A-Z Challenge 2018 - British Rivers; 'C' Chater, Camel

There were two rivers in the village in which I was born - both will feature in this Challenge.

If you walked down Bull Lane in the Rutland village of Ketton, to get to Algate, the path took you across a footbridge over the River Chater. 

River Chater at Ketton from the Sinc Bridge looking north

I must confess that I never knew the bridge had that name, but as children we used to paddle in that stretch of water. I was more familiar with the river upstream beyond the bridge over Church Road.

River Chater Bridge

That footbridge was not there when I was a boy. Further upstream was another footbridge reached by a path over the road from the Railway Inn beyond the church you can see in the background. It was from that bridge and the banks of the Chater that I fished for dace and caught minnows in a jam jar baited with bread.

From age 11 my route to school took me left over the bridge and along the road as it swung up to the railway station where I took a train each day down the line to Stamford. From the station there we crossed this bridge - 

Town Bridge over the River Welland

I always thought that the river on the left was the Chater and the one from the right (just visible) is the Welland. The land in between is Stamford Meadows which used to be the place where a Roman ford crossed the river.

When we go to Cornwall to see our grandsons we always finish up having coffee at 'Down by the Ferry' in Padstow. From there a favourite walk is along the estuary of the River Camel.

Although the Camel rises on Bodmin Moor it's the Camel Trail along the estuary that we know best, from that is this bridge - 

To where it meets the sea at Padstow Bay

Buster loved it too.

And even my wife went swimming on one occasion.

The only shot I'm allowed to show

We waited all day here but the camels never showed up!

Photo attributions:

• River Chater from the Sinc Bridge: June 1999 ex geograph.org.uk by Humphrey Bolton - CC BY-SA 2.0 licence
• River Chater Bridge: 27 April 2007 ex geograph.org.uk by Graham Horn - CC BY-SA 2.0 licence
• Bridge over River Welland: ex wikipedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0 licence
• Sketch Map of River Camel & its tributaries: 25 February 2010 by Andy F - CC BY 3.0 licence

A-Z Challenge 2017 - Houses, some real, some not -' B'

B - Burghley House

This is a house that I first saw as a boy at Stamford School. Our annual cross-country run was held in its park.

Burghley House, near Stamford, Lincolnshire

I was to get even closer when playing cricket next to the house against the Burghley estate team. 

However it was in the Burghley Park's cricket team pavilion were my live was changed for ever.

Burghley Park Cricket Club pavilion

Here I volunteered during one match to help the ladies wash up after tea. To cut a 60 year story short let me just say I married one of them.

William Cecil, Lord Burghley was the prime councillor to the Queen - Elizabeth I, that is.

His house built between 1555 and 1587 is one of England's largest mansions and was constructed in an enormous 'E' as a tribute to the Queen.

With the house still lived in by the Cecil family many of you may know that the Burghley Horse Trials, a 3 day event, are held in the each year in the park laid out by Capability Brown.

Photo attribution:

• Burghley House - 4 April 2011 - CC transferred ex ml.wikipedia by Sreejith K - in the public domain

By hook or by crook - Sepia Saturday

They tell me shepherds once used a crook in their work I wonder how many shepherds there were about when the megaliths were put up at Almendres Cromlech in Portugal. 

Inverted shepherd's crook

Apparently the crook was a common motif on the local megaliths.

A shepherd in Croatia needed a dog and a crook to keep his flock under control in the snow near Jagodnjak.

Croatian shepherd with his flock

The Hungarian village of Ricse commemorated its shepherd in a statute but he just carried a stout staff and apparently had no dog.

Shepherd Well

In the early 1950s I had close encounters with sheep - well, with their fleeces at least. As a school holiday job with the Stamford firm of Central Wool Growers, initially at their Wothorpe plant and later in the new premises on Uffington Road.

Fleeces delivered from farms were examined and graded for quality by a Yorkshire man named Ben Waterhouse. He threw them into bins according to their breeds. Our gang of school boys then had to put them into bales and stamp them down with our feet.

Back then, my hands were the softest they have ever been due the effect of the lanolin in the wool.

