Amy on Sepia Saturday

I have just been looking at the The Daily Postcard blog and a post entitled 'To Amy from Paris.' This led me to www.sepiasaturday.blogspot.com hosted by Alan Burnett which invites you to post  any sepia photo you may wish to share.

Why have I added a picture? Well let me introduce you to Amy, my mother-in-law when she was young. I won't tell you her full name but  her family's name was Garside.

This photo is from the early 1900s. A beautiful picture of a girl who became a lovely woman remember by all who knew her.

Are You In A Rut?

If so, you could have learnt about ‘rutways’ by attending the Books and Banter session, entitled ‘Saltburn’s Rutways, presented by Rachel Graham of Teesside Archaeology at Stockton Library this month last year..

Rutways were created as safe routes for horsedrawn carts transporting cargoes between the foreshore and ships beached at low tide; such journeys were often made in poor visibility or when the tide was flooding or receding.

In 1986 John Owen reported on 17 locations on the North East coast of Yorkshire where rutways could be traced. The rutway sites are found from Saltburn to south of Scarborough, with all but two north of Whitby.

Teesside Archaeology, in partnership with the Nautical Archaeology and the Teesside Archaeology Societies, has been surveying rutways in the Saltburn area since 2005. Work can only been done at those times of the year when the tides are at their lowest, usually during one week in the summer – they haven’t been brave enough to work in March, the other optimum time. On any one day tasks have to be completed within a five hour time period.

 Huntcliffe (Behind Saltburn pier)

Initially surveying has been conducted on the shore below Huntcliffe, just south of Saltburn. The majority of the rutways have a gauge width of 4ft 4ins, the size for Yorkshire carts. A simple width gauge assists in identifying the location of the rutways which will originally have been cut by hand as long ago as the 17^th century. Erosion has worn them away over the years; their existence is not always easy to confirm and may be confused with cracks and faults in the rocky foreshore.

Square post holes have been located which may have been used as guide posts or to hold lamps to light the way in the dark. It is hoped to date the holes from the wood still left in one.

A row of round post holes, 7ins in diameter, leads out to sea with rows of 3.1/2in dia. on either side. It is believed these are more recent as they cut through the rutways; these may have been used to set out salmon nets.

The surveys completed have shown that the rutways ran round the base of Huntcliffe down towards Skinningrove to the south and can be traced to two inlets probably used for loading and unloading ships.

The concentration of rutways at Huntcliffe indicates substantial traffic with and up and down system akin to railway lines. Ships would have been able to beach on Saltburn’s sand and to be service by the carts using the rutways. {The picture in the gallery shows Huntcliffe in the background)

It is most likely that the rutways were used as part of the Yorkshire alum industry. They may also have been used to collect ironstone fallen out of the cliffs until around 1850 and the discovery of Cleveland’s main ironstone seam. Other uses could have been the collection of seaweed for the fertiliser industry or even the salvage of wrecked vessels (there are record of around 50 vessels lost at Saltburn and Huntcliffe.

A major ingredient for the alum industry is the shale found in this area. Alum works were in operation at Kettleness and Peak, near Ravenscar, north and south of Whitby. Shale, coal and seaweed are used to produce alum used as a mordant, or fixer, for dyes. The Archaeological team is monitoring a building being washed of the cliffs which is believed to be an alum house.

In 1790, when around 5000 tons of alum were produced, this would require 4450 tons of kelp, 35000 tons of coal and 56500 gallons of urine. For the 60 ton ships of the time the traffic on the rutways would have been considerable.

There are rutways at sites in Cornwall with those at Prussia Cove appearing on the first Ordnance Survey maps (1850s). These have the same 4ft 4in gauge but are up to 1ft deep. [If you Google Prussia Cove you may see pictures clearly showing the rutways]

The survey report covering 2005 and 2006 may be accessed at: http://www.teesarchaeology.com/projects/Saltburn_Rutways/documents/SaltburnRutways2006report.pdf

A Hero's Salute

A piece for Yarm Writers tomorrow 11th November, altered to include the photos.

Guests arriving at the St George Hotel cannot miss the larger-than-life bronze statue of an airman in WWII flying gear, standing at attention and holding a salute. If they check the memorial garden in front of the hotel, the wartime Officers’ Mess at Middleton-St-George, they will see a tribute to the Royal Canadian Air Force.

