Thursday 23 December 2010

Merry Christmas

Just to wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and hope 2011 brings all that you wish for.

Andy

Wednesday 15 December 2010

Christmas Eve 1910

Yes 1910!

In the early morning of Christmas Eve 1910 the Scottish Sleeper train from London St Pancras collided with two locomotives in the high Pennines just north of Moorcock tunnel north of Hawes Junction & Garsdale station.

Fortunately the loss of life was mercifully small and the basic cause of the accident was a mistake by the signalman at Hawes Junction but the underlying causes are also a major factor in the incident. It was reading about this accident that gave me an interest in human nature and how life in general has improved over the years and also how even the most modern technology can be defeated by circumstance and human fallability.

It will take to long on here to explain all the circumstances of the accident but by following the links on the Railway Archive web site the full investigation and report can be read. In this day and age we take for granted things like ambulances both road and air but back in 1910 the only way to get medical help was to send a train down the branch line to Hawes to summon the local doctors. Survivors and casualties were also removed on another train. The whole report is a fascinating insite in to life 100 years ago.

Things have certainly changed in the last 100 years and on a personal basis there are going to be some major changes in my life.

Andy

Wednesday 8 December 2010

30 Years

Its funny how time slips by isn't it.

Its thirty years today since John Lennon was killed in New York. Like the day JFK was shot its one of those events which becomes ingrained in your mind and what you were doing when you heard the news.

In my case I was working an early turn and heard the news on the car radio and I simply had to stop and listen to the news, apologies to the people in Crockenhill village where I stopped if I woke them up but some things are so important that you just have to do what you have to do.

People of my age (I was born in nineteen hundred and frozen to death) will remember the great impact the Beatles had on the music scene. I remember having to queue to see there films whose release somehow always seemed to coincide with when I was on holiday, so I saw there films in places as diverse as Weymouth and Plymouth. On the subject of the cinema in Plymouth at the time it was a brand new state of the art cinema but now if it still exists its probably a bingo hall.

I was going to be clever and put a link to a classic Beatles track on here but somehow I could not do it, old age creeping up on me! We are so used to having such a wide choice of music on the radio but back in the 60's apart from the BBC Light programme the only pop music station was Radio Luxembourg which in our infinite wisdom we called Radio Buxomgirl! The BBC were very restricted as to how much recorded music they could play so they recorded groups themselves, a friend of mine has a copy of the Beatles session recorded at Maida Vale for Saturday Club. Think I should go and borrow them. On the subject of Saturday Club it was presented by the legendry Keith 'cardboard shoes' Skues a must listen every Saturday morning.

Returning to the Beatles I wonder how many people remember there original name? I wonder if they would have been so succesfull if they did not change there name. I can never remember the name of the 5th Beatle.

Andy