Ackworth born, gone West

ABC Wednesday:B is for Brewer's Dray

2012-01-25T00:00:00.000Z

A Brewer's Dray is a waggon used by breweries to transport barrels of beer to their pubs. At one time they were drawn by horses but later motorised drays came to be used.

This one belongs to Stockport brewers, Frederic Robinson Ltd., and these photographs were taken in 2010 when Stockport was celebrating the 750th anniversary of its market.

The two and a half ton, 27 horse power vehicle was manufactured by Thorneycroft and first registered in Somerset in 1927. It had an average speed of 20-25 mph and fuel consumption was 6 mpg.

Robinson's acquired the vehicle in 1980 from the Irwell Street Metal Co.Ltd. of Ramsbottom and had it restored by Ollerton Engineering Services of Salmesbury Bottoms and painted in the livery carried by similar waggons owned by Robinson's at the beginning of the 20th century.

Back in the 1950s the vehicle was still down in Somerset. It belonged then to Mr A E Chedzoy from Martock, whose business was that of mobile ironmonger-cum-oil-merchant. The photograph above is used here courtesy of David Gibbs. Read about its earlier life in his article Mr Chedzoy's Oil Boy first published in A Miscellany of Merriott Memories (1989) and now available on the Merriot Local History Group website.

For more "B" posts visit ABC Wednesday

ABC Wednesday:A is for Ashton under Lyne Tram Terminus

2012-01-18T00:00:00.000Z

This was the scene yesterday next to Ashton bus station where the terminus of the Metrolink extension is under construction.

This is how it looked in August 2011.

This is how it looked in November 2010.

For more "A" posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Shadow Shot Sunday: Bridge over the River Goyt

2012-01-15T00:00:00.000Z

I was taking some photographs yesterday afternoon of the Carrington Road bridge over the River Goyt at Stockport. My vantage point was a footbridge that runs almost parellel to the road bridge.

It wasn't until later that I realised how the low afternoon sun had cast a shadow of the footbridge and myself onto the parapet of the road bridge.

In case you are wondering, that's my shopping trolley by my side.

Posted as a contribution to Shadow Shot Sunday and also Sunday Bridges.

Vote for Best of Hyde 2011

2011-12-26T19:45:00.000Z

The time has come to vote for the best of Hyde DP 2011.

View the twelve contenders at Best of Hyde 2011 and vote for your favourite three photographs.

Voting closes 12 noon GMT, Friday 30th December 2011.

My best birthday ever

2011-12-23T00:00:00.000Z

It is less than a week since I had my gall bladder removed. Although I'm not feeling anywhere near 100% yet, I am getting there. Wednesday was my birthday and I had a big party for around 50 people. Steve and Steph from our local butty shop "The Hot Crumpet" provided individual beef hotpots and my friend Mary Goodliffe made me a cake.

Mary also took these two photographs. I think I've had about three real birthday parties in my life. Usually I get only two or three cards as most people are just too busy to bother about someone's birthday when it is so near Christmas.

This year was therefore very special as I now live in a community full of friendly folk who'll lay on a party at the drop of a hat. Not since I was teenager (and maybe not even then) have I had as many as 27 birthday cards to blue-tack to the wall. Now I can start to look forward to Christmas and the New Year.

Shadow Shot Sunday: Gall stone

2011-12-18T00:00:00.000Z

Following my admission to hospital in October I was due to go in to have my gall bladder removed on 1st December. However because of the public sector strike over pensions on November 30th the op was put back to the 15th. Having cut out biscuits and pies and cream and stuff from my diet, I was doing OK (pigged a little on toast).

So Wednesday I had a glass of milk at 11.10pm and in the morning got a taxi to Tameside hospital for 8 am on Thursday. I answered various questions and had blood taken but then lay on a trolley watching others who had not arrived until 10.30 am go down for surgery come back and go home until 5 pm when I was eventually taken down to theatre. I woke up back in the unit about 9pm and was shown a gall stone the size of a walnut.

See it here with a penny for comparison casting a shadow on the kitchen table.

At midnight I was given some tea and toast. There were only three of us staying overnight but I had a drain in me which was uncomfortable so I rested but didn't sleep. I had more tea and toast at 4.30 am and at 6.30 am the drain was taken out and at 7.15 am I was sent home in a taxi, getting home just before it started snowing.

I discovered that a carer had give my wife her breakfast at 9.15 am on Thursday but then nobody had been at lunch time. A carer had finally turned at 7.30 pm by which time Christine was hungry and shaking (possibly having a hypo). She was given four large sandwiches! Whether she took her correct medication I can't tell for sure. I'm glad to be home but am in quite some pain as yet - have been told to take it easy for the next three or four days by which time I should be feeling better.

Our freezer and fridge are nicely stocked and a neighbour is kindly getting us some more bread and cooked meat later so we should be OK till early next week.

For more shadows visit Shadow Shot Sunday

Another Week - Another Hospital

2011-10-17T16:00:00.003+01:00

over Ridge Hill
the sun rises slowly
from my hospital bed

gerald england

I was getting back towards normal after my operation at Stepping Hill and on the Saturday we went down town with Craig as usual. Later I developed what I thought was indigestion but there was no relief so an ambulance was called which took me to Tameside Hospital. By about 3am the doctors had got the blood results which indicated everything OK with my kidneys and liver. The ECG showed nothing wrong with my heart. I was sent home with a bottle of Gaviscon to help with trapped wind.

I took it easy on Sunday but my appetite was poor and I still felt in pain. Around 2am Monday morning I took some paracodol and was immediately sick. The same paramedics who'd seen me the previous night arrived again and carted me back to hospital.

It was "nil-by-mouth" until Thursday and the discomfort was considerable. An ultrasound scan revealed the problem as an inflammed gall-bladder and some stones. At my lowest ebb on Friday morning I was feeling very lonely indeed having had little rest and no visitors from outside.

The patient in the next bed loaned me his mobile and I was able to finally get through to Christine. It was fortuitous that we had booked an appointment for Christine's Social Worker to call and discuss her recent respite care. She arrived to find Christine alone and wondering about my fate. She set up an immediate arrangement for people to come in and assist her three times a day.

Christine's hairdresser came to see her on Friday and she arranged for David, her husband, who is a taxi-driver to bring her up to see me on Friday afternoon. He had a scooter meet Christine on arrival at the hospital. He then came back later with a wheelchair to take her back down.

Just after she arrived the doctors came on their rounds and explained that I needed to stay a few more days in order for the gall bladder to start calming down. After that they would send me home and call me back in about six weeks when they would remove the gall bladder under keyhole surgery.

I'm home now thankfully. The support for Christine is continuing. I'll contine to blog spasmodically as and when I feel up to it.

Weekend Reflections/Sunday Bridges:Marsland Bridge

2011-10-09T00:00:00.000+01:00

A double contribution to Weekend Reflections and Sunday Bridges.

Marsland Bridge spans the Bridgewater Canal at Brooklands, Sale, Greater Manchester.

Often considered to be the first "true" canal, the Bridgewater Canal was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley. The section from Worsley to Manchester opened on 17th July 1761; it was later extended from Manchester to Runcorn, and then from Worsley to Leigh. Coal was needed in large quantities to fuel the industrial revolution and the canal enabled coal and other goods to be transported efficiently and cheaply to the rapidly expanding towns and cities. Its success helped inspire a period of intense canal building although it later faced intense competition from the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the Macclesfield Canal.

The canal is connected to the Rochdale Canal in Manchester, the Trent and Mersey Canal at Preston Brook, south-east of Runcorn, and to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Leigh. It once connected with the River Mersey at Runcorn but has since been cut off by a slip road to the Silver Jubilee Bridge.

Navigable throughout its history, it is one of the few canals in Britain not to have been nationalised, and remains privately owned. Commercial traffic continued on the canal until 1974. By this time, canals were becoming more important as a leisure facility and pleasure craft now use the canal which forms part of the Cheshire Ring circular canal route.

The Bridgewater Canal is owned and operated by the Manchester Ship Canal Company in conjunction with the Bridgewater Canal Trust.

For more information see the Bridgewater Canal website.

I'll be away a little while

2011-09-18T10:45:00.000+01:00

I shall be away for a little while. I'm going in to Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport for an operation on Wednesday so I won't be posting anything for a week or two.

My wife Christine is going away tomorrow morning for two weeks respite care at Charnley House by which time I hope to be back home and getting fit again.

ABC Wednesday: H is for Hole in Southport Pier

2011-09-07T00:00:00.000+01:00

On our recent visit to Southport we'd taken the ramp up from Ocean Plaza on to the pier and headed towards town.

When we got towards the Marine Lake we found that the top end of the pier had been closed off by the police.

We weren't sure why and I took a bit of a zoom shot and this was what I caught (only I couldn't actually see this until I'd got home and downloaded it on to the computer). We were diverted on to the footpath by the skateboard park to the new road and bridge over Marine Lake which opened a few years ago.

When we got round to the pierhead we found out the reason for the closure. As reported later in Southport Online News a Fosters Beer lorry making a delivery to Funland had driven on to the decking and became stuck. The pier planks broke under the vehicle's weight leaving the lorry resting on its axles.

I've no information about the current state of the pier.

For more H posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday: G is forGull over Gull on Gull

2011-08-31T00:00:00.000+01:00

At Southport, a gull flies over a gull sitting on the statue of a gull by the Marine Lake.

For more G posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Friday Bench (38): Llandudno Looking in different directions

2011-08-26T00:00:00.000+01:00

The couple on the bench at Llandudno are looking towards what is happening on the beach to the left. The dog underneath is looking in the opposite direction down the Promenade. We are looking beyond to the Burbo offshore wind farm in Liverpool Bay.

