Castle Aching

[sem34090]

I always wondered why the Germans adopted stick grenades...

 

You may have just provided the answer!

[Hroth]

I always wondered why the Germans adopted stick grenades...

 

You may have just provided the answer!

Because they didn't know how to throw cricket balls!

[Hroth]

Going back to the posters on the previous page for a moment, it struck me that the chap collecting Mr Pickwicks portmanteau looks remarkably like Phil Oakey in the early 80s....

[Edwardian]

Because they didn't know how to throw cricket balls!

 

The traditional British officer class, on the other hand ...

 

We know how Caesar conquered Gaul

And how to whack a cricket ball;

Apart from this, our education

Lacks co-ordination

[Martin S-C]

I think my involvement with the poster was the coat of arms - although there were a number of different ones mooted, so mine may not have made the final cut. Looking back, unsuccessfully, to find my input, I realized that the Seaford poster had originated from here and the 'current' view was posted in reply - back in July when there was a previous outburst of poster posting.

People were posting posts of posters just to increase their post count, post-haste.

[Caley Jim]

The traditional British officer class, on the other hand ...

 

We know how Caesar conquered Gaul

And how to whack a cricket ball;

Apart from this, our education

Lacks co-ordination

The only skill the leader of the Queen's Navee had was to 'polish up the handle of the big brass door' !

 

Jim

[Edwardian]

The only skill the leader of the Queen's Navee had was to 'polish up the handle of the big brass door' !

 

Jim

 

Yet the British Tar is soaring soul, as free as a mountain bird ...

[runs as required]

The inevitable response ....

"they don't like it up 'em!"

 

I'm sure that would have been my 'feeling' too

 

As someone who missed National Service by just 3 months - I used to wonder how it would have been best to die in battle - we often argued about it as kids.

While I had a pilot's licence through my Africa years, I decided it would have been as a pilot pumped full of adrenalin (but for most that would be in the post-grouping, post AFC/RN crowd).

 

Wife's dad was in the Navy (flower class minesweeper) on the Murmansk convoys and was decidedly weird ever afterwards.

An 'uncle' was uncomfortably hot inside an 8th army tank with many a story of their apprehension about Rommel.

dh

[Hroth]

"Flower" class vessels were Corvettes for anti-submarine/escort duties, eg the fictional "Compass Rose" in "The Cruel Sea", or the completely genuine HMS Petunia.  (Imagine having that on your hat band!).  The weirdness would be completely understandable, they were notoriously tender and would ship water, bad enough in the North Atlantic but even worse on the run to Murmansk where it would probably end up as ice halfway down the companionways.  And then there were the Germans to contend with too, and the Russians....

[Annie]

I remember reading the 'Cruel Sea' some years ago, - an impressive book.

[Regularity]

People were posting posts of posters just to increase their post count, post-haste.

As you were with that one!

 

And that’s one more for me!

[Nearholmer]

Have the retro-philes of this thread spotted this r-t-r loco https://www.ooworks.co.uk ?

 

I think, given the name of the maker, that it is 00, rather than 21mm gauge, and, to me, it looks like a perfect model for the sort of railway that this thread worships.

 

Noticed it under review in 02/2019 Railway Modeller, which materialised on the news stand today.

 

Not cheap, but nothing seems to be these days!

Edited January 9, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

"Flower" class vessels were Corvettes for anti-submarine/escort duties, eg the fictional "Compass Rose" in "The Cruel Sea", or the completely genuine HMS Petunia.  (Imagine having that on your hat band!).  The weirdness would be completely understandable, they were notoriously tender and would ship water, bad enough in the North Atlantic but even worse on the run to Murmansk where it would probably end up as ice halfway down the companionways.  And then there were the Germans to contend with too, and the Russians....

 

Built to make up for the lack of sufficient Destroyers for convoy protection, they were very small, so small that a very large 1/72nd scale kit was possible!  One features on the Overlord layout. 

[Nearholmer]

Doesn't add much, but I used to work with a chap who had served in HMS Primrose ........... flower names always seem a bit odd, too gentle, for warships, and for locomotives, but the GWR was pretty keen on them too.

[Jim15B]

"Flower" class vessels were Corvettes for anti-submarine/escort duties, eg the fictional "Compass Rose" in "The Cruel Sea", or the completely genuine HMS Petunia. (Imagine having that on your hat band!). The weirdness would be completely understandable, they were notoriously tender and would ship water, bad enough in the North Atlantic but even worse on the run to Murmansk where it would probably end up as ice halfway down the companionways. And then there were the Germans to contend with too, and the Russians....

A considerable amount of time and effort would be spent by the crew chipping ice off the upper works to prevent the extra weight it added causing a capsize, which probably didn't do much to improve the state of the their nerves. Like the BYMS minesweepers, the Flower Class would "roll on wet grass" but were extremely seaworthy.

Edited January 9, 2019 by Jim15B

[Edwardian]

I remember reading the 'Cruel Sea' some years ago, - an impressive book.

 

Yes, I enjoyed it when I read some years ago. Good film adaption, too. jack Hawkins as the captain, IIRC.

[TheQ]

Snorkers!!! good Oh!!

[Northroader]

Sooo.... next question, did you fancy Virginia McKenna in the “Cruel Sea” more than Susanna York in the “Battle of Britain”?? Answers on a postcard please to Nonnatus House for Nice Nuns.(Me, Sexist??)

