A-Z Challenge 2018 - British Rivers: 'Y' Yare

In 1949 I was awarded a form prize at Stamford School. The book I chose was 'Coot Club' by Arthur Ransome. It is the story of Dick and Dorothea and their adventures in a yacht, the Titmouse, as they sailed down the River Yare in Norfolk.

The inside covers contain maps of the Norfolk Broads and the Northern and Southern Rivers which are navigable.

River Yare as it runs south from Norwich

You should be able to see the name Buckenham Ferry

Buckenham Ferry on the River Yare -
oil painting by Joseph Stannard (1797-1830)

River Yare by Buckenham Marshes

The Yare is a principal navigable waterway of the Norfolk Broads and flows into and out of Breydon Water.

The Yare's route to the from Reedham to Gorleston-on-Sea

View of Gorleston-on-Sea from South Denes

I've always been a little disappointed that this river which runs through Great Yarmouth is not called the River Yarm. (Yarm is the town on the North East River Tees -see my 'T' post) My visits to Yarmouth have either been on holiday or to catch a helicopter from North Denes heliport when going offshore.

Photo attributions:

• Buckenham Ferry on the River Yare: Joseph Stannard 1826 painting - Yale Centre for British Art  - public domain
• River Yare by Buckenham Marshes: 3 January 2009 ex geograph.org.uk by Hugh Venables - CC BY-SA 2.0 Licence
• View of Gorleston-on-Sea across the River Yare: 13 February 2009  ex geograph.org.uk by Craig Tuck - CC BY-SA 2.0 Licence

Old - Thematic Photography

For this week's theme I thought I would show some 'old' photographs from the 1950s. 

They have a sporting theme until you get to the present day!

Just study them carefully.

Stamford School 1st XI 

Those in the blazers have won their cricket colours. That's me second from the left.

Here I am again in 1954 or 1955 at the ground of Lincoln Lindum.

Relaxing while the Peterborough team was batting

And how better a way to relax than with a companion like this.

Later to become my wife

Over 60 years later the blazer is still around.

In full colour now, casually draped on my office chair, or

On a hanger

And that's because I'm old as well  - and can no longer get it on.

For other old interpretations check out the links at Carmi's Thematic-Photographic-355.

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.

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.

Photo Archives - Sepia Saturday.

The prompt this week is just the thing to lead me astray; do I concentrate on books or photos or both?

I have found several books which you might classify as old in one way or another, but they did not contain any loose photos - sepia or otherwise. However I do have a box file (not a cardboard box like Alan's) in which are stored sepia photos, postcards and my newest book.

'Sepia Saturday' Box File

The photo on the left has been annotated on the back, "Is it you, or is it me? Mick" My wife is convinced that this is her elder sister Mick when she was young.

The one on the right is the old ferry at Hartlepool.

I left with a bit of a quandary. How do you judge the age of a book - by when it was written or when it was printed? Here's four to illustrate the point.

Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales &
John Bunyan -The Pilgrim's Progress

Chaucer was born about 1340 and died in 1400. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Bunyan, born in 1628, died 1688 lies in the Bunhill Fields Cemetery, London along with Daniel Defoe and William Blake.

The Penguin Classic, The Canterbury Tales was first published in 1951 - note the price of 5/-

The New American Library's edition of The Pilgrim's Progress appeared in 1964 at $1.75.

I noticed that the book in our prompt had the text in two columns. I can match that with our copy, a wedding present from 1958, of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare ( baptised in April 1564, died 23 April 1616).

Shakespeare' s The Winter's Tale

The last of my books is The Pickwick Papers, the first novel of Charles Dickens published in 1836.

The Fat Boy Awakes - The Pickwick Papers

What's special about this book for me? Just look at the inscription.

Form Prize at Stamford School 1949

Having been carried away by books I turned back to archives and this file of:

Prospekt Kort (Postcards)

This is the file put together by my daughter while I was working in Norway between 1979 and 1988. The cards are those I sent to her during that time - some have appeared on Sepia Saturday before.

In my archive search I came across some 'old' albums.

I wonder what happened to them

But when I turned the page, this is what I found.

Honeymoon(?) on the left in 1958; our two sons in 1960s

The second album contained more photo's, all in colour.