More Friday Benches at Hyde Daily Photo.

When Johnny Sang the Blues

2011-08-22T22:20:00.000+01:00

A couple of my photographs The Emerging Mersey and Liverpool Skyline are included in this video.

Check the original you-tube post at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pli9cSw7J3Y

ABC Wednesday: D is for Disruption in Droylsden

2011-08-10T00:00:00.000+01:00

Back in February I brought you Disruption on Droylsden Road due the laying of the new Metrolink tramline from Manchester to Ashton under Lyne.

These pictures were taken one day in June. The 216 bus was stuck at the traffic lights. I'd just alighted from the bus a moment before.

This was the view behind me showing the state of the tramlines being laid along the road. After alighting the bus I had time to take a few photographs and re-board the same bus before it was able to set off again.

This last shot was taken from onboard the bus and shows work ongoing in the town centre. If newspaper reports are to be believed it would seem no-one in Droylsden wants the Metrolink whose construction has disrupted the town to the extent that business have closed. They are very dubious of the so-called benefits which they feel will accrue mainly to folk passing through rather than stopping in Droylsden.

For more D posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday: C is forChocolate, Cucumber or Cherries

2011-08-03T00:00:00.001+01:00

I didn't know what to post this week - I decided that my first thought just wasn't suitable for a family audience, so I looked in the fridge.

Chocolate, cucumber or cherries.

Which would you choose?

For more C posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday: B is forBicycles in Oslo

2011-07-27T00:00:00.000+01:00

In 2006 I visited Oslo and took a photograph of these bicycles.

According to Oslo Daily Photo

There are approx. 1200 bikes to be found in different places of the center. To use them you have to register and pay a small annual fee. Then you use your "smart card" to release a bike from the rack. The bikes are financed by advertising and is therefore an environmental-friendly and inexpencive offer to the public. You must return the bike to the stand within 3 hours thus to make sure that there are bikes available to everyone who's interested.

These were advertising the services of the Oslo Blood Bank. Their services will have been of vital importance following the recent atrocity there.

My heart goes out to all the people of Norway at this time.

For more B posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday: A is for Angling off Llandudno Pier

2011-07-20T00:00:00.000+01:00

Access to the landing stage off the end of Llandudno Pier is restricted to anglers. A landing stage was added to the pier in 1891. At one time there was a regular ferry service to the Isle of Man. In 1969 it was totally rebuilt in concrete and steel, which enabled its use by the largest Isle of Man Steamers then in use. Now only the occasional boat such as the steamer MV Waverley call at the pier.

You can see all 41 photographs from my trip to Llandudno last Friday on the Geo-trip site which includes a slide show presentation.

For more A posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday: Z is forplatform Zero at Stockport Station

2011-07-13T00:00:00.000+01:00

The Easternmost platform at Stockport is number Zero.

It was added in 2003 but not used until 2008.

Only three other stations in the UK have a platform zero, Edinburgh Haymarket, London King's Cross and Cardiff Central.

For more Z posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Cleveland Summer

2011-07-03T20:00:00.001+01:00

Cleveland Summer

The mist lies low on Cleveland's hill,
A pressage of the noon-day heat;
From Glaidsdale's heights fall twinkling rills,
Making music silver sweet.
The yellow gorse is all ablaze,
The purple moors roll to the sea;
The glory of the summer days
Is here in Cleveland's moor and lea.

The grouse are calling in the ling,
The skylarks from the lush fields rise,
And, soaring on impulsive wing,
Are lost to sight in cloudless skies.
The Leven runs from Kildale's side
Through peaceful Ayton to the Tees,
Is gathered by the hungry tide,
And onward rolls to azure seas.

From Roseberry's Nab to Goathland End,
From fair Mt. Grace to Kettleness
The quiet roads that wind and wend
Their way, peace undisturbed by car.
Go. Walk where Cleveland breezes blow
The purple heather's scented bells,
And feel that sense of beauty grow,
Engendered by these sunkissed fells.

There's new life in this moorland air
That's absent from the flat lowlands,
And Cleveland hills are especially fair
Where Guisborough's ancient Abbey stands.
While nothing better could I crave
Than from the Loftus heights to spy
Out o'er the sea, on rolling wave,
The white sails flash 'twixt sea and sky.

The author of this poem is currently unidentified by us.

Beryl Carter, daughter of Oswald Carter and Elizabeth Evison, lived in Eston (near Middlesbrough) as a child. She moved to Canada as an eleven year old girl, with her family in 1927. She wrote this poem into her recipe book in approximately 1936. She wrote many poems there, but this one is the only one with no author credited. Above the poem she wrote "My OLD Home" and underscored it twice.

Dina E Cox only discovered her mother's recipe book and the poems therein several years after Beryl's death. She (and indeed I) would dearly love to discover who was the author of this poetic gem.

ABC Wednesday: W is for Waste Recycling Centre

2011-06-22T00:00:00.000+01:00

This is part of the new Household Waste Recycling Centre at Bredbury Parkway as viewed from the footpath alongside.

Here is the main entrance to the site.

This is how the site looked when I was walking down the footpath in April 2009.

For more W posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Remembering Jane Wilson by Bruce Barnes

2011-06-18T00:00:00.001+01:00

Remembering Jane Wilson by Bruce Barnes.

I am no longer able to remember people as well as I did. I used to recall their faces but now the favoured mnemonics is their things: it leads to a cluttered house with their cards, signed books, presents and stuff loosely connected to them. Under the computer table, beneath my feet, is her carpet, an Axminster in brightly coloured squares that I bought on Hoe Street, Walthamstow shortly after I moved into Marriott Rd, Finsbury Park in 1985. And the last time Jane and I sat on that carpet was a winter evening, talking in the dark with the gas fire on, but our story begins ten or so years before in Leeds.

Martina and I came to Leeds from the Irish countryside to study, and by 1973 we had moved into Eldon Mount a large house off Woodhouse Lane, near the road fork above the Brotherton Library; the house was roomy, had an absent minded landlord who forgot to collect rent and it seemed as if this part of Leeds, its student-ville, was at its cultural heart, with the City the hub of the universe. I loved the Arcades, shabby and forgotten then, the din and colour of Leeds Market on Saturday afternoon, the Elland Road roar, the house parties and meeting new friends, the Future Studies Centre that was sowing the seeds of the new environmentalism, and walking Meanwood Ridge.

We both liked poetry and our front room became a reading venue. Jane must have come along a while after the venue started up, perhaps encouraged by her friend Dave Stringer, a regular reader. I can't remember anything of what she read, but on one occasion she brought her elderly friend, the poet Martin Bell, who spoke and read very quietly.

Memories of those poetry evenings are largely shaped by Michael McCafferty. We tried to keep him out, but he had a way with the front door lock, and would sit in a corner with his piercing stare. Come his turn, sometimes he didn't bother waiting, he would perambulate his one City Poem, (published in the anthology Children of Albion edited by Michael Horovitz), throwing his arms out like flick knives, whizzing fingers inches past our faces. We knew he was mad, he knew we were scared. But I saw in him the difference between reading and performance: physicality.

I would bump into Jane on the street, elegant and refined, sometimes with Dave Stringer in tow. Dave was a green–warrior who lived in an attic on Woodhouse Moor and worked as a gardener when he could. I would laugh at their chalk and cheese but as Dave now remembers they were close friends such that they could go off on reading tours together. Jane encouraged me to write, wanted to see or know about what I was working on, and I think she understood how chaotic domestic circumstances could get in the way of writing.

When I came across her poem I go for Napoleons in her second collection Ringing the Migrants (Rainbow Books, 1977), I felt it encapsulated her support for the underdog:

I go for Napoleons, for small
men with chips on their shoulders, which
they take the opportunity to carve beautifully,
like Alpinists in a bad winter;
who are working out their Things in attics,
who need helping;

Thereafter I saw Dave and me as two of her Napoleons. Jane sometimes drove Dave over to the Pennine Poets when they were meeting at Mabel Ferrett's, and Jane may have done the same for me once, but I can't be sure as it conflates with Clare Chapman's driving. I do remember getting the bus out to the Ilkley Literature Festival in 75 or 77, intending to hear her read with other Pennine Poets, but getting the timing wrong and meeting her after the reading outside the Crescent Hotel. She seemed to be energised by the reading, but was still concerned that I had missed it; it was her concern for others that meant I didn't have sufficient opportunity to delve, to find out more about her. Her biographical note at the front of Ringing the Migrants refers to her being a teacher of Speech and Drama, and having been an infant teacher and counselled delinquent children. By its publication date, she had had a radio play performed, and an impressive list of poetry magazine publications.

By late 77, my chaotic domestic circumstances had become more so, and I felt compelled to leave Martina, the house in Eldon Mount and Leeds, for a small holding in West Cork, Ireland, and thereafter to another in County Leitrim. Ringing the Migrants travelled with me, its cover soaking up the damp of cottages without damp courses. Jane and I would exchange Christmas cards, and after moving to London in 1980, she came to see me leaving a signed collection for my mnemonic clutter: To find ourselves (Seven Arches Press, 1983)

Bruce-thank you for lunch. Lovely to see you again, best wish for all you do, Love Jane 24.6.85

During that hour or so of catch up, and lunch, I think there was bread, cheese and salad, but it was definitely on the table that it is now downstairs.

