Castle Aching

[Skinnylinny]

I think this is going to have to be one of those areas where I put on my rose-tinted spectacles and pretend that the past was a nicer place than it really was. At least for a fictional town. Much in the same way that some modern-image modellers don't depict graffiti, or other, grittier aspects of day-to-day life, I'm sure I can be forgiven for ignoring... distasteful aspects of the past in a hobby that is, for the most part, meant to be for pleasure. 

Suffice to say, the Salvation Army will not be appearing in Linton. Not even at Christmas.

Edited November 20, 2019 by Skinnylinny

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, Skinnylinny said:

Much in the same way that some modern-image modellers don't depict graffiti, or other, grittier aspects of day-to-day life, 

 

One of the finest small layouts on RMWeb, superbly evoking the Birmingham of my youth:

 

 

[sem34090]

Not including Salvation Army representatives on layouts? A personal choice. If I were to be modelling a real place at a specific time of year and it was proven that the scene would not have been complete without them, or their band, then I would include them on grounds of remaining true to the prototype. Although I do not always achieve it, To me, it's important to occasionally model the past as it came and not as we wish it had been to a certain extent. I shall be representing other less-than-pleasant-to-modern-eyes areas of late-1930s life on my layout I expect so in that it would be no different, but as I am modelling a fictional location I see no need to include them so probably won't. 

 

23 minutes ago, AVS1998 said:

As the adage goes, ''The past is a foreign land; they do things differently there''. 

Not many words could be more true than those. I think it's misguided to judge the past and its people by the standards of the present. But also that some of the past's views and beliefs have increasingly found themselves outstaying their welcome.

Edited November 20, 2019 by sem34090
Unnecessary, waffling, uncalled-for rant deleted.

[Edwardian]

The Past often had a funny way of accommodating people, even where the established rules or code required disapproval.

 

I'm not saying that this was all fine, just because a blind eye was turned, much less that we should settle for that now, but sometimes families and communities refused to condemn, or to notice anything "wrong", and that was something at least. 

 

I had a pair of Great Aunts, part of my respectable chapel-going, pledge-signing Yorkshire family, who lived together, except that only one of them was technically my Aunt (not sure which, actually), the other being her companion of many years. I don't know if it wasn't more willful niavety or Nelsonian blindness than tolerance or acceptance, but they were free to live how they chose. Rather, it was the sister who married a Roman Catholic who raised eyebrows, whereas the neighbours who bought things on hire purchase attracted outright condemnation!

 

The Past was a less than perfect place - let's face it, the Present is far from perfect - but every so often it can pleasantly surprise us.  

 

Anyway, I said sometime ago that I'd banned the Daily Mail from CA, so no one has to hate anyone there! 

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

One of the finest small layouts on RMWeb, superbly evoking the Birmingham of my youth:

 

 

 

A fine layout indeed, but for someone who still suffers flashbacks of soulless architecture and flared trousers when the 1970s are mentioned, possibly one I might struggle fully to appreciate!  

[Regularity]

6 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

A fine layout indeed, but for someone who still suffers flashbacks of soulless architecture and flared trousers when the 1970s are mentioned, possibly one I might struggle fully to appreciate!  

I can cope with that.

It’s the flashback to Birmingham in the late 70s which gives me the screaming habdabs.

[St Enodoc]

22 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

The Past often had a funny way of accommodating people, even where the established rules or code required disapproval.

The bottle of whisky and the loaded revolver were always available in extremis.

[Nearholmer]

Every one of the  pasts was the best of times and the worst of times, and the present is the best of times and the worst of times, it’s just that the bests and worsts are continuously changing.

[sem34090]

Now we get this lass telling us those exact words as if they're something new and profound...

[Nearholmer]

As for the Salvation Army, I suppose one might ask why the fundamentalists should have all the best tunes?

 

Although, apparently, William Booth never said what he is supposed to have said.

[sem34090]

Onward Christian Soldiers marching out to war...

Pardon? Eh? I didn't say anything.

