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A Nod To Brent - a friendly thread, filled with frivolity, cream teas and pasties. Longing for the happy days in the South Hams 1947.


gwrrob
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John,I think you are right. My term for the ‘fore n’aft’ cap worn by most RAF servicemen at the time,so I stand rightly corrected.

 

Mine spent a period overseas in India in 1944/5 not a cushy posting considering the climate and conditions but better than most.Being then in his late 30’s,he was given a job working with touring concert parties and variety artists sent over to entertain the troops and on the local “official “ radio which had the grand title of Radio SEAC......South East Asia Command.

 
And yes,I remember the basket under the stairs.My mother called it a Moses Basket.Fortunately,it was never tested.

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Fortunately, we had booked our summer vacation in Wales.  Picking up on the Ian and John’s comments about RAF postings, I did think that this Chain Home RDF station high on the hills above Rhossili Beach wouldn’t have been the worst place to spend a war particularly on days like this.  My view may have changed as the clouds rolled in shrouding the beach and hills in cloud about an hour later!

 

David

 

 

B25EECFA-E121-4F43-B59A-E7147DCBDE2B.jpeg

4B1C62EB-8F93-4FCC-B6C3-47F3E81893CA.jpeg

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First repaint that I’ve done, which is on an Oxford Rail Dean Goods. Still needs some touch ups, brass paint around windows, etched plates, and some weathering. Colour is a custom mix by me, I hope I’m close enough.

 

Any thoughts on improvement would be helpful :) 

D85FFC61-7DB7-4DE0-8AC4-A9075CD0CB16.jpeg

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4 minutes ago, Ribird said:

First repaint that I’ve done, which is on an Oxford Rail Dean Goods. Still needs some touch ups, brass paint around windows, etched plates, and some weathering. Colour is a custom mix by me, I hope I’m close enough.

 

Any thoughts on improvement would be helpful :) 

D85FFC61-7DB7-4DE0-8AC4-A9075CD0CB16.jpeg

Looks lovely, but does it run nicely?

 

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On 11/08/2020 at 23:13, Clearwater said:

Fortunately, we had booked our summer vacation in Wales.  Picking up on the Ian and John’s comments about RAF postings, I did think that this Chain Home RDF station high on the hills above Rhossili Beach wouldn’t have been the worst place to spend a war particularly on days like this.  My view may have changed as the clouds rolled in shrouding the beach and hills in cloud about an hour later!

 

David

 

 

B25EECFA-E121-4F43-B59A-E7147DCBDE2B.jpeg

4B1C62EB-8F93-4FCC-B6C3-47F3E81893CA.jpeg


Maybe not uneventful. The Luftwaffe gave nearby Swansea a very nasty time during the Blitz.c 1941/42.Both my late parents vividly recalled the sky aglow and the roar and noise of the raids. We lived just 20 miles away.

 

Around the same time,my mother worked as a district nurse across the valley...a duty she performed by cycling from patient to patient..My father prior to joining up,worked as an office clerk at a pipeworks on the near side.This factory had circular kilns which if viewed from an aircraft resembled oil storage tanks.

One morning Dad heard from his office desk an unhealthily recognisable aircraft engine sound.He immediately went outside and saw in the sky above the valley a twin engined plane with black crosses under its wings which seemed to be circling with intent. Rushing to his telephone,he contacted the police to give warning.There had been no siren warning.This was a lone aircraft,obviously lost and intent on jettisoning its bomb load before heading for the safety of its home base,probably northern France.The officer on the other end of the phone stubbornly refused to believe Dad,accusing him of making a nuisance of himself....after all they’d received no reports of any enemy aircraft in the area..Dad of course was pointedly  concerned about where its bomb aimer was sighting.

 

The conversation was interrupted by the whistle of the bomb load and the crash of explosions.Fritz was inaccurate....fortunately for my father and the pipeworks. Most of the load landed harmlessly on the opposite side of the valley ,save one.That demolished a house where a few minutes hence my mother had been attending a patient.The blast knocked her off her bike but miraculously she was unscathed.

 

But for a matter of good timing,I might never have been posting this.