A less pleasant job however was the baling of dags - the wool clippings from around a sheep's back end. My trouser legs had a very interesting smell - lanolin, and a ranker aroma which would keep any dogs away.

Now the nearest I get to sheep and lambs are those in a local field.

A Spring 'creche'

Seems a shame that soon it will be time for mint sauce.

Perhaps their mum will provide some protection - 

before it's time for lamb chops.

Don't feel sheepish, please visit Sepia-Saturday-329. for alternative views - any black sheep out there I wonder?

Attributions:

• Inverted shepherd's crook; 26 May 2006 by Xyz11234, Public Domain
• Croation shepherd, 3 May 2009 by Ljabornir Damjanovic, CC BY-SA 3.0
• Shepherd Well, Ricse; 4 August 2007 by Ramirez Hun, Public Domain

Kicking your heels on a wall - Sepia Saturday

This week's prompt with a damaged picture

made me look for photographs that have been hidden away for years.

During WWII a young girl had her photo taken. This had ghostly stripes where light had crept in.

After the war was over our little girl appears again on another shot that we can date to:

Pat, Mary and Margaret - 1947

But the meaning of the pencil numbers remains a mystery. Which one is our little blond.

That's for you to work out

She remembers where the picture was taken in Broad Street, Stamford, Lincolnshire - opposite the Central Cinema (definitely not the one known locally as the 'Flea Pit.'

The wall, she says, belonged to this old building,

Browne's Hospital
(by Andy 2/11/2011 - CC BY-NC-ND-2.0)

The hospital was founded in in 1475 by wealthy wool merchant, William Browne, to provide a home and a house of prayer for 12 poor men and 2 poor women.

But there's no sign of the wall the girls were kicking their heels against in that shot or in one from a different angle.

Browne's Hospital
(By Richard Croft - ex geograph.org,uk - CC BY-SA 2.0)

The hospital or Bedehouse was richly endowed with property and agricultural land in the vicinity. A bedesman or beadesman, a name derived from the beads of the rosary, was the title given to the poor men, 

Some of the hospital's funds were appropriated by Act of Parliament in in 1871 for the foundation of Stamford High School (where our blond girl was to become a pupil, much later of course) and for the further endowment of Stamford School (where a Sepians was to be educated in the 1940s/1950s)

The blond girl always insisted that the wall in the photo existed and was part of Browne's Hospital.

Now I know it's dangerous to doubt the word of a lady of any age. Francis Firth's photograph of Stamford's Browne's Hospital came to my aid. Copyright does not let me reproduce it.

Please look at the photo displayed by the link. It's taken in 1922 and there on the left is the illusive wall topped by steel railings. In 1947 the railings were no longer there as their metal had been required for the war effort in 1940-1945.

Study Firth's photo a little more and you will see behind the railings a stone urn which matches that in the top right of the picture of the three girls kicking their heels against the wall.

The lady's case is proved. Perhaps this is just as well because she is my wife of 57 years. I couldn't possibly contradict her!

For more stories derived from 'damage' pictures check out Sepia-Saturday-278.

Childhood Memories - Thematic Photography

As I'm in my second childhood and my memory is not what it was, Carmi's theme this week has caused me some problems.

I've shown the house where I was born on more than one occasion.

100 High Street, Ketton

That stone wall didn't exist back then and there was another empty building behind it to the left, Our front had a double grey gate and a grey wooden fence; a rose-bedecked trellis lined the drive where box hedge is on the right. There where no hatched white lines on the road, just one line down the middle.

The traffic island didn't exist either; although this is main road from Stamford to Leicester, during the late 1940s it was safe enough to use it as a football field - with a tennis ball of course.

The oldest photo I have of me is aged 12 in Stamford School boxing team.

Stamford School Boxing Team, 1949

Just in case you cannot recognise me:-

My pastimes in my second childhood include watching and counting the birds in our garden and photographing them when I'm quick enough. Some just pose.

Wood Pigeon at the birdbath - 24 January 2015

even during the RSPB's Great Garden Bird Watch.

My wife says I'm playing when I'm out with my camera and uploading what I've taken to my computer. Here's one I took yesterday.