In 1944 Andrew Mynarski and Pat Brophy were members of the crew of a Lancaster bomber in the RCAF’s 419 “Moose” Squadron. Although Brophy was an officer the two became friends. Andrew would say. “Goodnight, sir,” and salute Brophy in a teasing way. Shortly before their 13^th mission Andrew gave Pat Brophy a four-leaf clover for good luck.

On 11 June 1944 Mynarski was promoted to pilot officer. The next day the two friends left on that 13^th mission on a bombing raid over the railway marshalling yards in Cambrai, France. Mynarski occupied the middle gun turret on top of the bomber’s fuselage, Brophy the tail-gun turret.

Later Brophy recalled that it was 12.13am on 13^th June on his watch when the Lancaster was hit by cannon fire from a German fighter. With two engines on fire the captain ordered everyone to bail out. Brophy was trapped in the rear gun turret with the back of the plane in flames.

Mynarski, at the hatch ready to jump, saw that Brophy was trapped. By the time he had crawled to reach his friend, Mynarski’s clothes and parachute were alight. Mynarski’s efforts with an axe and his bare hands failed to release the rear gunner.

Brophy screamed at Mynarski to give up and to save himself. As Mynarski crawled back towards the hatch he never took his eyes off his friend. At the hatch he came to attention and saluted. Brophy knew that what Mynarski said before he jumped was, “Good night, sir.”

Andrew Mynarski died from his burns shortly after being found by French farmers. Incredibly Brophy, thrown out of the plane when it crashed, survived without a scratch – the four leaf clover still nestled in his flyer’s hat.

On 11^th October 1946, four days before what would have been his 29^th birthday, Mynarski was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the Commonwealth’s highest honour for valour.

Andrew Mynarski is buried at Meharicourt Communal Cemetery near Cambrai, France. The bronze statue of him at the salute was dedicated in 2005 at the former RAF Middleton St George, 60 years after he lost his life. Fittingly it was Pat Brophy’s daughter who unveiled the memorial.

Mynarski was just one of the 55753 men of RAF Bomber Command who lost their lives in WWII and one of the twenty-three awarded the VC among who are the perhaps better known Leonard Cheshire and Guy Gibson.

Sixty-five years on from the end of the war there still is no memorial to those in Bomber Command who lost their lives. The memorial fund has not reached the £5.5m target required for its erection in London’s Green Park.

“The Few” have their national memorial on the white cliffs of Dover at Capel-le-Ferne. The Green Park memorial is in danger of being delayed until after the Olympics in 2012. What a shame it will be if there are no veterans left to honour their comrades when it is eventually erected. We should not forget what Churchill said at the time, “The fighters are our salvation, but the bombers alone provide the means of victory.”

To The Woods

Three years ago I set out to trace the origin of a small wood near the village where I live in the UK. I visited the wood at fortnightly intervals through most of the year taking photos that interested me and which show what was happening as the year progressed. (I'll post some of these at appropriate times of the year)

To The Woods

There are simple steps that may help you find out about woods that exist near you Anyone interested in tracing the history of woods on their land, or in their neighbourhood might well start with Ordnance Survey (OS) maps

My local wood is unnamed on OS maps and situated, beside an A67 road in North Yorkshire, it is little more than a small patch of green on the current maps. OS maps for the area dating back to 1857 and 1894 in the Middlesbrough reference library produced the first positive information about when the wood was planted. Not there in 1857, it appeared on the first edition of the 25,000:1 scale map of 1894. Other woods in the area had the same names as today, and a large hall also appeared for the first time

The Kirklevington village research group has traced ownership of the estate from William the Conqueror through absentee aristocratic and royal landowners to its sale to wealthy local families and its take over by a family of industrialists at the beginning of the nineteenth century. A family map from that time showed the hall and the wood. Comments on the estate referred to the establishment of new plantations and woods, i.e., those which appeared on the 1894 OS map. The hall, commissioned in the eighteen-seventies and first inhabited in 1884, is now Judges Country Hotel whose website gives 1881 as the year it was erected. 