To find ourselves is a beautifully produced book, designed and printed by Arc and Throstle Press, with a cover in pale green matted card and a linocut of a canoeist on a lake. Its pages are of heavy cream paper and they still retain the smell of a new book. While the poetry publishing industry is haunted by the spectre of e-books, web-publishing and further Arts Council cuts, I believe that the revival of the artist book/poetry book can make such art objects memorable, including the circumstances around their acquisition, which in my case is a must-do.

In To find ourselves Jane explores her themes more intently than in Ringing the Migrants, but the quirky imagery is still there, as is the unbounded optimism and an intuitive sense of the music of language. Sometimes the piling up of striking images asks that fewer of them be explored and developed, sometimes the rose coloured spectacles weigh heavy, but this doesn't detract from her extraordinary eye. From Autumn Evening:

Collapsed apples are trickling wasps and moulds
are whitening tiny orchards of their own
in pin-prick blossoms on their sodden folds.

With Love (Cragg Poets 12), "Bruce with love from Jane 29.3.87" marks her night on the Axminster and our last meeting. She was either going to or coming from an event at the National Theatre and the Leeds timetable wasn't obliging. In the cover photo, she is more comfortable, sitting in an armchair, at home I think, and looking out of the window imbibing the world. Some of that world is at rest as in Garden at Dusk:

I have come home; I could not feel so deep
An affinity with things that creep
Under the leaves, with the leaves themselves, with the earth,
With the flowers and grass, if otherwise

or it is one of instability as with The Pickets, a poem that declines to be vociferously political but carefully reflects on the humanity of the striking miners and the ultimate fate of their pits:

... but summer
Was cogged into winter, and when the days got light,
Only the colliery wheel, unlocked again,
Turned on its bitter tripod in the dark.

A Christmas or so later, there was no card, and in 1990, I think, on a visit to Leeds, I called in to see her with an old Leeds friend. We knocked, knocked again, peered through the front bay window, sufficient to attract the attention of a neighbour. I asked about Jane and it transpired she had passed away a year before.

Losing friends is hard, harder when the knowledge is delayed and the loss mixes with regret at not staying in touch. This year I learnt through reading a back issue of Poetry Review that my first publisher, John Fairfax, had died in 1997. Losing both a mentor and friend, and a publisher, without being aware of it must seem like carelessness.

PS Dave Stringer and his partner now live in Cornwall and he edits ‘Phoenix Poetry magazine, a web based magazine of poetry on spiritual/ecological themes.

PPS Jane's first pamphlet not referred to above was Hooligan Canute and other poems selected by Colin Simms (York poetry series #8, 1973)

Bruce Barnes

Bruce Barnes moved to Bradford from North London in 1996 and became active in Interchange Writers, and Bradford Poetry Workshop which now forms part of the Beehive's program of events.

ABC Wednesday: V is for Victoria Station

2011-06-15T00:00:00.000+01:00

Platforms 1 & 2 at Victoria station, Manchester as seen from the end of the platform for the Metrolink tram to Bury.

See the coloured version on Geograph.

Looking in the opposite direction going out of the station we see the Peninsula building, an office block in what has become known as the "Northern Quarter".

For more V posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday: U is for University Union

2011-06-08T00:00:00.000+01:00

I was Undecided what to post here this week and Ummed and ahhed for ages before Unearthing this photograph from 1966 of St John's Street, Glasgow. It shows the Student's Union at the University of Strathclyde.

Compare it if you will with Thomas Nugent's photograph taken in 2011 and found on Geograph.

© Copyright Thomas Nugent and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

For more U posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday: T is for Tan Yard Brow & A Google Streetview Car

2011-06-01T00:00:00.001+01:00

Tan Yard Brow in the East End of Manchester used to be an ancient North-South route, but nowadays it is a badly made up road. Some weeks ago I was walking down Tan Yard Brow when a Google car passed by filming for Streetview.

It had to crawl along as due to the state of the pavement and roadworks along one side pedestrians were forced to walk in the roadway. That gave me plenty of time in which to photograph the car. Tan Yard Brow is blocked off to vehicular traffic just around the bend where the road crosses the Gore Brook. In this direction it has long been restricted in order to prevent the route being used as a "rat run".

The Google car had to turn round at the bottom and here we see it turning left into Hyde Road. Right turns are not allowed due to the traffic jams it would cause near the busy junction by Debdale Park.

For more T posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Anne Lewis-Smith (14th April 1925 to 11th May 2011)

2011-05-27T13:30:00.000+01:00

Anne Lewis-Smith in her garden at Peppard Common, circa 1973
© Gerald England.
I first met Anne Lewis-Smith in 1970 when she lived in Northamptonshire and was chairing World Poetry Day. She'd submitted some poems for my new magazine Headland and appropriately the first poem in the first issue was her poem First.

I was asked by other guests at the Manor House in Kingscliffe whether I was a poet or balloonist as these were Anne's two great passions in life.

She later moved, first to Peppard Common (Oxfordshire) and then to Newport (Pembrokeshire/Dyfed) and I visited her and Peter (whom she had married in 1944) at both locations.

I reviewed her last collection Red Shoes here in November 2008 and her earlier Every Seventh Wave published by Oversteps on NHI Review.

Her poem April Comet can be read on the Zimmerzine Archive.

Charlotte McEvoy 's obituary on the website of the British Balloon Museum & Library focusses on her ballooning acheivements

A celebration of Anne's life will be held at a service in Clifton College Chapel, Bristol BS8 3JH on Monday 4th July at 11am.

In lieu of flowers, donations to the Paul Sartori Foundation can be made via Just Giving.

ABC Wednesday: S is for Stop & Rest in Stalybridge

2011-05-25T00:00:00.000+01:00

Stop and Rest is the name of a public house in Stalybridge.

I don't drink so cannot tell you what it is like inside. A lot of pubs in Stalybridge have changed their names in recent years and quite a few (as elsewhere) have closed down. There are plenty left though including both the one with the shortest name and the one the longest name. I have photographed the former but not the latter. That'll have to wait for another day.

For more S posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday: R is forRealm of Telescopes

2011-05-18T00:00:00.004+01:00

This haiga featuring my father at Jodrell Bank in 1971 is my contribution to Realm of Telescopes, an international cosmopoetic essay about telescopes centered around the SARM pilgrimage to GranTeCan.

Mike Simmons, founder/president of Astronomers Without Borders and chair of Global Astronomy Month writes

The great observatories of the world have always been places of pilgrimage for scientists and enthusiasts. They are the temples of wisdom of the modern age, where knowledge is captured in nothing less than the light of the Universe. Those who visit them are always humbled, sometimes by the technology and sheer mass of the huge instruments, other times by being in the presence of the seekers of the truths that the Universe hides. Sometimes those seekers are the "ghosts" of our history - long-gone predecessors who spent their lives building that knowledge a few photons at a time.

This is one of six webpages that have been compiled by the Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy and coordinated by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe and Valentin Grigor.

EXPEDITION TO EL GRAN TELESCOPIO CANARIAS is based on a SARM and Astro Travels expedition in October 2010, and was open to ulterior submissions from those who visited or dream to visit the biggest optical telescope in the world and the largest international concentration of telescopes in the northern hemisphere, placed in the Canary island of La Palma.

TELESCOPES IN TIME AND SPACE is an astropoem by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe in which he visits 21 telescopes.

THE COSMIC BEAUTY OF LA PALMA contains a wealth of photographs of their expedition to the island.

THE REALM OF TELESCOPES is a collection of personal contributions that adds to our collective knowledge and perception of great observatories.

HAPPY OBSERVATIONAL NIGHTS IN LA PALMA provides us with just what the title says it does.

POST-SCRIPTUM celebrates Global Astronomy Month, April 2011.

BBC News: Jodrell Bank observatory has been responsible for some hugely important astronomical discoveries since it was established after the Second World War, but there have been doubts over its future in recent years due to constant funding worries. Now it has been selected as the headquarters for a £1.3bn project to build the world's biggest radio telescope. The new headquarters at Jodrell Bank will open in January 2012, superseding the existing project office at the University of Manchester.

For more R posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday:Q is for Queensferry

2011-05-11T00:00:00.000+01:00

The railway bridge over the River Forth taken from the foreshore at South Queensferry in 1966.

After publishing a version of this photograph under the title Forth Railway Bridge. A correspondent wrote

having worked in South Queensferry for over thirty years, I would be lynched if I had referred to the bridge as anything other than the Forth Bridge. According to locals, there is the Forth Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge. Even "South Queensferry" is a bit of a misnomer as there isn't a town by that name, only "Queensferry" but ask anyone from "the village" where they live and it's always, "South Queensferry"!

I would have thought that would be for fear of being thought of as coming from North Queensferry, but as we say down here

there's nowt so queer as folk.

For more "Q" posts visit ABC Wednesday

ABC WednesdayP is for Palechora

2011-05-04T00:00:00.000+01:00

Paleochora is located in the Prefecture of Hania, on the south-west coast of Crete, on a small peninsula lying in between two picturesque gulfs. The waves of the Libyan Sea lap at it, and it has quite rightly been called the Bride of the Libyan Sea and the Land of the sun. It constitutes the most southerly point of Greece and the most south-easterly point of the European Union. This is where Europe ends.

We visited Crete in 2006 and took the opportunity to see the Southern Mediterranean. The busy streets of Palechora with steep pavement sides weren't designed for wheelchair users but at least no one was travelling very fast.

A poster by the pier was advertising a poetry reading in Greek and English. The white van parked on the pier was our accessible taxi.

For more about our visit to Crete see Crete 2006.

For more information on Palechora see Palechora holidays.