[Compound2632]

On 15/11/2019 at 09:10, Compound2632 said:

Anyway, the point is, the lampiron positions can be used to date a photo pre- or post-1903. I'm afraid I don't know the exact date at which the change came into force. The changeover was on 1 February 1903.

 

 

Re: lampirons. Post edited.

[Hroth]

7 hours ago, AVS1998 said:

 

I don't know, but as I sit here, can of Coke in hand (I know. Dreadful.) I suddenly have an urge to stand on a hill, in a commune, and belt out ''I'd like to teach the world to sing...''. 

 

Hmmmm....

 

Well, "Coke" was originally a Temperance drink, intended to wean the feckless masses from the Demon Alcohol.  Real, Original Coke contained cocaine, so it was just a case of swapping one evil for another!  All those starry-eyed folk squalking on top of a hill were well out of their trees!*

 

*Ok, by then it was just a massive sugar high, the active cocaine had been removed from the beverage by 1903.

[RodneyS]

In the case of my 'local sect' the Cokelers,  Coke may have referred to cocoa.

The sect did not encourage marriage and have died out,  Funny that.

Rodney

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Dependants

[Annie]

8 hours ago, AVS1998 said:

 

I don't know, but as I sit here, can of Coke in hand (I know. Dreadful.) I suddenly have an urge to stand on a hill, in a commune, and belt out ''I'd like to teach the world to sing...''.

 

Not the best tune by any means. 

In general I have found that those christian sects who claim 'sola scriptura' mostly spend time 'searching the scriptures' for reasons that they can be mean to people.  Not what Christ intended at all.

Edited November 21, 2019 by Annie

[Edwardian]

10 hours ago, AVS1998 said:

 

I don't know, but as I sit here, can of Coke in hand (I know. Dreadful.) I suddenly have an urge to stand on a hill, in a commune, and belt out ''I'd like to teach the world to sing...''.

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, RodneyS said:

In the case of my 'local sect' the Cokelers,  Coke may have referred to cocoa.

The sect did not encourage marriage and have died out,  Funny that.

Rodney

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Dependants

 

Fascinating.  I hadn't heard of that lot.  

 

I love these sects, they're so barmy.  Several, including the more mainstream and prolific, and doubtless less barmy, Society of Friends, seem to have been named or nick-named for bodily spasms.

 

Perhaps we should have a sect called the Movers & Shakers?  My favourite is Betjeman's  Ember Day Bryanites.

 

Regular parishioners will recall that Castle Aching boasts the last congregation of the Memonites, or The Great Unwashed, as they were once known, whose strange views on personal hygiene stem from a misreading of a lost book of the Apocrypha, the Book of Memon.   

 

2 hours ago, Annie said:

In general I have found that those christian sects who claim 'sola scriptura' mostly spend time 'searching the scriptures' for reasons that they can be mean to people.  Not what Christ intended at all.

 

Yes, the essential mean-spiritedness of much of this cant is apparent. 

 

Only yesterday, R4 quoted that brilliant bon mot of H L Menckin defining Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy".   

 

So, Alex, as an antidote to all this narrow-minded prescriptiveness, I think you should just go for it ...

 

, 

 

 

 

Edited November 21, 2019 by Edwardian
spelling!

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Re: lampirons. Post edited.

[The changeover was on 1 February 1903.]

 

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

the active cocaine had been removed from the beverage by 1903.

Is that just a coincidence?

I think we should be told...

[Annie]

7 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

 

Yes, the essential mean-spiritedness of much of this cant is apparent. 

 

Only yesterday, R4 quoted that brilliant bon mot of H L Mankin defining Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy".   

 

So, Alex, as an antidote to all this narrow-minded prescriptiveness, I think you should just go for it ...

 

, 

Oh yes, perfectly stated.  I must remember that quote.

 

Unfortunately when I sing people plead with me to stop since I'm totally tone deaf , but I agree, - sing your heart out Alex.

[wagonman]

10 hours ago, Edwardian said:

The Past often had a funny way of accommodating people, even where the established rules or code required disapproval.