Ancient woodland is land that has had a continuous woodland cover since at least 1600AD. My wood cannot therefore fall into this category and certainly no tree has a girth to suggest such an old age. You can check whether a wood is ancient by using the interactive map and ancient woodland inventory available on www.magic.gov.uk. In my case, using the post code to select the area showed ancient and replanted ancient woodland within five miles – but not my wood – superimposed on the OS map. However if a wood is less than 2 hectares, it will not appear on the ancient woodland map or inventory. 

On the 1894 OS map, using the 25,000:1 scale I calculated that my wood, which I christened ‘Boot Wood’ due to its characteristic shape, to be just under the 2 hectares. A picture on an archaeological web site of Boot Wood showed it in full leaf alongside what, in 1803 was established as a turnpike road and is now the A67; four adjacent fields are clearly land that was once tilled by a ridge and furrow system. Aerial photography may tell you more than can be seen on the ground. 

Boot Wood (and ridge and furrow system)

In researching a wood, you may find tree preservation orders (TPO) have been placed on individual trees or, even on the woodland itself. TPO made by the council or local planning authorities protect specific trees or woodland from deliberate damage and destruction. The felling, lopping, topping, uprooting or otherwise willful damaging trees are not permitted without the permission of the local planning authority. A council has a ‘discretionary’ power to make a TPO, but there is no legal reason why it has to make one. Even if a wood contains a wonderful tree it does not mean it will be the subject of a TPO. Because some TPO are quite old (they can date back to 1949) landowners may not know they have a TPO on their trees. TPO are available for inspection at local authority offices. 

Woodlands face threats from development in many areas, whether from new housing, roads, leisure amenities such as golf courses, or facilities for motor or mountain bike events. The Woodland Trust has a guide for planners on ancient woods and trees which supports 2005 Planning Policy Statement [PPS] No.9 on biodiversity and geological conservation. Although PPS 9 strengthens the protection for aged and veteran trees and ancient woods in England, there are legal loopholes which allow even sites of special scientific interest to be damaged and destroyed. Examples exist, such as Penn Wood in Buckinghamshire, where development decisions arising from public enquiries have been reversed following campaigns by residents and the Woodland Trust. It’s a good policy therefore to look out for announcements of consultations on local development plans which may affect woodlands where you live. 

A E Housman (Shropshire Lad, 1896) wrote “About the woodlands I will go.” However, if you intend to enter a wood which is on private land, and there are no designated bridle ways or public footpaths, you have ‘no right to roam’ without first obtaining permission. The right to roam, provided by The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 applies only to mapped areas of uncultivated, open countryside - namely mountain, moor, heath, down and registered common land and not to woodlands. The estate farmer gladly gave me permission to enter and study Boot Wood even although there are no paths or rights of way through its trees. 

What did I find in early March? The wood was only criss-crossed with animal tracks; it truly reflected Lord Byron’s words, “There is a pleasure in pathless woods”. The impact of man was plainly seen in its shape constrained on three sides by sheep netting, topped by a single barbed-wire strand strung between wooden fence poles; a neatly tonsured hawthorn hedge stretched sinuously along the northern side. Litter strewn inside the eastern edge demonstrated today’s fast food culture – empty plastic bottles, a discarded board announcing “Open; Food & Drink, Next Left”, cardboard, plastic and polystyrene food cartons and empty beer and soft drinks bottles and cans. Road works’ discards included safety helmet skull cap linings, battered traffic cones and a yellow warning lamp.

Inside the wood, the noise of human activity intruded with the steady hum of speeding traffic, the whine of aircraft overhead and even the rumble of an occasional far-off train. Then the sounds of the wood drown these noises out, first a blackbird’s warning cry of protest at being disturbed and a clatter of wings as wood pigeons took to flight and then, as things quietened down, the family chattering of long-tailed tits performing acrobatics in the trees. On a breezy day, the trees emitted eerie creaks interspersed with the rattle of last year’s ash keys and finally came the territorial call of a cock pheasant celebrating his escape from the last of the winter’s February shoots. 

In later months, road-kill chefs would have been able to feast on pheasant, fox, rabbit and squirrel, with badger from further along the wood-side road. Last winter, the wood has been alive with rabbits and grey squirrels; the rabbits have marked their favourite scrapes and moss stumps by copious droppings and, with a flash of white, take cover among the larger bramble bushes. Reportedly, deer have been seen in the early light of day, but these frequent the larger, nearby woods and fields, from where their tracks enter the wood.