For more P posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday: O is for Orange County

2011-04-27T00:00:00.000+01:00

Orange County lies next to Los Angeles in California. We visited there for a week in 1999. This fountain was inside a mall in Tustin.

Our host was Viki, a writer whom we had met through the internet. She and her husband Mike invited us into their home and made us very welcome.

The last of these three photographs is of the Crystal Cathedral another photograph of which I featured on Saturday under Weekend Reflections.

For more O posts see ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday:N is for New Zealand

2011-04-20T00:00:00.000+01:00

It is 10 years since we visited New Zealand. You can read my account of the trip at Land of the Long White Cloud.

When the earthquake hit Christchurch we were very upset, especially as one of our neighbours had returned from a three month visit to their daughter in Christchurch only the day before. They were still getting over jetlag when the news broke.

We stayed at the Heritage Hotel in Cathedral Square. The Heritage Hotels website states

Updated 14 April 2011 - Following the February earthquake, Heritage Christchurch is not currently taking bookings and at this time a reopening date is not able to be provided. A cordon remains in place around the CBD area and as such this date is contingent on the lifting of access restrictions. Further information regarding the cordon will continue to be updated on this site as it is advised. All Heritage Christchurch staff and guests evacuated the hotel safely at the time of the earthquake.

The resiliance and spirit of people as they rebuild their city is inspiring.

Michelle's blog, Christchurch Daily Photo provides a great continuing insight to life in the city, whilst photographs of the damage to the cathedral and latest information can be found on the Christchurch Cathedral website.

For more N posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Weekend Reflections: Crystal Cathedral

2011-04-16T00:00:00.000+01:00

When I mention to James about a glass church in Orange County, he reminded me that it was the Crystal Cathedral so I went back to my archives and dug out this photograph as a contribution to his Weekend Reflections.

See more of my California photographs.

ABC Wednesday:M is for Mabel

2011-04-13T00:00:00.000+01:00

I recently came across this photograph taken in November 1982.

Left to right are Loris Essary, Christine England, Mabel Ferrett, Mabel McGowan and Fred Schofield.

Loris was editor at the time of the US magazine "Interstate" and called on us during a visit to Europe. We held a small meeting of the Pennine Poets at our house and Fred Schofield from Leeds brought over the two Mabels for the evening.

Fred Schofield founded the Yorkshire/Lancashire haiku group in 1995, and is presently the haibun editor for Presence.

I published a collection of poems by Mabel McGowan, "Testament to a Life" which includes the poem Circle.

Read my account of Mabel Ferrett's life on Ackworth born, gone West and an obituary by Pauline Kirk in The Guardian.

This second photograph was taken in 1986 and shows Mabel Ferrett in the garden of her house on Vernon Road, Heckmondwike.

Read her poem about and my photographs of Hartshead Church.

For more M posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Online Translation

2011-04-10T10:00:00.000+01:00

On my Collected Poetical Works blog I recently posted a Valentine's day haiku.

just a single dove
atop our back garden tree
on Valentine's day

The poem has been translated by four Russian translators on the Version website.

I thought it would be interesting to see how they back-translated and I found the Paralink translation site which offers two translations of any text.

The results were

просто одинокий голубь
на верхушке нашего черного садового дерева
день Валентина
translates as
Simply lonely pigeon
On a top of our black garden tree
Day of Valentine
or (via Google translation)
just a lone dove on top of our black wood garden Valentine's Day
голубь - одна штука
на обуглившемся дереве в нашем саду
в Валентинов день
translates as
The pigeon - one piece
On the charred tree in ours to a garden
In Valentines day
or (via Google translation)
dove - one piece at charred tree in our garden in the Valentine's Day
стонет белый голубочек
на черном-черном дереве -
Валентинов день
translates as
Groans white голубочек
On black-ebony-
Valentines day
or (via Google translation)
moaning white dove on a black-black tree - Valentine's Day
...а всего-то одинокий голубок
на верхушке чёрной яблони в саду
да Валентинов День
translates as
... And only lonely голубок
On a top of a black apple-tree in a garden
Yes Valentinov Den
or (via Google translation)
... And just a lone dove on top of a black apple in the garden so Valentine's Day

Quite fascinating to see the variations. Do they understand Valentine's day in Russia?

ABC Wednesday: Lis for Lealholm

2011-04-06T00:00:00.000+01:00

Lealholm is a little village on the River Esk near Whitby, Yorkshire.

My photograph of the stepping stones was taken in August 1962.

I have no idea who the people in the photograph are.

For more L posts visit ABC Wednesday

ABC Wednesday: K is for Kings Road, Audenshaw

2011-03-30T00:00:00.000+01:00

Kings Road was constructed as an access during the building of the Audenshaw reservoirs in the 1880s. Kings Farm lay to the East (left) of Kings Road under the shadow of the #3 reservoir. When the M60 motorway was built, the #3 reservoir was reduced to allow the motorway to come through. The motorway embankment seen here is where the reservoir embankment used to be. When this photograph was taken in May 2009 the land on the right was "earmarked for development".

By the time I revisited in May 2010 construction of an estate of new houses had already begun. The rest of the photographs in the post are from a walk taken a few days ago starting in the opposite direction along Kings Road.

Another 12 months on and the new houses can be seen from near Fairfield Golf Course.

This shot shows the strip of land between Kings Road and the M60. Some 22 acres of land, originally reservoir embankment were used for grazing cattle.

On the West side of Kings Road lies Fairfield Golf Club and Gorton Upper Reservoir. on the other side of the reservoir lies the Wright Robinson Sport College. The school which preceded the college was built in 1961 on land previously part of the golf club. In compensation Manchester Corporation Water Works took 50 acres of land from Kings Road Farm and allocated it the golf club.

Cornhill Lane leads off Kings Road by the side of an electricity substation. To the North of the lane is the Eastern section of Fairfield golf course. Most of the land South of Cornhill Lane is occupied by Denton golf course.

Kings Road ends when it meets Debdale Lane where it crosses the South-eastern corner of Gorton Upper Reservoir.

I wrote about Gorton Lower Reservoir in February 2009 and again in October 2009. There is more I've learnt recently about these reservoirs but it will have to wait for another day.

More information about Kings Road Farm can be found on the Audenshaw Local History website.

You can view the 26 photographs that make up my walk last Monday (with a map and slideshow available) on the Geo-trip website.

More K posts can be found at ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday: J is for the January 2011 Partial Solar Eclipse

2011-03-23T00:00:00.002Z

The story is told on the Cosmopoetry website by SARM's Astropoetry Master Club and Friends.

On January 4, 2011 the old continent and large zones of Asia and Africa were spoiled by such an eclipse. although the sky did not break anywhere the winter clouds, an entire world vibrated for this phenomenon.

Moon and Venus over Targoviste © Valentin Grigore

*****

A Jubilee For The Foucault Pendulum
by Dimitrie Olenici

I made a jubilee experiment with the Foucault Pendulum at Iasi University, 50 years after a similar one made by Ghe. Jeverdan, Ghe. Rusu and V. Antonescu to the solar eclipse of February 15, 1961 when they discovered that the oscillation period of a pendulum changes during an eclipse. My experiment, made by a pendulum of 17.78 meters installed in an inferior room, confirmed their results one more time. A high moment, although I observed this eclipse at the subsoil.

*****

The Partial Solar Eclipse In Europe
by David Asher (Northern Ireland, UK, astronomer at Armagh Observatory, famous meteor shower predictor, discoverer of asteroids, co-star in Hollywood movie Armageddon)

At dawn on the New Year's fourth day
The sun was part eaten away.
The eclipse was quite deep,
But I was asleep -
What will other astronomers say?

*****

Tanka
by Gerald England (UK, Editor of New Hope International, honorary member of the International Writers and Artists Association, laureate of the Ted Slade Award)

an eclipse tonight
posted a friend on Facebook
but by then too late
out of my window blackness
others' visions seen online

*****

Pse 2011 In Magurele (Romania)
photograph © Andreea Fazacas

*****

Brief Escape From A Hysterical Town: Bucharest, January 4, 2011
haiku by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe

Over a park
the eclipse like a
bird of fire.

*****

Hanne’S Object
or
A Parallel Thought During A Partial Solar Eclipse When The Sky Is Cloudy
by Steve Sneyd (UK, director of Hilltop Press and editor of Data Dump, laureate of the Peterson Trophy)

You praise blue gas ball
galaxy - big 10° K hot
yet no stars in it to
heat this mystery you smile
"as puzzling as me to you"

*****

Vampires And Eclipses
by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe

Dracula is a vampire,
said someone,
falsifying the historical truth.

In this Romanian brave ruler's Capital,
Targoviste,
no observer of the 2011 partial solar eclipse
saw Vlad Tepes Draculea
(his real name)
eating our star.
Only the Moon's "body check"
to the Sun.

*****

Eclipse Among Snowflakes In Targoviste
photo © Cristian Daniel Grigore (age17);
haiku by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe

among smowflakes
which are never twins
another unique eclipse

*****

So many potential observers were frustrated by the weather conditions but they manage to contribute some superb photographs nonetheless. The above are just a small sample. See them all at European Winter Astro-Story Of The Partial Solar Eclipse 2011.

For more J posts visit ABC Wednesday.

For more views of the heavens visit Skywatch Friday.

ABC WednesdayI is for the Irishman in Stavanger

2011-03-16T00:00:00.000Z

They get everywhere don't they?

This one is in Stavanger, Norway and I discovered it during our 2005 Cruise.

The pub was opened in 1991 and is home to the Harbour Folk Band.

