Derek R.
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Posts posted by Derek R.
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I think the something American might actually be German Ford. Taunus?
Close, but the Taunus SP5 had a set of rear lamps that came round the ends MKIII Cortina style and showed from the side. Apart from some expensive Italian sports cars (unlikely in the basin!) I favour an American, Dodge Charger? Maybe the lights are wrong for that, not flashy enough. Dunno. Thought of Opel Manta, but again the bumper and slope of the coupe doesn't fit.
That's a lovely shot of the basin end Alan. I see there was what looks like a petrol station across the road in Walton Street.
Compare that with 1983/5:
1986/7:
Too much water:
Kingfisher House on the left (Inland Rev. as someone has stated) and the 'Blue Leanie' across the road. Prudential I think.
I think the only thing left standing down there is the FMC warehouse.
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Yes, they did.
(snip)
How do you spell pole-ing ?
Thought they did - Try 'shafting' . . .
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Super shots! That's Bottomside lock they've come out of, No 57. Side pond rails seen there. Might be Mr Sibley steering, Ian will know.
Ian reckons Renton's blade is in the hold still, as ballast.
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Aah! Costins yard on the right in the second shot. I must take more B&W.
Didn't the Foster's have that Joey at some time? I've got a colour postcard somewhere with it on taken from the offside.
Derek
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There was a chap who built cruisers in the basin, and it may well be his initials 'PE'. Had a strange sounding name from a hazy memory, sounded Greek almost. Brian Barnes of the Aylesbury Canal Society is the chap to contact.
I see Wolseley/Riley 1.5, and a Minor, a Bedford CA camper, and something American. Can't see the clubhouse there, perhaps it hadn't gone up.
That's the back of Jackson's bakery the cars are facing, and the builders merchants/timber yard beyond.
Derek
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Yep,
We had the pleasure of a Parsons type 'F', mated to a Perkins P3.
When it packed up on a trip in the 1970s it cost rather a lot of money to have Union Canal carriers bring it back to life.
Probably bullet-proof if you treat them right, but our one hadn't been installed in a sensible way...
When did she acquire her PD3, please, Derek.
Alan
BTW I have just found a negative of Renton with a different style of icebreaker nose. Will try and post if, if I can remember how best to scan in negatives.
Also what look to be more negs of Tycho's sister, Sickle, but without snout.
A full overhaul of an 'F' box might set you back just over two grand today. But they're strong, designed to take 200hp I'm told.
Tycho's Petter went in at Saltley in December 1958. The previous engine was a Russel Newbery 2DM No. 3217, but there's another RN number on the card too - 3269 which has been crossed out. Replacement, or wrongly typed I don't know.
Wonderful shots of Sickle & Renton - I know who'll want them!!
Derek
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That's not a PD2, (emphasis on "2") !
Is that a Parsons box it's mated to ?
I said it was a "chip fryer!" Not a PD2 - Nerrr! (Vinegar bottle just out of sight).
Just a PD2 with another pot on the end and everything that goes with that third pot. 3.3l 30hp @ 1500rpm.
They did a four, I think a V6, and V8 if I recall, all air cooled.
Parsons 'F' box. With which I am most intimate. Not an experience to be repeated (I hope).
Got that out, along the staging and into the van on my Jack too, with a little help from a Tonka Toy.
Most satisfactory.
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(Never heard a PD2 described as like a chip fryer by the way, Derek!).
Good Lord yes - so I am reliably told. Got their name from the curved cowling over the injectors and intake fan - just like the curved covers of the fryers in chip shops which all boatmen were familiar with - and still are of course!
Chip fryer:
And the trunking took the hot fat fumes out through the roof.
Derek
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Could be.
Photos would be most enthusiastically studied.
Yes indeed, at around 38' a wooden narrowboat is less likely to suffer the hogging full length ones do, and a very handy size. It would be a pity of you had to throw the towel in Andy, AND a two pot Petter - which one? The 18hp that looks like a chip fryer (PD2M), or something smaller?
Don't run away with the idea that boats get 'finished' - that never happens (unless they are sunk irretrievably!)
Derek
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I agree completely! ( gent, by the way)
So you are - I beg your pardon, should have looked more attentively!
Derek
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Are these going to be inforced for the BSC, if so it will involve almost every boat having fairly major work to comply. I know that my two stoves, one in the engine room! certainly will not. Who has an insulated flue? or an air gap under the hearth.
If I can refer the honourable lady or gent to post No.3 in this thread.
There's no knowing right now, but I fancy there's going to be some serious contention of any such proposals to go through as they are in draft form, and not from just the historic boat people. As they stand, and if they were made a legal requirement to be complied with, just about every craft afloat with a solid fuel stove would be in breach.