 

The lone raider had given himself away by a clumsy manoeuvre.and didn’t make it home.being too easy a prey for the then alerted RAF.

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Captain Kernow said:

Looks lovely, but does it run nicely?

 

Yes it does! I had an issue with the copper contacts internally, the gear clicking and wedging itself into the copper. I bent them back to the proper shape and runs quiet. I believe in one of the pages on the Dean Goods thread, somebody else also had that issue. 

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1 hour ago, Ian Hargrave said:


Maybe not uneventful. The Luftwaffe gave nearby Swansea a very nasty time during the Blitz.c 1941/42.Both my late parents vividly recalled the sky aglow and the roar and noise of the raids. We lived just 20 miles away.

 

Around the same time,my mother worked as a district nurse across the valley...a duty she performed by cycling from patient to patient..My father prior to joining up,worked as an office clerk at a pipeworks on the near side.This factory had circular kilns which if viewed from an aircraft resembled oil storage tanks.

One morning Dad heard from his office desk an unhealthily recognisable aircraft engine sound.He immediately went outside and saw in the sky above the valley a twin engined plane with black crosses under its wings which seemed to be circling with intent. Rushing to his telephone,he contacted the police to give warning.There had been no siren warning.This was a lone aircraft,obviously lost and intent on jettisoning its bomb load before heading for the safety of its home base,probably northern France.The officer on the other end of the phone stubbornly refused to believe Dad,accusing him of making a nuisance of himself....after all they’d received no reports of any enemy aircraft in the area..Dad of course was pointedly  concerned about where its bomb aimer was sighting.

 

The conversation was interrupted by the whistle of the bomb load and the crash of explosions.Fritz was inaccurate....fortunately for my father and the pipeworks. Most of the load landed harmlessly on the opposite side of the valley ,save one.That demolished a house where a few minutes hence my mother had been attending a patient.The blast knocked her off her bike but miraculously she was unscathed.

 

But for a matter of good timing,I might never have been posting this.

 

The lone raider had given himself away by a clumsy manoeuvre.and didn’t make it home.being too easy a prey for the then alerted RAF.

 

 

 

 

 


Thanks for sharing Ian, such fine margins and a completely different, and increasingly distant, time to today.  I remember my Birmingham grandparents telling of seeing the glow of Coventry being bombed and describing it with a slight touch of “thank god it’s not us.”  My kids find it hard to comprehend that my grandparents were born before WW1 and when I explain that they would have been down a mine by age 8 as their ancestors undoubtedly were, they look somewhat shocked...I try and remind them that they are more lucky than they could possibly imagine.
 

Standing atop Rhossili down and looking out over the estuary towards north Devon, I was reminded, and again by your description of a lone raider, of the tale of the unfortunate, lost Luftwaffe pilot who crossed the Welsh coast and mistook the Severn estuary for the channel and hence north Devon for France.  Cue comedic episode as he taxied up to surprised RAF erks before being arrested!

 

Beautiful part of the world. Difficult also to imagine these days the presence of so much heavy industry with only Port Talbot surviving.  For me, the drive along the M4 shows all the valley names so redolent of the coal industry.

 

David

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4 hours ago, Ribird said:

First repaint that I’ve done, which is on an Oxford Rail Dean Goods. Still needs some touch ups, brass paint around windows, etched plates, and some weathering. Colour is a custom mix by me, I hope I’m close enough.

 

Any thoughts on improvement would be helpful :) 

D85FFC61-7DB7-4DE0-8AC4-A9075CD0CB16.jpeg

 

I like it!:)

    Brian.

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4 minutes ago, gwrrob said:

Hall class 4943 Marrington Hall heads west with an eight coach train.

 

673142062_DSCN7079(2).JPG.c5364ecde4883cfaefdf9bcf6889cfe0.JPG880584284_DSCN7080(2).JPG.47dbc26f2aa42c38a1c21ea499fa0c6b.JPG811230878_DSCN7081(2).JPG.5cc80098aece53b4e264fe8afd4923cb.JPG

 

Very tranquil

On my way with my bucket and spade now I can get safely down onto the beach.........!!!

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