Stavanger has two daily photo blogs, one by Tanty and another by Gunn.

Tomorrow is St Patrick's Day so we are having a bit of party; we've ordered 30 portions of Irish Stew from the Hot Crumpet. We are having apple pie afterwards which we believe is a traditional Irish dessert, but ours will be curtesy of Mr. Kipling!

For more I posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC WednesdayH is for Hartshead Church

2011-03-09T00:00:00.002Z

HARTSHEAD CHURCH

Stone walls, four-square,
steep-sloping roof,
a bell that marks
the passing days,
that draws us from
our separate ways
and tolls the times
for praise and prayer.

Here Anglian slabe
and Norman lord
forgot their enmity
and fear,
in common faith
fashioning here
arch and altar,
chancel, nave;

and where they trod
the hallowed way
and kept the camdles
burning bright,
through that same arch,
by that same light
we, too re-search
the runes of God.

© Mabel Ferrett (7. 6. 1993)

It is believed that the original Hartshead Church was built sometime before 1120 AD. There was a major repair of the church around 1662 when the marvellous Norman pillars were taken down and lighter, wooden pillars erected in their place. One portion though was hollowed out and used as a font and the date 1662 inscribed thereon. That building lasted over 200 years. Sir Stephen Glynne in 1859 wrote

A small church, much modernised... It has a nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. The original arcades that divided the aisles have been replaced by modern wooden columns and almost all the windows have been mutilated and open with sashes.

In 1880 the church was reduced almost to its foundations. The gallery and low, flagged ceiling was pulled out to reveal the beauty of the Norman chancel and tower arch. The wooden pillars were replaced with stone. The "cottage windows" were replaced with suitable designed windows. Some of the window glass incorporated is believed to have come from Cologne Cathedral.

More recent renovations have seen a new organ installed in 1899, the church clock in 1912, electric light in 1927 and in 1966 the gravestones to the left of the path leading to the south door of the church were removed and a pleasant green lawn laid in their place.

Inside the churchyard to the right of the main gate is where mortally wounded Luddites are believed to have been buried, secretly, at night, following their fatal encounter at Rawfolds Mill, Liversedge, on April 11th 1812.

The above information is extracted from Mabel Ferrett's booklet "A Short History of Hartshead Church"

Mabel herself was buried at Hartshead Church on Monday 7th February 2011.

Read my account of her life on Ackworth born, gone West and an obituary by Pauline Kirk in The Guardian.

Other obits can be found in The Huddersfield Examiner and The Yorkshire Post. She is mentioned also in the Brontë blog.

For more H posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC WednesdayG is for Gatley Green

2011-03-02T00:00:00.000Z

Gatley Green is a conservation area in Gatley Village, Cheshire.

These photographs were taken last July.

For more G posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC WednesdayF is for Flamanville

2011-02-23T00:00:00.000Z

Flying back from Jersey last year we flew with Flybe over Flamanville in France.

Flamanville is a commune in the Manche department in north-western France.

The Flamanville Nuclear Power Plant was established there in the 1980s, with two PWR reactors of 1300 MWe each, which were put into operation in 1986 and 1987.

Flamanville has been selected for the installation of the first French EPR reactor (which will be Flamanville's third reactor) near the two existing ones. This facility was to be operational in 2012 but at the early planning and permission stage objections were raised by the neighbouring States of Jersey and the start date has been put back to 2014.

More information about the town can be found on its website.

Information about the reactor can be gleaned from the Power Technology website.

Another aerial photograph from further North can be found on sithenah.

More F posts can be found on ABC Wednesday.

ABC WednesdayE is for Eclipse Watchers

2011-02-16T00:00:00.000Z

Do you remember where you were on August 11th 1999?

This was the day when a total eclipse of the sun was visible in the UK. I was at a meeting in offices on Oldham Street, Hyde. A few minutes before the event we took a break and went out into the street to witness the event.

It was quite cloudy so we didn't get a really clear view and you had to have a pair of special eclipse-viewing spectacles to avoid damaging your eyes.

I just pointed my camera in the right direction and hoped for the best.

This is the best I managed.

For more E posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Anchor Bridge, Brighouse

2011-02-13T00:00:00.000Z

Last Monday on my way to Mabel Ferrett's funeral, I stopped off in Brighouse for an hour.

I wandered around the town taking a few photographs whilst waiting for my next bus. This is the Calder & Hebble Navigation from Briggate looking at Anchor Bridge.

It was only when I later downloaded my photographs onto the computer that I noticed the large congregation of ducks assembled between the bridges.

For more Sunday Bridges visit San Francisco Bay Daily Photo.

ABC WednesayD is for Disruption on Droylsden Road

2011-02-09T00:00:00.000Z

I've missed a couple of weeks having been busy getting to grips with a new computer, but I'm a bit more sorted again now.

This is Droylsden Road, Audenshaw from the top deck of a #216 bus from Ashton under Lyne to Manchester, last September.

A new Metrolink tramline is being built through Droylsden. For part of its route the trams will run down the middle of the main road. The construction is therefore causing much disruption.

I did have this and another photograph from further down the line earmarked for the M post last round but chose to go with something else on the day.

You can see more of the disruption in my photograph on sithenah.

For more information on the line itself see http://www.lrta.org/Manchester/ashton.html.

Visit ABC Wednesday for more D posts.

Mabel Ferrett (30th April 1917 - 28th January 2011)

2011-02-02T14:20:00.004Z

Mabel Ferrett, her late husband Harold and her surviving son John have been good friends with my wife and I over the years. I first met Mabel at a meeting of the Pennine Poets at Elland Library where it had been established by Joan Lee. Later the regular venue was Mabel's home in Heckmondwike, but we also visited her on many occasions purely as friends dropping by.

Ian McMillan writing in the Yorkshire Post described her as

a cornerstone of West Yorkshire poetry for decades

and elsewhere in the Yorkshire Post as

a dynamic powerhouse of a woman and an evangelist for poetry.

As well as a poet and editor she was a journalist and historian and became a Life President of the Spen Valley Historical Society.

Her book After Passchendaele is a fascinating account of mainly her early life. She didn't like school but liked her teacher Miss Scott. Mabel became a teacher and was evacuated in the War from Leeds to Lincoln.

Inside my copy of the book is a four page letter in her, by then, barely readable scrawl. Dated 18th December 2003 she apologies for not writing sooner after my telephone call a fortnight previously. I had rung on the night when 19 people had squashed into her front room at the launch.

Although by then transport difficulties made it impossible for us to visit we still kept in touch by phone every few months.

In her review of Imaginary Gates on NHI Review Mandy Smith writes

She is the wise woman who knows there are two sides to everything, and many of these poems explore the double-faceted nature of existence.

She was indeed a most wise woman and an extraordinary person.

I published several of her poems over the years and three can be found online.

Read Hope is a Sharpened Axe on Pickings.

Read Oppression on Pickings.

Read Chequer-Board on the Aabye's Baby archive.

In Death of a Neighbour Mabel writes

Now she is gone where all is ignorance.
The black hearse waits
It is her funeral.
The sun evokes the yellow crocuses,
birds sing but that is all.
Today I pull my curtains back alone.

Bibliography:

1956 Borough of Spenborough Official Guide (Pyramid Press)
1956 The Lynx-Eyed Strangers (Outposts)
1965 The Angry Men (E J Arnold)
1971 The Tall Tower (Platform)
1973 Shirley Country (Hub)
1975 Years of the Right Hand (Hub)
1978 The Brontës in the Spen Valley (Kirklees Cultural Services) extended edn 1997
1984 A Question of Menhirs (Littlewood)
1986 Humber Bridge: Selected Poems, 1955–85 (Littlewood)
1987 The Taylors of the Red House (Kirklees Library)
1993 A Short History of Hartshead (Hartshead Church)
1996 Scathed Earth (Poetry Salzburg)
2001 Imaginary Gates (Fighting Cock Press)
2003 After Passchendaele (Fighting Cock Press)
2006 Spirit & Emotion (Fighting Cock Press)

After Passechendaele appears to be available on download at World of Books [link not given] Beware the file is infected with malware!!

Mabel's funeral will be at Hartshead Church on Monday 7th February 2011 at 1 p.m. I hope to be there.

ABC WednesayA is for Arran

2011-01-19T00:00:00.002Z

The island of Arran lies off the Ayrshire coast. This is the view from near Ardrossan where a ferry sails to Brodick.

The A841 encircles the island going North from Brodick to Sannox before cutting through Glen Chalmadale.

At the Northwest corner we come to Lochranza with its ancient castle.

Turning South the road became single track with passing places in June 2004 when these photographs were taken. I recently looked at this road in Streetview and it seems to have been improved now.

The Southwest of the island around Blackwaterfoot is more rural. This is looking back towards the mountainous North of the island.

Having rounded the South end of the island the road heads North towards Lamlash Bay.

For regular views across to Arran from the Ayrshire coast see Bill Anderson's Ayrshire + Photographs.

Visit ABC Wednesday for more A posts.

ABC Wednesday: Z Zz Zzz Zzzz Zzzz

2011-01-12T00:00:00.000Z

I found this sleeping duck at Lion Park on Jersey.

More photographs from the island can be found on Jersey 2010.

Visit ABC Wednesday for more Z posts.

ABC Wednesday:Y is for Yachts

2011-01-05T00:00:00.000Z

I found these yachts parked by the road opposite St Catherine's Sailing Club on Jersey.

More photographs from the island can be found on Jersey 2010.

Visit ABC Wednesday for more Y posts.