Cutting Our Wedding Cake

Finally I opened the top drawer of the desk in our lounge and found the largest collection of all.

Photos, photos, photos!

Now I need advice. Do I throw them all away when they are all stored here,

and on the Internet?

For other Sepians' views check out the links on Sepia-Saturday-210.

School Days - Sepia Saturday

As chemistry was my favourite subject at school I thought this week would be ideal for ma as soon as I saw the laboratory photo.

However when I looked through my photo archive it was more difficult than that. From the age of 11 I went to Stamford School in Lincolnshire, then an independent school, Now it it is part of Stamford Endowed Schools along with what back then was Stamford High School for girls.. [Note to Facebook - Stamford School, Stamford, Lincolnshire, England - NOT Stamford School, Lahore, Pakistan as you insist it is on my profile and won't let me correct]

Stamford School & School Chapel

The buildings are situated on St Paul's Street; on the other side of the street are more school buildings.

Brazenose House - 2007

(Richard Croft - CC BY-SA 2.0 - Geograph Project Collection)

Brazenose was built in c 1688 and rebuilt in 1723 and is now part of the Stamford Endowed Schools campus. In my day the upper floor contained the Staff Room and class rooms; the two bottom windows on the right were those for the School Prefects' Study. The entrance at the right hand end led down to Brazenose gardens. 

Later in 1957, two years after I left, a new science block was built at the bottom of that same entrance. Annoyingly, for me, the photos of the opening of the block and one of my old chemistry master in the lab are copyright protected on the members only part of the School website

Major Lamb (Algy) to us was the one who suggest that I go on to his old university at St Andrews. [Note to Facebook - In St Andrews, Fife, Scotland NOT South Carolina] St Andrews University is 600 years old this year.

St Salvator's Hall -1956

I'm perched on the railing on the top floor of the men's hall of residence; you can't see it in this shot but that is the North Sea behind the far hedge,

Not to be thwarted I managed to find a shot of a St Andrews lab that did not exist while I was there.

Nuclear Resonance Lab, St Andrews - 2009
(Shandchem from Scotland - CC BY 2.0)

Finally, definitely before my time, I finish with a shot of Paris from the Scientific American Supplement - Author L Page.

Drawing of the Lab of the School of Physics & Chemistry
Paris - 1884

For more of the best days of your life, schools, laboratories  - whatever, cross over to Sepia-saturday-176.

Love Your Library - Sepia Saturday

When I was at primary school the village library was held there. In those days (1940s) books were available once a week, stacked in a series of boxes. The library was run by the headmaster and his wife with villagers available as volunteers one night a week. I'm pleased to say that the head allowed me to volunteer at the age of 10.

So when I saw this week's prompt I thought that it would be just the theme for me. However it proved more difficult than I thought,

The picture comes from the collection of the New York Public Library and features a group of children avidly reading their books following a talk about books by the staff of the Library. The picture dates back to the 1920s.

Apart from  coats being worn this might have been a scene from the library at Stamford School where I was to go from aged 11 - 18. But  these days  cuts by governments in more countries than just the UK have led to closures and "Save Our Libraries" campaigns. Encouraging children to read is more important than ever  as I hope these old pictures will show:

Children Reading - 1916

Artist - Halonen, Pekka (1865-1933) - Google Art Project

A little later a US congress woman got involved:

US Congress woman Ruth Hanna McCormick - 1928

The photo from the Library of Congress shows her with a group of children reading at a table covered in books.

Children reading - 1911

(Credit: Chicago Daily News negatives collection, DN-0003451. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society.)

View of children reading at desks in a classroom at the Robert Emmet School located at 5500 West Madison Street in the Austin community area of Chicago, Illinois. 

Children's Reading Room - New Orleans Main library at Lee Circle - 1913

 (New Orleans Public Library photo)

I have no photos of the library at Stamford School or the library at the University of St Andrews (600 years old this year) in which I spent more hours than I can remember in the 1950s. So I'll end with this rather impressive picture from another place of higher education instead.

Norman Foster Staircase - London School of Economics - 2010

 (By John Picton - http://www.flickr.com/photos/arthurjohnpicton)

Now all you need to do is love your local library even if it is loaning e-books these days. Don't forget to pop across to check out other bookish types at Sepia Saturday 152