I've used up all but one of my stamps containing churches. Mariazell in Austria contains one of the most visited shrines in Austria.
Austria - 25 October 1952
The church contains an image of the Virgin Mary carved in wood which is said to word miracles. Over a million visitors a year visit the small town. In 1972 Great Britain issued a series of stamps on the Architecture of British Churches. St Andrews in Letheringsett, Norfolk and St Andrews in Helpringham, Lincolnshire are the two that I showed before in 2016.
For another of Austria's churches and links to other churches check out the links at Sunday-stamps-churches.
Last week I started with an Elk; this week it's another of my favourite animals -
USA - 11 August 1998
I went to University in Scotland in the 1950s; St Andrews is located on the coast of Fife. I don't remember ever seeing an architectural style like this.
Great Britain - 11 February 1970
Harling is a rough cast wall finish consisting of lime and aggregate notable for its very rough texture. Many Scottish castles are finished with harling which protects against a wet climate and eliminates the need for paint.
For other 'F' related stamps please visit the links at Sunday-stamps-f.
A dog, a child and some steps in this week's prompt ought to be easy to match.
Golf used to one of my favourite pastimes and this picture from 1905 has steps aplenty just off the course.
The Royal and Ancient Clubhouse, St Andrews
When I was a student at St Andrews in the 1950s the 18th green looked much better than this.
My grandsons and their dogs found more steps in the woods alongside the River Severn although Alby seems to be wagging his finger at me behind the camera.
Cara, Alby, Milly and Kai (at the back) - 2001
Over the years the steps at my daughter's home in Michigan have been a spot to capture pictures of our grand dogs.
Grandmaw with Sam and Maxie
Cody and Scout
Grandpaw and Scout - 2010
In 2008 when we celebrated our golden wedding at Tresco in the Scilly Isles there were no dogs (or children) in evidence. In Tresco Abbey Gardens there was a shots of steps in the distance.
With a statue at the top of the steps
Statue of the Dorien-Smith children
This statue is said to be symbolic of the freedom of the islands.
Before we travelled to Tresco we stayed in Fowey and my daughter managed to get herself photo bombed by a dog.
King of Prussia, Fowey - 2008
And it's dogs that found a step too far.
Gem and Scout peer down the staircase to the basement - 2012
Now it's time for you to step over to Sepia-Saturday-257. to sample others' posts.
The danger is, as you get older, that you may not see your feet when you look straight down. However I do have shots that will qualify, some from years ago.
Looking down from St Rule's Tower, St Andrews - c1956/7
Moving on about 20 years to Norway I was looking down again.
1000 feet down to the water close to the Pulpit Rock, Lysefjord
The Pulpit Rock (Prekestolen) has a vertical drop of 1982 feet (604m) down to the fjord.
Much more mundane is the shot I took looking at a drain last winter.
Iced Drain
When we were at Richmond Castle last week I baulked at climbing the narrow spiral staircase to the top - that would have been an ideal place to look straight down. So I have had to settle for this view from the walls.
Bridge over the River Swale from the Castle wall
Of course if you are not careful someone may catch you looking straight down.
I cannot hope to match hair like this but I did once write about my experience with haircuts - see what follows, with a few pictures thrown in.
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
It’s a sight I don’t often see these days. But then I don’t visit the
barbers any more. What sight do I mean?
You must have seen a young child, watched over by a hovering mother getting
his or her first hair cut. I must have been about four when I was introduced to
Mr Fawkes, known to everyone as Guy. He was an ex-service man invalided out
during the early days of WWII and fortunate to be retrained as a barber.
I remember being forced to sit on a narrow plank of wood, rough enough
to leave a splinter in your bum if you did not sit still. Not that you had much
chance of moving in the vice like grip of Mr Fawkes. Children were never
allowed to call him Guy.
When I was older and permitted to visit his shop alone I soon realized
why everyone called him Guy. If he had been the real Guy Fawkes, whom we had
learnt about at school, I don’t think he would have been caught before he had
had the chance to ignite the gunpowder in the cellars of the Houses of
Parliament. Guy was an awesome sight with a lighted taper in his hand as he approached, intent on singeing the hairs on the back of the neck and in the ears of the
victim in the chair.