Haiga for Leslie Moon

2011-01-03T21:00:00.003Z

The people at One Stop Poetry are featuring haiku on their site.

They reproduced my article How to Write Haiku with permission.

They also credited me with three haiku I DID NOT WRITE! I've since discovered that the mis-attributed work is by Don Baird.

Anyhow readers were encouraged to use Leslie Moon's photo as an inspiration to write a haiku so here is mine combined with Leslie's photo to form a haiga.

glimmer of light
behind dark clouds
a storm brews

© gerald england

ABC Wednesday: X

2010-12-29T00:00:00.000Z

ten kisses
mark the spot
unknown

© 2010 gerald england

Visit ABC Wednesday for more X posts.

Weekend Reflections in a bauble

2010-12-25T00:00:00.000Z

The classic self-portrait in a bauble is something I've attempted before but with no great success. This monochrome image is the best I've achieved this year.

I wish all my visitors a Merry Christmas.

For more weekend reflections visit Newtown Area Photo.

ABC Wednesday:W is for Winter Wood

2010-12-22T00:00:00.000Z

This was the view through my window last Saturday morning.

Please note I may not be too active online for a while as my computer was taken away today for repair. For the time being I am borrowing my wife's computer. It runs a lot slower than mine though and I've no access to all my photographs and data (although they have all been backed-up on to DVDs).

Visit ABC Wednesday for more W posts.

ABC Wednesday V is for Vladimir Yarets

2010-12-15T00:00:00.000Z

Walking through St Helier, Jersey, I came across this motorcyle and thought to myself, "I've seen that somewhere before".

The motorbike belonging to Vladimir Yarets, a native of Minsk (Belarus). He is aiming at a Guinness Book world record to be the first deaf person to do a round the world trip on a motorbike. In 2007 he was in Auckland, New Zealand and I remembered it from the post on Auckland Daily Photo.

His round-the-world trip was started on the 27th of May 2000. Currently he has traveled through more than 69 countries and covered a total distance exceeding 302,279 km. More information on Vladimir Yarets' website.

More photographs from my own trip can be found on Jersey 2010.

Visit ABC Wednesday for more V posts.

Shamrock #16

2010-12-13T21:30:00.000Z

A new issue of Shamrock is now online. Shamrock (No 16) has a big selection of Hungarian haiku in English translation, as well as an international section, an essay on haiku and copyright, as well as a haibun and a book review. It also features the winning poems from the IHS International Haiku Competition 2010.

Well worth reading.

Shadow Shot Sunday:Stockport Bear Pit

2010-12-12T00:00:00.000Z

A cold Monday morning in Stockport. A strong sun casts low shadows. In the background is Mersey Square, the front end of the Merseyway Shopping Centre built over the culverted infant River Mersey. In the foreground are the icy steps leading into the bear pit which overlooks the emergence of the Mersey. Bear baiting was abolished in the 1830s but prior to that bears were kept in large caves cut into the sandstone at the foot of High Bank Side.

For a more extensive and coloured view of this scene see Geograph.

For more shadow shots visit Hey Harriet.

Weekend Reflections: Santa in Distress

2010-12-11T00:00:00.000Z

I was on the bus into Manchester when I spotted Santa in Gorton.

For more weekend reflections visit Newtown Area Photo.

ABC Wednesday:U is for Upper Brook Street Unitarian Chapel

2010-12-08T00:00:00.000Z

The Unitarian Chapel, Upper Brook Street, Manchester, a Grade II* listed building, was recently described by the Victorian Society as one of the ten most endangered Victorian buildings in England & Wales.

The former Unitarian Chapel has been owned by Manchester City Council since the 1970s. Opened in 1839 it is the first known example of a Gothic nonconformist chapel and believed to have been an early collaboration between Sir Charles Barry and AWN Pugin before they worked together on the Palace of Westminster. Yet despite its national significance, the chapel has been neglected for decades, resulting in 2005 in the removal of its roof. The chapel is now open to the elements and largely a ruin.

It was constructed between 1837 and 1839 out of sandstone, with a slate roof. It is in English neogothic style. The building has seven narrow bays, with buttresses and a lancet in each bay. The west end has a giant moulded archway, with an arched doorway at the ground floor with a window above. On the east end there is a rose window. The corners are square, with pinnacles. The inside of the chapel had galleries on three sides, and a ribbed, vaulted ceiling. The attached two-storey Sunday School is in the same style as the chapel, and has a triple-gabled north side, with large arched windows on the first floor. It also has a canted apse on the west end, and a lean-to porch.

The chapel was originally constructed for the Unitarians and was used for burial rites until at least 1857 (although the chapel has no graveyard), as well as baptisms until at least 1912, and marriages until at least 1916.

The chapel was sold in 1928 and subsequently used as a Welsh Baptist Chapel. It was then used as a Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall in the early 1970s. The most recent use of both the chapel and former Sunday School was for the Islamic Academy of Manchester between 1974 and 2006, when it was used as a mosque, teaching centre and for outreach work in the Asian community. The chapel is currently vacant, whilst the Islamic Academy still occupy the Sunday School.

Keith Williamson was there the same day as I but unbeknown to each other and took this view from the top floor of the Aquatics Centre Car Park.

More information and photos can be found on Wikipedia.

Visit ABC Wednesday for more U posts.

ABC WednesdayT is for Todmorden Town Hall

2010-12-01T00:00:00.000Z

Todmorden Town Hall was designed by John Gibson and opened in 1875. It straddles Walsden Water, a tributary of the River Calder, and was situated in both Lancashire and Yorkshire until the administrative county boundary was moved in January 1888.

This view down Halifax Road from St Mary's churchyard shows the Southern aspect. One interesting external feature of the town hall is the pediment. The fine carved stonework has two central female figures on a pedestal. The left hand one represents Lancashire (cotton spinning and weaving industries) and the right hand one Yorkshire (engineering and agriculture).

This second view shows the Western side on Burnley Road towards the market and bus station. Plans have recently been approved for an extensive refurbishment of the exterior and interior of the building and turning the basement into a café and heritage exhibition space.

Looking back from the market we see that the Northern aspect of the Town Hall has a contrasting semi-circular shape. St Mary's church can be seen on the right.

For a wider, coloured view see Geograph.

Visit ABC Wednesday for more T posts.

ABC WednesdayS is for Spring Gardens

2010-11-24T00:00:00.000Z

Spring Gardens is at the heart of the Victorian business centre of Manchester.

For a closer view of the top of the buildings see sithenah.

For more S posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Shadow Shot Sunday:United Nations Tree

2010-11-21T00:00:00.000Z

These shadows are mostly belonging to a tree planted in the Sir Winston Churchill Memorial Park at St Brelade by Sir Robert Le Masurier D.S.C. Bailiff of Jersey on 24th October 1970 to mark the 25th Anniversary of the Founding of the United Nations.

You can see the whole tree on my Jersey 2010 website where you'll find a selection of the best 55 photographs taken on our recent visit.

See more Shadow Shot Sunday posts at Hey Harriet.

ABC Wednesday R is for Reddish South Station

2010-11-17T00:00:00.000Z

Originally Reddish South station consisted of two island platforms with four tracks. One of these track beds has been sold off, while another has been filled in. The second island is now inaccessible as there are no longer steps down to it. According to the 2007/8 National rail figures, Reddish South had only 47 entries and exits in a 12 month period, making it the UK's least used railway station.

Reddish South together with Denton railway station on the Stockport to Stalybridge line are famous for having one train a week (the "Denton flyer") in one direction only. This means they are technically still open.

Most maps of the Greater Manchester Rail Network do not include Reddish South and Denton.

The "Denton flyer" is what is known as a "Parliamentary ghost", a train that operates a Parliamentary service - that is to say a token service to a given station, thus maintaining a legal fiction that either the station in question is in fact open, whereas in reality the train operating company in question has almost completely abandoned the station. These services run at all only because rail transport is heavily regulated in the United Kingdom and it is therefore considerably cheaper for a train operating company to run a parliamentary service than it is to go through the full legal process of applying for a station or line to be permanently closed.

Network Rail, in their Route Utilisation Strategy (RUS) for the North West, were proposing closure of Reddish South and Denton stations and withdrawal of the remaining passenger service. The line itself would remain open for freight and diverted passenger workings. However, a new open-access operator called Grand Union had proposed using the line for services between London and Bradford via the West Coast Main Line, using Guide Bridge station as a stop. This proposal has since been dropped.

Friends of Reddish South Station have been running a campaign to bring more passenger trains onto this line since 2008. The object of the campaign is to secure a frequent service running between Stockport and Manchester Victoria.

For more R posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Shadow Shot Sunday:St Brelade's Bay Promenade

2010-11-14T00:00:00.000Z

These shadows were cast alongside the promenade at St Brelade's Bay, Jersey.

You can now find the best 55 photographs from our recent trip to Jersey on Jersey 2010.

For more shadow shots visit Hey Harriet.

Weekend Reflections:Recollection at Gorey

2010-11-13T00:00:00.000Z

This is part of an ornamental fountain designed by Cyril Warren in 1976. A symbolic keel recalls the 19th century shipyards of Gorey on the East Coast of Jersey.

Engraved on the sides of the keel are the names of 16 of the largest ships built at Gorey when ship construction was a thriving industry in the area during the 18th century. The idea of the fountain is to recall those days. The keel is laid on bricks possibly as old as Gorey's shipbuilding industry. They were taken from the old prison at Newgate Street. More information can be found on the website of the Société Jersiaise.

You can now find the best 55 photographs from our recent trip to Jersey on Jersey 2010.