As just about everybody has said in some way or another, more regulation of this nature does not supply any kind of certainty in saving lives. It will only create expensive problems, which themselves will most likely be short circuited by any individual - careful or careless. Most of what is in the BSI document is completely impracticable, and unworkable unless you had a wide beam boat that went nowhere.
Commonsense is easily taught with pamphlets and brochures showing materials available and how best they can be applied, the benefits should stand out for themselves.
Some regulation for greater safety is necessary - take gas installations requiring thermo-coupled fail safe devices, correct grades of tubing, methods of attachment, and lockers to keep any casual leakage from bottles away from bilges, and likely quite a few more. And perhaps in the BS 8511 draft there is some sound sense in NOT using comparatively lightweight decorative tiles stuck on a flammable backing - such as plywood. But apart from that, as Steve Jenkin is jumping about, we are over-regulated in every walk of life already (& with 10% of the Worlds CCTV cameras deployed in Britain and growing), and in an area where historically the numbers of deaths or serious injuries caused by fires emanating from solid fuel installation on boats - precious little of 8511 as is, is either needed, nor practically possible - though doubtless it's giving someone's department a reason for being, and salaries for all within.
Today there seems to be a 'safety nanny' behind every blade of grass, time for some strimming.
Derek
PS
I am reminded of an incident that happened to us one night on Yarmouth.
Before the rebuild, we had a Morso Squirrel in the front cabin, which was fairly open plan with our cross bed at the other end, but forward of the engine 'ole as was. We went to bed, and had been there an hour or so, when I noticed a strange light at the front end. It was like someone had lit a steady orange flare in the front end of the cabin, and I wondered if I'd left a light on. Upon investigation I found I had left the air wheel fully open in the ash-pan door. The light was from the fierce fire belting away behind the glass door - was it ever hot in there! Water came out of the taps scalding hot and plenty of steam with it. But no-where was any excess heat causing any kind of problem around the stove. The Squirrel sat on an ordinary paving slab, and bolted to it. The slab sat on the wooden floor and was kept from moving by corner pieces fixed to the floor. There was no metal, or tiled fire surround, the stove sat about eight inches from the plywood panelling at the side of the boat, and about eighteen inches from the hot water cylinder situated behind it (the stove was set slightly angled to face the centre point of the cabin). NOTHING around that stove was in ANY danger of catching alight. There were no flammable materials within eight inches, and the nearest - the plywood panelling - was warm to the touch, no more. Excellent stove.
But it would not have complied with the proposed regulations in BS 8511. There is no need for BS 8511 - advisory - possibly on some points, but not compulsory. Most of those fancy double walled chimneys are fine for houses and wide boats, but are completely unecessary in craft where a sensible approach to fixtures and fitting in and around very hot areas are concerned.
The tragedy of Lindy Lou may well have been avoided if flammable - moveable - objects had not been placed so close to the stove, and proper quarry tiles been used on fireproof backing in place of 4mm thick decorative tiles on plywood.
It would appear, from the statistics shown in the MAIB report (which are far from concurring), that eight fatalities have occured through boat fires between 2003 and 2007 inclusive (I include the Lindy Lou fire and the elderly man who died from smoke inhalation in hospital after a boat fire in Shardlow). We must set this against the number of people cruising and living on the waterways over that period of time - figures which are not to hand - and whether existing regulations or even simple safe practices were in use, and PREVENTING any tragedy occuring. The latter will be an impossible factor to calculate, as we cannot really state at any point: "I am alive today, because I didn't park my coat by the fire" with absolute certainty. Had we done so of course, someone else would be able to say he would be alive today, if he hadn't . . . "
A balance of probabilities. Most of the time we are in a safe situation because we PROBABLY took some action or another, most likely without thinking about it, but we cannot PROVE it. Whereas, if we are killed, there will be a PROVEN reason for the cause of death. Food for the clip-board brigade.
But here I am, preaching to the converted!! I just get so wound up about unecessary regulations stopping you doing something you've done all your life without a problem!
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I can't believe no pedantic b*ggar's pointed out that the correct spelling is "spirograph"!
I'm sure he'll be along soon . . .
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It can't be. Spyrographs draw trochoids
Richard
I think that was 'Ye Olde leg pulle'
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Surely that is true only of Christianity - in pagen cultures and the Eastern religions aren't women who use plants and herbs to ease sickness honoured? Isn't Christianity the religion that historically created demons, devils and evil out of previously natural and harmless (perhaps even creative and progressive)practises and knowledge - and indeed is still doing so - look at creationism.
