchester and the boundary is between the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport and the City of Manchester.



For more C posts visit ABC Wednesday