For more weekend reflections visit Newtown Area Photo.

ABC Wednesday Q is for Queen Inn, Ashton under Lyne

2010-11-10T00:00:00.000Z

I first noticed the Queen Inn at Ashton under Lyne earlier this year. I noted that it was "Under New Management" and it looked in good order.

I was especially impressed by this plaster-work portrait of the Queen. I don't know the technical term for it.

Some weeks ago I was again in Ashton and was sad to see it boarded and shuttered up. I've discovered it was listed as being a gay-friendly bar. I trust that wasn't the reason for its closure. It is up for sale at £120,000 + VAT.

For more Q posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday P is for Piglets

2010-11-03T00:00:00.000Z

On our way down to Noirmont Point we passed a pig farm.

I don't know what the breed is but I'm assured they make delicious sausages.

For more P posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday O is for Over the Edge of England

2010-10-27T00:00:00.000+01:00

On the 2nd October 2010 we finally flew on Flybe from Manchester to Jersey.

We should have gone in April but our flight was cancelled at the last minute due to the volcanic ash cloud. The airline refunded us less a booking and credit card fee of £12, but our travel insurance failed to pay up for the cancelled holiday.

However the Maison des Landes Hotel moved our booking to October.

I took these two photographs through the plane window. We are somewhere over the South coast of England, possibly near the Isle of Wight.

I'm still working my way through the almost 300 photographs I took that week and will present the best fifty or so on my website in due course.

Meanwhile one taster can be found on my sithenah photoblog.

For more O posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Weekend Reflections:Waiting in St Helier

2010-10-23T00:00:00.000+01:00

Another photograph from our recent visit to Jersey.

Here reflected in the windows of Top Shop are the buses from Maison des Landes waiting to return us to the hotel after some afternoon shopping in St Helier.

For more weekend reflections visit Newtown Area Photo.

ABC Wednesday N is for Noirmont Point

2010-10-20T00:00:00.001+01:00

The headland known as Noirmont Point was acquired by the States of Jersey on behalf of the public in commeration of those men and women of Jersey who perished in the Second World War 1939-1945.

Noirmont Tower (also known as La Tour de Vinde) was built on an offshore rocky outcrop below the point in 1811.

West is Portelet Bay in the middle of which stands Janvrin Tower. It was built as a defense against French attack during the 1800s, but it stands above the tomb of a sailor called Philip Janvrin. On returning to the island from a trip to Nantes in the year 1721, Janvrin and his crew were not allowed to land, for fear that they might be infected with the plague that was afflicting the people of that area of France. They where ordered to stay in quarantine on their ship in the nearby Belcroute Bay. It's not known whether the crew were actually suffering from the plague, but sadly poor Janvrin died and his widow was still not allowed to bring his body ashore. Permission was finally given for his body to be interred on 'Ile au Guerdain', so that he would be within sight of his St. Brelade home.

Here we see the top of an underground German Command Bunker which extends to a depth of 40ft on two floors. It was the Command Post (Leitstand) for the naval coastal artillery battery Lothringen located here.

One of four built to a similar design in the Channel Islands, the bunker was surmounted by a range-finder and two periscopes to determine the direction and speed of sea targets. Sealed up for safety reasons shortly after the war, the bunker escaped the scrap-drive of the early 1950s, with the result that it is the only example of its type in the Islands to retain the impressive 7 inch-thick armoured cupolas. The bunker has been restored to a very high standard and provides a unique insight into the sheer scale and thoroughness of German military engineering.

Also here is a Coastal Artillery Observation Tower. This massive structure, with its brooding clifftop presence over the Island's sea approaches is, for many, one of the most potent symbols of the Occupation. The tower was, in fact, known as a Marine Peilstand or naval direction-finding tower, and is one of three constructed in Jersey, out of a planned total of nine.

The design of these towers is unique to the Channel Islands, and may take its inspiration from the 18th Century Round Towers that ring the local coastline. The observation slits, set in 2 metres of concrete, provide an impressive setting for the distant sea views towards France. On top of the tower is a mounting for a 2cm Flak Oerlikon anti-aircraft gun.

More photos and interesting stuff about Noirmont Point can be found on the blog German Bunker in my Garden

Also worth a look is the website of the Channel Islands Occupation Society, a non-political, voluntary organisation, dedicated to the preservation and recordal of all aspects of the German Occupation of Jersey during the Second World War.

For more N posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Weekend Reflections:Lion Park Lake

2010-10-16T00:00:00.000+01:00

At the back of Jersey Goldsmiths in St Lawrence parish is Lion Park.

The lake is home to a pair of flamingos.

You can see a closer view of one of them on sithenah.

For more Weekend Reflections visit Newtown Area Photo.

ABC Wednesday M is for Maison des Landes

2010-10-13T00:00:00.000+01:00

Last week we flew to Jersey where we stayed at the Maison des Landes Hotel.

Maison des Landes is a charitable trust set-up by the Lions Club of Jersey to provide holidays specifically for the disabled. The hotel is situated nine miles from St Helier on the gorse and heather covered headlands of Les Landes, with panoramic views of St Ouen's Bay and the Atlantic.

I took lots of photographs during the week which I'll be sorting out in due course. For now here are a few shots of our hotel room.

The weather was mostly unkind especially for the first part of the week but the camaraderie amongst the guests made up for that. We shared our breakfast table with Jack from Merseyside who has been coming every year since the late 70s and Margaret from Clydeside who was on her own this time but has been often before as a carer.

There was also a group of 10 people with varying disabilities from the Harrogate area looked after by five volunteer carers organised by Breakaway Holidays; a one-legged woman from West London; a lady with MS who'd brought her sister for a change and several other couples and individuals.

The wheelchair we had hired for the week kept losing power after only a short time, despite appearing fully-charged. The splendid hotel staff though did their best to mitigate the effects of the problem. We were taken out on day trips to different parts of the island, the routes and destinations tailored to account for the weather and the preferences of guests.

All in all we had a lovely time and I'll be sharing some of the highlights in subsequent posts.

For more M posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday: L is for The Ladysmith

2010-10-06T00:00:00.001+01:00

The Ladysmith public house on Wellington Road, Ashton under Lyne, opened in 1860 as a beerhouse named the Railway Tavern. It became fully licensed in 1865 as the Railway Hotel. In 1983 it was renamed the Ladysmith after the former barracks in the town.

For more L posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday: K is for Kournas Lake

2010-09-29T00:00:00.000+01:00

The only freshwater lake on the island of Crete, Kournas Lake is home to ducks and eels, water snakes and a rare species of bicoloured terrapin with a patterned shell, the Diamondback Terrapin (Malaclemysterrapin).

The Northern end is where you'll find most of the tavernas and pedalos for hire. In the summer, as the water recedes, white sandy beaches form around its edges.

There are two springs on the southeast bank, one of which, the Mati or Amati ("eye"), is visible in late summer. The lake is fed by streams from the nearby mountains and hills, whose underground courses are interrupted by the local bedrock on the way to the sea.

For more information on the lake visit Explore Crete.

For more of my own photographs of the island visit Crete 2006.

For more K posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday J is for Jocelynne Preciouse (1930 - 2010)

2010-09-22T00:00:00.000+01:00

© 2009, Jocelynne Precious
It was in June that I learnt Jocelynne Precious had died suddenly. I knew her as the editor of the magazine Curlew. We first met in the mid-70s at meetings of the Yorkshire Federation of Small Presses. In more recent times she would ring me up about three times a year to talk about poets and small press matters. She never had a computer but would look things up on the Internet at the library in Harrogate.

Jocelynne studied under Clifford Ellis at Bath Academy of Art (aka "Corsham"). One of the art teachers there was William Scott who taught her painting. She was a member of Harrogate Writers' Circle.

Issue 64 of Curlew is a chapbook collection by Jocelynne called SWIMMING IN THE NORTH SEA.

trying to stay afloat
trying to make sense of it all
and on the straight horizon
a long slim boat

A number of the poems (like the one above) are reproduced from hand-written manuscript rather than typescript.

Issue 65 has work by Neil Leadbeater, Daniel Healy, Peter Asher, John Younger and A C Evans. The cover design is by Peter Precious.

Issue 66 was the 1st issue of Chaucer described as

An occasional publication covering literature and the Arts; philosophy; history & current affairs; genre fiction (science fiction/fantasy/crossover) humour; reviews, criticism, correspondence.

Referring to House of Fame, Steve Sneyd asks

"Did Chaucer indeed see the far future in this long narrative poem of 1379, its title, after all, derived from Ovid's Metamorphoses and thus backward, not forward, looking?"

Rodney Noon answers the question "Where do you write?" and there are poems by Anne Grant and Alan Hardy.

Patricia Prime reviewed her collection THE SURPRISING SUMMER for NHI Review where you can also find reviews of Curlew issues ##51, 52, 54, 56. Elsewhere on this blog are reviews of ##57, 58 and also ##59, 60

A stalwart of the small press scene since the 70s, she will be much missed.

For more J posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Shadow Shot Sunday/Sunday Bridge: Tatton Arms Footbridge

2010-09-19T00:00:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I showed you Tatton Arms Bridge together with its reflection in the river Mersey at Northenden.

It is from this bridge I took the photograph looking downstream past the Heron sculpture and towards the Northenden Bridges which I featured last week.

The footbridge leads to a section of the Trans Pennine Trail which I followed from here down to the motorway bridge.

Here is looking back towards the Tatton Arms from which the bridge gets its name. It was a grand Edwardian public house but alas closed down in 2007 and has an uncertain future.