Frank Churchill having his hair cut
{Illustration by Chris Hammond in Jane Austen's "Emma."}
It was no fun waiting your turn. If an adult entered you went to the
back of the queue. However it was informative to wait and see which staid
gentleman accepted Guy’s offer of ‘something for the weekend,’ especially when
it was the vicar.
Guy’s shop has gone together with his red and white pole.
George Webb's shop at 30 Friar Street Reading complete with barber's pole (1890-1899 phot by Walton Adam)
Guy went as
well some time while I was at university.
Bob at St Andrews
There is no barber’s in the village
now. Even if there was it would be a unisex hairdressing salon with nubile
young girls to cut your hair. Now this is something I miss as you will see as
this tale unfolds.
The men on my side of the family have all gone grey and lost their hair.
In my case the first signs of grey were pointed out to me when I was just
sixteen. The receding hairline just crept up on me over the years.
However I
still had sufficient hair to feel shocked when I was subjected to the brutal
trim administered by an army barber on my second day at Catterick as a National
Service man.
British and American soldiers having hair cut in Normandy in 1994 (ex Imperial War Museum collections)
My National Service haircut was just like the one behind the soldier with the paper.
Later I thought about auditioning for Hair. Eventually I decided against
it. There really was not much point as I can’t sing and with three left feet my
dancing is more one-sided that England’s
football team. The audience would have left in horror at the scene in the nude.
After all, who wants to see a hairy ape on stage?
Children have a habit of asking awkward questions. However there are
some who come to their own conclusions. Once when I was not wearing a shirt I
was told, “Daddy, I know why you have no hair on your head. It must have lost
its way and grown on your chest instead.”
Hair has its own way of telling you when you should get it cut. In the
days when I had to wear a safety helmet at work I knew the time had come when
my hair curled upwards outside the brim, preventing my ear defenders from being
deployed.
Hard hat, safety specs and long sideburns
While I was in Norway,
the one thing that delayed corrective action was the thought that a haircut
would cost you an arm and leg as well.
Hair’s a funny thing; it grows profusely where you rather wish it
didn’t, like down you nose and in your ears. Far be it from me to conclude that
here it is well fertilised. Isn’t it strange that the ladies, and men too I’m told,
get their unwanted hairs removed by using wax?
I don’t go to the barber’s any more. I really miss the attention of
those young nubile things. I’m told they are not good for my blood pressure,
but that’s not the reason I have given up. The cost of a haircut soared so much
that it was better to invest in an electric trimmer.
This has it dangers as she who wields the clippers has designs on
trimming the hair on my back – because it gets up her nose in bed. I suppose I
must be thankful that my ears are intact. She draws the line however at using
the attachment to attack those nasal hairs and those with their roots embedded
in wax.
Finally here’s a safety warning. If you approach me
from behind you had better wear dark glasses. My polished pate shines brighter
than a landing light on a flies’ aerodrome. For more follicle challenges you need to check the hair styles at Sepia-saturday-230.
It's a long time since I have used all my own photos in a Sepia Saturday post, but I've managed it by choosing to use 'railings' as the link to this week's photo.
The railings in my first picture are the wooden fence at the bottom of the garden when we moved to a new house in Yarm back in the early 1970s and before either ours or next door's garden had been cultivated.
Our youngest son - well behaved for once
I'm surprised that he was not hanging upside down. Earlier in the 1950s it was his future mother's turn to do just that,
Over the top rail on Stamford Recreation Ground
Then there are these 'elegant' shots of my future wife climbing a ladder to the walkway on the top of the pier at St Andrews at the end of the 1950s when I was at University there.
Straight as a die, those stocking seams!
A little less elegant as she reached the top.
Note the railing to the right
The pictures really should have been in colour as I have never forgotten that green 'felt' skirt!