Two of five wind turbines - from Dent's Lane, Kirklevington

Not only do I play with Thematic Photography I also take part in Sepia Saturday. This week this involves me playing with some poster memories of my time in Stavanger.

QEII visiting Stavanger - July 1980

The structure on the left is the topside deck for the Statfjord 'B' platform under construction at Rosenberg Verft where I was working. I was too small to be seen in the photo and regret to this day never having a camera with me to take my own photos - not that I would have been allowed on the helicopter from which the shot was taken.

However my second childhood memory has been good enough to find the souvenir poster we were given.

For more childhood memories don't forget to look in on Carmi's childhood thematic-photographic-323.

Going for Gold - Sepia Saturday

When it comes to wedding photos we do not have that many to match with a group like this - 

The Yorkshire sun is shining on Alexander (Alan's son) and Heather today. May they go for gold as some of us have done..

St Michael's Church, Stamford
(View down Ironmonger Street)

That's the church in which my wife and I married in 1958. Sadly now it has been converted into shops.

However on that fateful day a wedding group graced its doorway.

L-R: My mother, best man Ian Norton, groom and bride, bride's father and mother (Bob and Amy), bridesmaid Clare Trusty

The only survivors from this group are my wife and I. However I can show you Bob and Amy with one of their granddaughters as a bride from some time later.

Bob, Christine and Amy

Time warps as you get older and already our golden wedding has come and gone. In 2008 our sons and daughter treated the happy pair to a celebration on Tresco in the Isles of Scilly.

The Golden Couple

And just so that they are not left out, here's the 'kids' with their mother.

Andrew, Rachel and Adrian

One of the things we acquired for our golden wedding was a souvenir rosebush. Here's how it looks today nearly six years later.

The Golden Rose

I tried to find some music to end this post and could find nothing better than;-

The title may be 'One Rainy Wish' but listen to the words - 'Golden rose, the colour of the dream I had not too long ago.'

For other nuptial reminiscences accept the invitations at Sepia-Saturday-233.

British Conductors - Sunday Stamps

I can claim a faint connection to one of these four British conductors.

From left to right, they are - 

• Sir Henry Wood
• Sir Thomas Beecham
• Sir Malcolm Sargent
• John Barbirolli

I picked up the presentation set  recently, including a PHQ card for each of them.

Sir Henry Wood - PHQ

The four stamps below are in the same order as the first photo.

Great Britain - Music and Conductors
issued 10 September 1980

Sir Henry Wood founded the Promenade Concerts held in the Royal Albert Hall and which are named after him. Of course all four conducted concerts there.

Sir Thomas Beecham's fortune was based on those famous pills advertised as 'worth a guinea a box'. I may have taken a few in my time but that is not the 'connection' I claim.

Sir Malcolm Sargent was brought up in Stamford, Lincolnshire and won a scholarship to Stamford School. Much later so did I, but there the connection ends as no-one could say I am musical at all.

For more musical themes please follow the links at Viridian's Sunday-stamps-173.

Three of Us - Sepia Saturday

I've had a problem with this weeks prompt.

Each week I check out sites like creative commons to find appropriate shots, especially in those weeks when I'm short of photos of my own. This week I found such startling videos and photos, so much so that I re-titled this post 'Three of Us' rather than the 'Threesomes' I had intended.

I know the exact date that the first shot was taken, 55 years ago next week,

Bridesmaid, Claire, and the Happy Couple

On Stamford Station, Lincolnshire waiting for the train to whisk us off on our honeymoon.

Years later in the 1980s I'm with two ladies again, as the result of a liquid evening.

Can you spot the bride?

My final picture was taken at Yarm Tennis Club when the juniors had some lessons from the man who was then one of the best British players, 15th in the world.

Buster Mottram - Yarm Tennis Club (1970s?)

So these are my groups of three all of which will not make you blush as those videos and threesomes photos would,

For more groups of three visit the links at Sepia-saturday-191.

Railings - Sepia Saturday

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

Before I go off the rails and you begin to rail at me just swing yourself over to see what others have done at Sepia-Saturday-177-18-may-2013 - Bob's birthday.