Yes, to the first question (at least in my mind), but any religion will need its antichrist/devil/dragon/kraken and associated myths to support its basis. The Aztecs thought that giving sacrifices to the SunGod would - like all sacrifices - appease that God and save their crops from decimation by drought, flood or fire. The tempests and galactic activities of the eons during which mankind has survived on this planet were incompehensible to mans understanding of what made things tick, they knew little if anything of planetary movements, of solar cycles, the causes of tectonic plate shifts and volcanic eruptions. The people clamoured for reasons for the catastrophes they suffered, and needed some explanation from the leader of their social order - so they created their Gods. Creationism, it's still going on. We are the Gods now, with our acclaimed ability to save the planet from frying by forking out more for fossil fuels, and believing in anthropological global warming - thereby having to pay the piper - while skeptics are labelled denialists and nut cases. Technically we are more advanced in our understanding of the World and the Galaxies around us, but none the less, if truth threatens a doctrine, it will be actively fought against with hype and hysteria. Ultimately, as always, power and money are at the root of all glory.
Derek
Most of the marks, etched on the stones and beams, of old buildings and structures were done by illiterate craftsmen.Their deepest meaning was "I did this, pay me please."
The transformation of the "Masons" from a craftsmen's guild, to a silly boys club, with "secrets" has turned a simple worker's signature into another daft myth.
Absolutely! Pay by the mark, and for corn - on the 'Nails' outside the exchanges.
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Speaking of diversions, I find it curious that some will speak of witch signs, and devil signs associated with certain shapes and in certain location in and on buildings - and elsewhere. A lot of these things came to pass with the introduction of religion, the ultimate tool creating a culture of the ruling classes and gain obedience from the masses. To not comply was to risk death by burning or drowning, and any diversion from the 'faith' was countered with dire endings in pits of fire. Certain previously pagan symbols of Earth and constellation worship (the pentangle springs to mind) were changed to Devil worship to bring all under the ultimate 'cloak' of any chosen religion. If a woman used plants and herbs to ease a sickness, she was denounced a witch, anything associated with the natural order of the world and its content, was classified demonic, doubtless some flowers became symbolic for just that reason.
Likewise this post might be described by some as 'a Devils advocate'.
Derek
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It's one of mankind's traits to confirm he is a most complex creature by seeking complexity in life thereby setting himself apart from animals, from the latest widget to use and 'plug in' whereupon it becomes a necessity, to seeking out 'meanings'. In some cases widgets have been of great use, and learning has broadened our minds, but the simplicity with which a flower like appearance can be created on a flat surface with only a pair of compasses - as we must all have done as a child as Dave says - is as complicated as it gets. Anything above that is a seeking for more complexity - such as a spirograph - pretty patterns yes, but you cannot create those with a simple compass. And a Rose? Why not. Its number of petals ordinarily number 32 - the same number as on a navigation compass and possibly taken from the flower but that is a complication, and I fancy only a diversion from the ancient symbol of the Rose as that of love and beauty. Which rules me out.
Ask a child, just having discovered how to draw a geometrically perfect flower shape - what it symbolises, and they will probably smile and say: "It's a flower".
Derek
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The guy in the shorts looks very familiar, too.
That's David Heseltine aka Tam Murrell.
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Too much shape for a Ricky, btw.
Right ho.
Something not quite kosher about those shadows, you having us on Mr Murrell?
And what's with the smiley on the wall??
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Coo, well up in the world. A long way from the jam'ole! That's three addresses - Grosvenor Place at the back of Buckingham Palace, and St George Street, off Hanover Square! I guess there must have been a building called 'Grosvenor Place' in St George St, Hanover Sq. at some time. There's a modern office block called St Georges House in Hanover Square, No.5 I think. Number of times I've hung about there waiting for a job!!
Derek
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I got this photo with a handful of French postcards of péniches. The name is "Rigolo" but that does not seem likely as original. On the back it says "La famille Thérèse Morette à Watten"
Watten is on the Canal à Grand Gabarit between Calais and St Omer in N. France. Any suggestions? Di reckons it was probably in the '40s from the clothes.
Large fore cabin, can only think of Berrichons, but those I've seen are pretty blunt - more like river class boats, that's quite fine. A bit Walker'ish. No idea.
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Not having much luck with photographic images of Kearley & Tonges Mitre Dock (jam 'ole), though interestingly they had offices in Mitre Square , which may have resulted in their dock being so named. Certainly the International Stores headed paper carried the Mitre.
There's a photo of Mr Kearley and Mr Tonge HERE They were, along with a Mr Evans, directors of The International Tea Company Stores which was registered in 1895, shortly afterwards Kearley & Tonges were also registered. Mr Kearley, after retiring from the firm, became the first chairman of the PLA.
The Jam & Marmalade factory at Southall opened in 1913.
The website link is worth a rummage, photos of all sorts of vehicles, and warehouses and factories - sadly none of Southall!