Meanwhile in Copenhagen in 2007 the railings were merely a vantage point.
Copenhagen, Denmark
What was the big, or should I say small and well formed, attraction? None other than -
The Little Mermaid
In 2012 the railings of a local pier were invaded by Olympians.
Saltburn Pier Olympians
Just two of many erected in secret by The Saltburn Yarn Bomber
Back in 1955 I went to St Andrews University to start my studies there. My first trip, by train, took me over one of Britain's iconic bridges.
East Coast Express crossing the Forth Bridge (1928)
Alan's prompt this week is of a flimsier bridge.
Rough Wooden Bridge Over River, Group With Dog on the Shore
[The image comes
from the Phillips Glass Plate Negative Collection, at the Powerhouse
Museum, Sydney, Australia. The Museum provides no further information
the location of the bridge but the brilliance of on-line communities
is such that
information is soon forthcoming : the footbridge was in Mosman Bay on
the north shore of Sydney Harbour. The location of the photograph is not
the only question posed by the title - it takes a sharp eye to spot the
reported dog.]
The route to St Andrews takes the train over the River Tay. At that stage in my journey I knew nothing about an ill-fated journey on 28 December 1879.
Original Tay Bridge - seen from the north
William McGonagall, claimed by some to have been the worst poet in history, began his 1880 poem, "The Tay Bridge Disaster" with the words:
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
The whole poem and some notes about the disaster may be read here - 75 people lost their lives when the bridge collapsed and took their train with it.
River Tay Bridge, middle section collapse, - 1880
Aged 18, I knew nothing about this but I did wonder what it was I could see in the water.
Tay Bridge (1981)
If you look closely you will see, to the right of the bridge, the plinths on which the original bridge stood.
During my time at St Andrews I studied geology as a subsidiary subject. This involved a number of field trips. During Easter 1957 we visited the island of Raasay off the West Coast of Scotland.
The Isle of Skye (viewed from Raasay 1957)
We travelled to Raasay by boat but never got to Skye. These days,of course, there is no need for a boat to reach Skye.
The Skye Road Bridge
I'm sure you all will have heard of the Scottish folk song recalling the escape of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) from Uist to Skye after his defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. The song tells how Charles escaped in a small boat with the aid of Flora MacDonald, disguised as a serving maid.
I hope you will like this version:
While I was at St Andrews there was a debate in the Students' Union about the need (in those days) for a Forth Road Bridge. The English undergraduate who demanded to to know what had happened to the first three was howled down!
I've driven over the bridge that was built later and also over the suspension bridges over the River Humber and the River Severn. Not wanting to leave without a reference to dogs, this pair used to swim in the River Severn alongside their home.
Milly and Cara (Irish Water Spaniels)
But as this post has mainly been about Scotland perhaps this is more appropriate.
Poppy (West Highland Terrier)
I thought about ending with the theme from the Bridge over the River Kwai but settled for this instead.
Now it's up to you to march off to see who's on parade at sepia-saturday-154
Attributions:
LNER East Coast Express Photo by L&NE Ry; scanned from Alan, Cecil J (1928) The Steel Highway; scanned by Andy Dingley
Original Tay Bridge before its collapse, seen from the north (between 1878-1879); scanned by Peterrhyslewis 2007.
River Tay Bridge, middle section collapsed, photographed by Valentines in 1880; scanned by Peterrhyslewis 2007.
Tay Bridge (1981) The bridge that replaced the ill-fated original; Anne Burgess for geograph.org.uk - CC BY-SA 2.0
The Skye Road Bridge connecting the Isle of Skye to mainland Scotland - 10 June 2005 - by Jörn Albring.
Youtube - Paul Robeson - Skye Boat Song, Uploaded by Alberto Truffi on 11 Mar 2010
From the compilation An Evening with
Paul Robeson a famous Scottish folk song performed by the great singer
and actor. Taken from an Emitape mono 3 3/4 ips of the early sixties.
Youtube - Music Video for The Movie The Devil's Brigade - uploaded by Johnnyquest
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