Boot Wood is dominated by ash trees, whose keys and ivy-covered trunks have provided late winter colours, while silver birch, beech, oak, horse chestnut, hawthorn, blackthorn, elder and holly have also staked their claims. 

“The woods decay, the woods decay and fall”, wrote Tennyson, about the time the wood was planted. This is demonstrated now by ‘ship wrecks’ of silver birch trunks like broken masts with spars amid bramble-rigging at their feet; the characteristic hoof-shaped tinder fungus has also thrived on birch trunks and fallen branches. Large holes carved in trunks have not yet been inhabited. Similarly a massive beech log hollowed out and turned into a den contained no sign of occupation. 

Tinder (Horses hooves) fungus

The greatest future threat to woodland and natural habitats will be that of climate change. The Woodland Trust has reported that oaks are leafing earlier, with spring two weeks earlier and autumn one week later than thirty to fifty years ago. Recent warnings have spoken of the potential demise of the oak and bluebell which would be a loss to many woods. Individual trees and species may be affected by the changes in environmental stresses brought on by drought and milder winters. Droughts make trees more vulnerable to disease and lack of water can threaten the survival of trees and woods. Milder winters and the absence of severe cold may disrupt flowering and fruiting, and the germination of seeds from many trees which cannot follow the predicted retreat northwards of mobile insects, butterflies and birds. 

For now, apposite although Housman’s, Byron’s and Tennyson’s words may be, the most appropriate to Boot Wood must be Kipling’s Tree Song,

“Of all the trees that stand so fair,

Old England to adorn,

Greater are none beneath the Sun,

Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.”

November's Ghostly Happenings

 (Entrance to Hyde Hall by Robert Edwards - Creative Commons Licence)

Hyde Hall at Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire is the venue on November 1^st to see the ghost of Sir John Jocelyn riding a spectral horse down the drive of his former home. Another version says he rides his white horse furiously along an avenue near the church,

Sir John was a Nonconformist in an area dominated by Quakers. The church authorities rejected his request to be buried in the churchyard along with his favourite horse, so he left instructions that he was to be buried in the Hall grounds. In November 1741 he was buried, as per his instructions, without a coffin or shroud in a circle of yews along the main driveway to the Hall. There is no evidence that his horse was slaughtered and buried next to him.

The singer Suzi Quatro who once owned the Hall claimed that a guest room was haunted by a ghost named Richard. Supposedly the spirit of a little girl also walked around parts of the house.

The Hall later became a girls’ school.

 

On 3^rd November the ghost of Lady Costania Coleraine runs through the rooms of Bruce Castle in Tottenham screaming in anguish. 

(Bruce Hall by Julian Osley -Creative Commons Licence}

Henry, the 2^nd Lord Coleraine took over the house after his father’s death renaming it Bruce Castle. He had married Costania in an effort to restore his family’s fortune lost in the Civil War. He had a continuing affair with Sarah Alston (who he married in 1661 after the death of his wife.

Henry was a cruel man and confined his wife to upper rooms in the Castle, later effectively imprisoning her in the small rooms of the clock tower. On 3^rd November 1680 she managed to escape with her infant son and flung herself off the Castle balcony to her death. Supposedly her suicide is replayed on the anniversary.

A reference to the Ghostly Lady of Bruce Castle appeared in the 1858 March Edition of the Tottenham and Edmonton Advertiser.

Bruce Castle, once the home of Sir Rowland Hill, is now a museum. In addition to local history records its exhibits include displays from the early postal service.

 

The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore is built on the site of a former convent. On 13^th November the host of a grey lady, thought to be a nun, returns to haunt the wards.

50 Stories for Pakistan

The book is out. It can be bought at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1678288

Proceeds are for a good cause. Please give it your support.

Licence to Kill

Written last year for Yarm Writers on War or Peace - to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the start of WWII. As Remembrance Day is coming closer, I thought it appropriate to air it again.

Licence To Kill

He described war as ‘a licence to kill’ and in his last years Harry Patch used his experience at Paschendale to promote peace and reconciliation. He reminded us that WWI was eventually settled over an office table and wondered why the politicians and generals couldn’t have done that before millions of lives had been destroyed. That war has been described as ‘The war to end all wars.’ It has turned out to be anything but that.

