Derek R.

The load - Barrels of oil for Duckhams? That barn like house in the winding hole, wasn't that where DayStar theatre Co. were based for a time?

Miniature windlasses were sought after at one time. They were referred to in Sheila Stewart's 'Ramling Rose'. Bet that would do well at auction.

Proof of posting number is not a tracking number. Tracking numbers are usually for 'signed for' goods and if going from GB to GB - end in 'GB'. I had something heading my way that took best part of 12 days, it got here in the end. But the industrial action doesn't help.

JAPONICA had that treatment, steel cladding over a wooden cabin. The internal tongue and groove cabin sides in OTLEY do appear to have quite a lot of dark staining along the joints. This could be caused by water condensing onto the inside of a steel cladding, and soaking into the wooden panelling. The roof (deckhead for the nautical of mind) is painted white. I do wonder what may be hidden beneath the paint. Is this reflected in the asking price? Only a visit and/or survey will tell. Someone likes it - Sold.

On the Northern line? or - In the wrong place?

Can the webmaster stop scratching his head. I've got dandruff floating down my screen . . .

I can almost hear that Petter(?) blatting away. Did a few miles behind one.

I would have thought that the area of water more than the depth would be the deciding factor in whether a canal length was an effective reservoir or not. Fill a glass to near the brim, and pour in half a cup more of water, and the result in an overflow. Do the same to a large bowl (a greater area) and the level is barely affected.

The daydreams of modern man. Do they not realise it's all been done before? - Films, documentaries, books and magazines? It was hard graft. Yes it had its own lifestyles which are now gone, but how many would have swopped their back cabin on cold wet days for a council house and bath. 'A Big Ten four' - Broderick Crawford in Highway Patrol. Used to love that as a kid.

I have misread part of the website that suggested to me Zeppelin was in his 90's. It was in 1928 that he WOULD have been in his 90's. As to his military intentions, he was indeed thinking of his crafts efforts in wartime use, but prior to, it was passenger carrying that took precedence, as it did after WWI. It seems he fell out with the decisions of the military and naval chiefs. This I also read elsewhere some long time ago, which may have led me up a 'wrong' road.

Thank you. Just a foretaste of what technology was to bring. Graf Von Zeppelin never conceived his aircraft to be used in warfare, the German government did that. His was a dream of commercial flights, and to that end one actually circumnavigated the globe in the late 1920's when Zeppelin was in his 90's. https://www.airships.net/lz127-graf-zeppelin/history/

So who were Maud and Frederick Fellows of Daisy Bank? Workers for the canal? Relations of FMC Fellows? or civilians sharing the name and had the misfortune to be killed in or near thier home?

It certainly isn't: https://tinyurl.com/mry3rsa6 Look for Sankey's Bridge, Bradley and the maps take you a little swing bridge of sorts near the canal end. Doubt it will be swinging any more, but it's tidy.

One depository to avoid if possible are charitable organisations. My wife has worked in two, one full time, The amount of items that clearly have some histroical importance if not sold in their shops - goes into a skip. Watches, clocks, pictures, many she has rescued from their skips to be given a place to hang, a shelf to sit on, or worn.

Forgive the diversion, but the Ever Ready site would have been familiar to my Dad. After demob he got a job driving long distance for Ever Ready. I believe he drove Guy 4 tonners, have a badge from a radiator and his old cap badge. He had no connection to canal life though.

There's an acronym for luck. Labouring Under Certain Knowledge. Doesn't sound so bad,

Roughly 80,000sqft. That's small.

Weston Turville was pretty small. Fed the Wendover arm originally.

I'd have plumped for Knottingley.

Great images. All the more powerful in black & white.

It has been estimated that 2 or 3 hundred women went through the training scheme, though only a comparatively small number stuck it out. Many suggest the figure was around 46. Bearing in mind the scheme lasted for little more than two years, 2 or 3 hundred does sound generous.

I like Hooper's style. But it does appear he has taken images from memory and built scenarios from them, rather than study details and accuracies. The person on the barge is holding a stick, or is it a pole. We cannot see. The barge has a cabin, but is it the fore end, or the aft? The bow, or stern appears to be similar to a Tjalk, but the fore end (if it is that) is innaccurate. If the stern, also innaccurate - where is the huge tiller and rudder? And the lock appears very small for a trading Tjalk. It's a painting, by an artist. It doesn't have to be anywhere in particular, and if there are several of his paintings done with a similar 'theme', then it all looks to be art for arts sake. Any resemblance to reality will be taken from certain elements that are common to a pretty waterside picture; trees, meadows, a lock, a boat, maybe some building and some people for scale and interest. A Meccano set from a paintbrush. I like them.

Ask the horse. If it says "neigh" and not "nee", it may be Englandland-ish. I think it is very 'paintbrush shopped'. (Tastes like butter). The Church has Norman qualities.

No Glenn. Art takes on many appearances, from brushed on paints to metalwork, plaster of paris to cardboard and wood. They are creations of the human spirit and the skills therein. Photography is also a form of art. I have a book of Jane Bowns (or is it Bowens) black and white images that are highly artistic. The photographs of Sonia Rolt also merit artistic flair in depicting a way of life now virtually gone. But what is "truthful art"? Can such a thing exist? Does it need to exist? Or is it something an artist does to reflect an object or event simply to see if - he can? The black and white photograph of a Class 2 Ivaat loco making up a train in the early hours has an artistic quality due to the darkness and the reflected flashlight on the steam, it creates a subtle drama. It was this dramatic image that I attempted to reproduce - not because one was better than the other, but because it was a challenge well suited to scraperboard.

Never trust a painting to be an accurate presentation of reality. Such romantic art will be full of 'artistic licence', not to fool the unwary, but to present an image that can be added to, or removed from the eye of the viewer for the simple purpose of depicting 'art' as the artist wishes. Much like the boats in the photographic competition entry debated earlier this year. (Or was it last?). Away from romantic art, is the depiction of something done to please the artist in an attempt to copy reality: This is a scraper board effort, where black ink is scraped away to reveal the white background. The subject appeared in a Railway magazine in 1976 and looked a likely candidate.