More about the area can be found on the website of the Northenden Water Park Friends.

See more Shadow Shot Sunday posts at Hey Harriet.

See more Sunday Bridges at San Francisco Bay Daily Photo.

Weekend Reflections: Tatton Arms Bridge

2010-09-18T07:45:00.000+01:00

As promised last week when I posted photographs of Northenden Bridges, here now is the Tatton Arms footbridge from which I took this photograph looking over the weir on the River Mersey.

Tomorrow I'll show you a closer view of the footbridge.

For more weekend reflections visit Newtown Area Photo.

ABC Wednesday I is for I'm Watching You

2010-09-15T00:00:00.000+01:00

We've all been there I'm sure. You see the scene, point the camera, take the shot. It is only later that you find out just who was watching you.

The original from which this was cropped can be seen on Geograph.

For more I posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Northenden Bridges

2010-09-12T00:00:00.000+01:00

Northenden Bridge carries Palatine Road over the river Mersey to the South of Manchester. I'm not certain about the age of this bridge but suspect it dates from about the turn of the 19th century give or take a decade.

This is the view from underneath the Palatine Road bridge at the M60 Manchester Orbital motorway which crosses both the river and Palatine Road on a nine-span viaduct.

This is looking from underneath the motorway. Northenden bridge can be seen on the right and the scale can be judged by looking at the pedestrians on Palatine Road crossing under the motorway on the other side.

The last view looks back at both the motorway bridge and Northenden bridge beyond it.

You can see them in the photograph on sithenah which also includes a view of the heron sculpture featured here recently.

Next week I'll show you the footbridge from which that photograph was taken.

For more Sunday Bridges visit San Francisco Bay Daily Photo.

Weekend Reflections: Camera Obscura in Stockport

2010-09-11T00:00:00.001+01:00

This photograph was taken inside a camera obscura that was in Stockport Market last weekend. The image reflected in a mirror at the top of a darkened chamber is projected on to a table which can be raised and lowered to focus the image.

The camera obscura was there as part of the 750th anniversary celebrations for the Market charter granted to Stockport in 1260.

Here are the musicians captured by the camera obscura. Stockport Market Hall and some of the stalls are reflected in the shop window behind them.

For more weekend reflections visit Newtown Area Photo.

ABC Wednesday: H is for Heron at Northenden

2010-09-08T00:00:00.000+01:00

Last Sunday I posted a shadow shot and left you wondering what had created it.

It is in fact a heron sculpture. According to the Northenden Riverside Park Friends Group website, it was installed on the 5th March 2010 and a competition is being held in order to name the sculpture.

You can see it in the distance from a little further up the river Mersey on sithenah.

For more H posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Shadow Shot Sunday:Northenden Riverside Park

2010-09-05T00:00:00.000+01:00

This week's shadow was captured at Northenden Riverside Park.

Come back on Wednesday and I'll show you what created the shadow.

Find more Shadow Shot Sunday posts at Hey Harriet.

ABC Wednesday G is for Guillotine Lock

2010-09-01T00:00:00.000+01:00

Lock #19 on the Rochdale Canal at Todmorden is known as the Guillotine Lock.

The British Waterways Board provide these operating instructions for boatmen.

Here is the view approaching bridge #30.

A sideways view can be found on sithenah.

For more G posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Sunday Bridges: Macclesfield Canal #1

2010-08-29T09:30:00.001+01:00

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

2010-08-25T00:00:00.001+01:00

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

2010-08-23T13:30:00.001+01:00

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

2010-08-18T00:00:00.000+01:00

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

2010-08-11T00:00:00.000+01:00

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

2010-08-08T19:00:00.000+01:00

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

2010-08-04T00:00:00.000+01:00

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

Weekend Reflections: Blue Ball at Bottoms

2010-07-31T00:00:00.000+01:00

I was walking along the towpath of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal at Bottoms near Mossley and spotted this blue ball!

For more weekend reflections visit Newtown Area Photo.

ABC WednesdayB is for Basel

2010-07-28T00:00:00.000+01:00

We passed through Basle/Basel on our 2002 Eurpean Coach Tour.

The city then seemed grey and sombre. A lot of building work was going on, including the construction of many tunnels to take traffic under, rather than through, the city. We crossed the Rhine and then dived under a tunnel to come out at a large service area, Autogrill Pratteln, which straddled the motorway.

Here we had a long stop. I went over to the other side to change some sterling into Swiss Francs. The service area was packed with people thronging the various shops. I purchased two bananas and two apples from a stall and then we went for some lunch in the self-service restaurant. Two glasses of apple-juice plus one Schnitzel and french-fries cost an amazing twelve pounds. It was however large enough and tasty enough to split in half and satisfied both our hungers.

Since then I've discovered Yvi's Photography and can find all the things we missed.

For more B posts visit ABC Wednesday

Shadow Shot Sunday:Pippin Street Roundabout

2010-07-25T00:00:00.000+01:00

On our way back from Southport last week our coach was diverted along the B5242 from Scarisbrick to Burscough.

While stuck in traffic at the Pippin Street Roundabout I took this photograph through the window.

I didn't know what this was but after a lot of googling (most of it futile) I eventually discovered Tollgate Road leads from the roundabout to the Burscough Industrial Estate. The roundabout features an eyecatching design linked to the estate's history as a former military airfield. The main element of the design is the use of wing-shaped markers, which have been designed as a reference to the Fairey Firefly fighter plane flown from the site in World War II.

There is another view of the roundabout on Geograph.

For more shadows shots this Sunday visit Hey Harriet.

ABC WednesdayA is for Alan Turing Way

2010-07-21T00:00:00.000+01:00

Before the building of the City of Manchester Stadium, visible on the right, the A6010, the Manchester Inner Ring Road, ran along Forge Lane. When the area was redeveloped in 1994, a new stretch of road was built along the almost parallel line of Mill Street a little further West. Both Mill Street and Forge Lane disappeared during the creation of Alan Turing Way named after the mathematician.

In 1949 as deputy director of the computing laboratory at the University of Manchester he worked on software for one of the earliest stored-program computers, the Manchester Mark 1. His Turing test was a significant and characteristically provocative contribution to the debate regarding artificial intelligence.

The river Medlock passes under Alan Turing Way after which it flows through a culvert under the stadium, built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games and now the home of Manchester City Football Club.

This view is looking back up the road past the entrance to the stadium towards the gasometer which was the area's iconic landmark prior to the building of Sports City as the stadium was first called.

For more about Alan Turing (1912 - 1954) I recommend starting with the excellent Wikipedia article.

For more A posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Weekend Reflections: Southport Primark

2010-07-17T00:00:00.000+01:00

I went on a day trip to Southport yesterday. It rained all the way there but as we arrived the sun came out and stayed out.

I noticed how the roofs of the buildings on Chapel Street were reflected in the first storey window of Primark and couldn't resist focussing in on it.

For more weekend reflections visit Newton Area Photos.

ABC WednesdayZ is for Zuri Designs

2010-07-14T00:00:00.001+01:00

Zuri Designs are one of the first retail units to have opened in the premises of the former Pitt & Nelson public house in Ashton-under-Lyne.

The Pitt and Nelson pub on the corner of Market Street and Old Street was one of the oldest pubs in Ashton, dating from 1685, when this corner was the junction of the roads from Manchester and Oldham. Originally it was The Smithies Arms then The Grapes and The White Hart. It became the Pitt and Nelson in 1807, shortly after the deaths of Admiral Lord Nelson and Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. It closed sometime after 1989 and was later re-born as The Bedroom night club. After various troubles its license was revoked and the building remained boarded up for about two years.

I don't know anything about Zuri Designs as I'm not into fashion.

For more Z posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Flanders & Swann: The Slow Train

2010-07-12T22:22:00.000+01:00

ABC Wednesday:Y is for Yew Tree Maze

2010-07-07T00:00:00.000+01:00

Vernon Park in Stockport features regularly in my posts here and today we are back looking at one of its newest features. I'm fairly sure this Yew Tree Maze wasn't here last year.

As you can see it isn't much of a maze as yet. You can just look over the top of the bushes to see where you are.

Come to one of the "dead-end" paths and you can step smartly through the gaps.

In time, however, it should all knit together and prove an amazing challenge.

For more Y posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Shadow Shot Sunday:The Railway at Romiley

2010-07-04T00:00:00.000+01:00

Strong shadows on "The Railway" public house which stands next to Romiley Station near Stockport on the line from Sheffield to Manchester.

I like how the furled England flag casts a bird-like shadow. This was taken a few weeks ago before we were dumped out of the World Cup.

For more shadows shots this Sunday visit Hey Harriet.

ABC Wednesday:X is for X Ray 2 at Tameside Hospital

2010-06-30T00:00:00.000+01:00

At Tameside Hospital, Ashton under Lyne, X Ray 2 is situated in the old part of the hospital off Darnton Road.

I decided to give this image the "pencil" treatment.

For more X shots visit ABC Wednesday.

Shadow Shot Sunday:Vernon Park Steps

2010-06-27T00:00:00.001+01:00

This week we are back at Vernon Park in Stockport.

Here is the top of a set of steps that lead down towards the river.

You can see more of this scene on Geograph and also the steps leading upwards.

For more shadows shots this Sunday visit Hey Harriet.

Weekend Reflections:Burnage, Manchester

2010-06-26T00:00:00.000+01:00

Burnage Station reflected in a train on the line between Manchester Airport and Manchester Piccadilly.

For more weekend reflections visit Newtown Area Photo.