The guns fell silent on 11 November 1918 after four years of unrelenting slaughter. For those that survived, peace opened up a world of uncertainties. It was a case of ‘what do we do next?’ 1919 saw Spanish flu claim millions of men who had returned from the trenches. One story tells of a soldier with symptoms of flu whose treatment became ‘fill him up with rum, and let him take his chance.’

Prior to WWII attempts to talk proved pointless. Chamberlain’s infamous piece of paper, proclaimed as heralding ‘Peace in our time,’ brought about nothing of the sort. Many WWI veterans were to see service in the Home Guard or as volunteers in the Fire Service. More lives were lost in bombing raids, before one bomb ended it all by killing 100,000 in Japan.

Why is it then that wars have continued in places like Korea, Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan? Will we never learn?

WWI saw poetry from Brooke, Sassoon and Owen that still serves as a reminder of the futility of war. In poetry you can find verses that amuse, shock or stir.

In your collection you might choose Chesterman’s William the Conquerer:

William the Conqueror, 1066,
Said to his captains, 'I mean to affix
England to Normandy. Go out and borrow
Some bows and some arrows, we're starting tomorrow.'
So William went conquering hither and thither
'Til Angles and Saxons were all of a dither
He conquered so quickly you couldn't keep count
Of the counties he conquered, I think they amount
To ten, or a dozen, or even a score,
And I haven't a doubt he'd have conquered some more,
So full and so proud of his conquering tricks
Was William the Conqueror, 1066.
But death put an end to the tactics, thank Heaven,
Of William the Conqueror, 1087.

A Shakespeare fan might recite from Henry V, a verse to precede a fight:

Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger...
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot!
Follow your spirit; and upon this charge,
Cry, "God for Harry! England and Saint George!

Perhaps you can be wiser after the event as Tennyson proclaimed:

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
'Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Some one had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Maybe though it was Wilfred Owen who hit the spot when he described the effect of poisoned gas and exposed:

The old lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

Even today the politicians decree that those lost and maimed in Afghanistan have not served in vain. Perhaps they should read ‘A Soldier Died Today’ by A Lawrence Vaincourt:

He was getting old and paunchy and his hair was falling fast,
And he sat around the Legion, telling stories of the past.
Of a war that he had fought in and the deeds that he had done,
In his exploits with his buddies; they were heroes, every one.

And tho' sometimes, to his neighbors, his tales became a joke,
All his Legion buddies listened, for they knew whereof he spoke.
But we'll hear his tales no longer for old Bill has passed away,
And the world's a little poorer, for a soldier died today.

He will not be mourned by many, just his children and his wife,
For he lived an ordinary and quite uneventful life.
Held a job and raised a family, quietly going his own way,
And the world won't note his passing, though a soldier died today.

When politicians leave this earth, their bodies lie in state,
While thousands note their passing and proclaim that they were great.
Papers tell their whole life stories, from the time that they were young,
But the passing of a soldier goes unnoticed and unsung.

Is the greatest contribution to the welfare of our land
A guy who breaks his promises and cons his fellow man?
Or the ordinary fellow who, in times of war and strife,
Goes off to serve his Country and offers up his life?

A politician's stipend and the style in which he lives
Are sometimes disproportionate to the service that he gives.
While the ordinary soldier, who offered up his all,
Is paid off with a medal and perhaps, a pension small.

It's so easy to forget them for it was so long ago,
That the old Bills of our Country went to battle, but we know
It was not the politicians, with their compromise and ploys,
Who won for us the freedom that our Country now enjoys.

Should you find yourself in danger, with your enemies at hand,
Would you want a politician with his ever-shifting stand?
Or would you prefer a soldier, who has sworn to defend
His home, his kin and Country and would fight until the end?

He was just a common soldier and his ranks are growing thin,
But his presence should remind us we may need his like again.
For when countries are in conflict, then we find the soldier's part
Is to clean up all the troubles that the politicians start.

If we cannot do him honor while he's here to hear the praise,
Then at least let's give him homage at the ending of his days.
Perhaps just a simple headline in a paper that would say,
Our Country is in mourning, for a soldier died today.

What else can be said as they unload the coffins from the Hercules at RAF Lyneham to pass through Wootton Bassett again.