Derek
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The construction of the figure is well known, it is the symbolism behind it that I am after. What does it represent? The compass is a good suggestion, but as this symbol appears on buildings which once belonged to the church, could it be a moral compass? Do we have any memebers of the clergy visiting this forum?
I suppose you could divide the 360° of a navigation compass into 60° segments, but only two of them would point to any generally recognised points as seen in Carl's illustration posted earlier. But from the building point of view, compasses or dividers, were commonly used and often form part of an engineers emblem - symbol if you like, representing their trade. However, I believe if you are looking for some kind of complex meaning behind six points, then I have no doubt many will attempt to show any number to suit their fancy. Complex symbolism usually created complex patterns, rather like puzzles to decipher, or recognise for the initiated.
Symbolically, the wheel represents the World - the great disc upon which we sat, and fell off the edge if we strayed too far, the wheel of life. The Celtic wheel has six or eight points, the latter is also found in Eastern symbolism of which there are truckloads.
A good study point may begin HERE, CHAPTERS 8 & 9 - the symbol of the circle, and of petalled flowers. A lot of writing, but little complexity. A builders apprentice, a child, and a dockyard painter, will see the simple beauty in a pleasant, easily reproduced pattern that embodies the World, life, and flowers.
Good luck with the search, it would be interesting if you find something substantive, other than the above.
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I'd originally thought that, and looking at the gates that was also a possibility, but no - it got caught between the back side of the mitre post that extends above the balance beam, and the upwards angle of the balance beam. Have another look at the video, it's quite clear to see. I don't think it helped having no weight in it at all, so the bow was a little higher than it should have been.
Cheers,
Mike
It would seem the fore end becomes wedged to one side of the mitre post with the side rubbing strake tight against the lock wall. As the level drops,
the stem is held tighter, and the force is applied to the wall holding the boat up. The solution may be in a better shaped mitre post, or cheeks of timber either side to prevent stem posts from being pinched.
Derek
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Thanks for the explanation, makes the video even more interesting.
Is there a particular time between points that has to be achieved? also does it have to be done on a particular date?
The run takes place in October, as it was in October of 1970 that the last load of coal was delivered by boat.
As to time, well, you just get as far as everyone is willing to go to some extent, and the higher numbers of moored craft have to be considered as well, though the regular watering holes that crew used historically are usually aimed for.
Derek
PS Check out the Lucy site: Lucy website.
PPS The official name of the jam'ole was Mitre dock. K & T made biscuits too, I'll have a look to see if they make Jammy Dodgers!
More: from British History - Southall quote: "By 1914 there were also factories producing jam, chemicals, wallpaper, paints, and telephones, as well as an engineering works. All these were situated on Rubastic Road, Scott's Road, and Johnson Street. (fn. 47) Kearley & Tonge opened their jam and marmalade factory on Brent Road in 1913, and later extended their business to include a great number of other foods. In 1961 the labour force numbered about 700, although it had occasionally reached 1,000."
Old 1970s Negatives - Part 1
in History & Heritage
Posted · Edited by Derek R.
The section of water that was filled in extended about 100 feet at a guess, from the existing 'end' towards the road, and was covered, though none was taken by the existing office block, that was built on already taken water. Edit: corrected by Brians 'comment'.
There was indeed a covered section, a warehouse stood at the furthest end. I might have a picture in a booklet somewhere, or ACS will certainly have something. There stood a crane by the entrance to the basin, which lasted until the late eighties. It was removed for preservation, and I don't think it ever got put back.
Found!
These shots come from a little 32 page booklet entitled "The Aylesbury & Wendover Canals" published by the Aylesbury Canal Society ISBN 0 9506562 0 8, and authored by Bob (Binky) & Elizabeth Bush, and are copyright to the ACS. All funds and interest gratefully received.
Sorry the text is so small, couldn't get 'Paint' to obey my commands.
There is one shot from the corner of the basin looking towards the end of the canal showing the covered section of canal alongside the warehouse (demolished in the late sixties) with Greenshank & Coot plus one other in the foreground. The buildings on the far side may well include Harvey Taylor's, but uncertain.
The other two shots are taken from the weir, looking first at the covered warehouse with canopy, and the smaller 'L' shaped building that was the office & WC, and the second angled slightly to the right, cutting out the office, and showing the Ship Inn and managers house.
The heavy dark line I have draw in is the approximate limit of navigation from the late sixties (the little wide bit seems to be some compensation for losing the length) when the canopied warehouse, and I believe other adjacent buildings were demolished.
Shot 1
Shot 2 (very small photo) Canopy & office
Shot 3 Ship Inn & managers house, plus sundry.
This has long gone too!