 

 

Indeed, many were accommodated – in Australia mostly.

 

 

 

"I had a pair of Great Aunts, part of my respectable chapel-going, pledge-signing Yorkshire family, who lived together, except that only one of them was technically my Aunt (not sure which, actually), the other being her companion of many years. I don't know if it wasn't more willful niavety or Nelsonian blindness than tolerance or acceptance, but they were free to live how they chose. Rather, it was the sister who married a Roman Catholic who raised eyebrows, whereas the neighbours who bought things on hire purchase attracted outright condemnation!"

 

 

A bit like the Ladies of Llangollen. It seems it was not that uncommon – and after all it wasn't illegal...

 

 

[Regularity]

1 minute ago, wagonman said:

A bit like the Ladies of Llangollen. It seems it was not that uncommon – and after all it wasn't illegal...

Apparently Queen Victoria couldn't understand, in her somewhat "suburban" way, how two women could engage in such activities.

[Hroth]

21 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Is that just a coincidence?

I think we should be told...

 

Well, if the number of lampirons was reduced, perhaps they were recycled as Irn-Bru (which dates from 1901, so pretty close).

 

16 minutes ago, wagonman said:

 

... "I had a pair of Great Aunts, part of my respectable chapel-going, pledge-signing Yorkshire family, who lived together, except that only one of them was technically my Aunt (not sure which, actually), the other being her companion of many years. I don't know if it wasn't more willful niavety or Nelsonian blindness than tolerance or acceptance, but they were free to live how they chose. Rather, it was the sister who married a Roman Catholic who raised eyebrows, whereas the neighbours who bought things on hire purchase attracted outright condemnation!"

 

 

A bit like the Ladies of Llangollen. It seems it was not that uncommon – and after all it wasn't illegal...

 

 

 

Even in the late 60's my Grandmother was (very) upset when my uncle married a RC girl.  Mind you, Granny was also very anti-German, though that was a little more understandable as her two elder brothers had been killed on the Western Front.  H.P. was regarded as "living beyond ones means" and the epitome of Micawberite profligacy!

 

The lady and her companion was probably more socially acceptable providing the companion, or the lady for that matter, didn't dress in overtly "male" clothing or engage in excessive public displays of affection.

 

 

[TheQ]

One of my great Uncles caused some family upset...He swapped sides to be come a Catholic to marry a girl..

He was a glaswegian Orange man... Then to cap that they moved to Northern Ireland..

Edited November 21, 2019 by TheQ

[RedGemAlchemist]

21 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Well, if the number of lampirons was reduced, perhaps they were recycled as Irn-Bru (which dates from 1901, so pretty close).

Great, now I want some Irn-Bru. 

 

My nan is an Irish Catholic. Myself, my mum and all my brothers are atheist. Awkward. 

[Annie]

I caused some consternation in my family when I decided to return to our southern Irish Catholic roots and then to top it off became a lay Franciscan.  So some of these old prejudices still run deep despite our so called 'more enlightened' modern times.

[Edwardian]

1 minute ago, Annie said:

I caused some consternation in my family when I decided to return to our southern Irish Catholic roots and then to top it off became a lay Franciscan.  So some of these old prejudices still run deep despite our so called 'more enlightened' modern times.

 

Well, for the English, there are five centuries of conditioning to overcome.

 

I lived for a time in the North West.  I was surprise to find that anti-Catholic sentiment was discernible, if not obvious, in Manchester, which, I was informed had Irish-Catholic origins for about a third of its population.  The population of nearby Liverpool is assumed to be be predominantly Irish-Catholic.  The two cities do not get on, but, then, rival neighbours seldom do (try the Channel Islands for a taste of that!), so religious intolerance might not be the decisive factor.  

 

In my youth I once passed unharmed through a rough patch of Liverpool, escorted reverently by some youths who were very respectful and never failed to address me as "Father".  If I had not been on my way to a 'murder mystery' party dressed as a vicar, things might have turned out differently.