[Hroth]

Sooo.... next question, did you fancy Virginia McKenna in the “Cruel Sea” more than Susanna York in the “Battle of Britain”?? Answers on a postcard please to Nonnatus House for Nice Nuns.(Me, Sexist??)D4C331FE-3FA1-4FC3-8642-1E1E171B06E5.jpeg

DFC5ED39-4026-405A-9846-DA5C72D73E2B.jpeg

Depends on whether I've a light blue or dark blue mood....     (Or perhaps )

Snorkers!!! good Oh!!

Oi!

 

Its going to seem a very long voyage...

[drmditch]

Re: Flower Class corvettes, the 'Cruel Sea', and the real job and the films.

 

Nicholas Monsarrat published several books during the war, when he was a serving RNVR officer in escort vessels. They are all well worth reading.

'The Cruel Sea', although describing fictional ships (there had to two because one of them was sunk) is based on real experience and real events.

 

The film is good, allowing for the necessary compromises, one of which is that the former HMS Coreopsis, playing the part of Compass Rose, when described as a new ship, is clearly rather battered; as well she might be!

 

There were also a series of Flower Class vessels built in WW1 described as sloops for convoy protection. The WW2 vessels were based on  whale catcher produced at Smith's Dock in Sunderland.

 

The other WW2 Naval film using original experience is Noel Cowards 1942 'In Which We Serve', although more obviously produced for a wartime morale/propaganda market. It is actually based on Lord Louis Mountbatten's experiences in command of the destroyer HMS Kelly. (Another North Eastern ship). Coward uses several of Mountbatten's talks to his crew in the script, and does follow (roughly) the actual sequence of events.

 

There are several questions to be asked about Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten's competence as a destroyer flotilla commander. On at least two of the occasions when Kelly was badly damaged she shouldn't have been in those positions anyway. A B Cunningham was not impressed by Mountbatten as a destroyer sailor. The Kelly's final sinking however was a different matter. Cunningham had to risk his ships and his men to attempt to evacuate the army from Crete.

 

Mountbatten had the right connections however. How else does a (substantiative) Captain RN become a Supreme Allied Commander?

 

There was  BBC programme on British War Films over the holiday season. It mentioned both films, but did not discuss the actual experience involved. It was more interested in the social commentary in 'In Which We Serve'.

 

The latter was also shown last weekend. I watched it twice, and then re-read the appropriate chapters of Philip Zeigler's biography of Mountbatten.

 

It is interesting how people now regard films which are in many ways primary sources of war history. 

[Edwardian]

Re: Flower Class corvettes, the 'Cruel Sea', and the real job and the films.

 

Nicholas Monsarrat published several books during the war, when he was a serving RNVR officer in escort vessels. They are all well worth reading.

'The Cruel Sea', although describing fictional ships (there had to two because one of them was sunk) is based on real experience and real events.

 

The film is good, allowing for the necessary compromises, one of which is that the former HMS Coreopsis, playing the part of Compass Rose, when described as a new ship, is clearly rather battered; as well she might be!

 

There were also a series of Flower Class vessels built in WW1 described as sloops for convoy protection. The WW2 vessels were based on  whale catcher produced at Smith's Dock in Sunderland.

 

The other WW2 Naval film using original experience is Noel Cowards 1942 'In Which We Serve', although more obviously produced for a wartime morale/propaganda market. It is actually based on Lord Louis Mountbatten's experiences in command of the destroyer HMS Kelly. (Another North Eastern ship). Coward uses several of Mountbatten's talks to his crew in the script, and does follow (roughly) the actual sequence of events.

 

There are several questions to be asked about Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten's competence as a destroyer flotilla commander. On at least two of the occasions when Kelly was badly damaged she shouldn't have been in those positions anyway. A B Cunningham was not impressed by Mountbatten as a destroyer sailor. The Kelly's final sinking however was a different matter. Cunningham had to risk his ships and his men to attempt to evacuate the army from Crete.

 

Mountbatten had the right connections however. How else does a (substantiative) Captain RN become a Supreme Allied Commander?

 

There was  BBC programme on British War Films over the holiday season. It mentioned both films, but did not discuss the actual experience involved. It was more interested in the social commentary in 'In Which We Serve'.

 

The latter was also shown last weekend. I watched it twice, and then re-read the appropriate chapters of Philip Zeigler's biography of Mountbatten.

 

It is interesting how people now regard films which are in many ways primary sources of war history. 

 

I must re-watch In Which We Serve, which I have not seen for years, because I recall that we see footage of what looks like a GW West of England express, complete with 70 footers (appropriately probably including Dreadnoughts) conveying Coward's character to, IIRC, Plymouth.

[Regularity]

Sooo.... next question, did you fancy Virginia McKenna in the “Cruel Sea” more than Susanna York in the “Battle of Britain”?

IIRC, although it is tastefully done without nudity, in the latter film we do get to see Susanna York wandering around in blouse and suspenders. And in colour. But with a 60s hairstyle.

Whether that swings the decision one way or the other is a different matter.

 

Now, where did I put my spectacles...

[Compound2632]

Have the retro-philes of this thread spotted this r-t-r loco https://www.ooworks.co.uk ?

 

I think, given the name of the maker, that it is 00, rather than 21mm gauge, and, to me, it looks like a perfect model for the sort of railway that this thread worships.

 

Noticed it under review in 02/2019 Railway Modeller, which materialised on the news stand today.

 

Not cheap, but nothing seems to be these days!

 

Ah yes the Irish equivalent of Ramsbottom's DX - and like the DX, the most numerous class of locomotive in its country. Built (mostly) at the Irish Crewe. As a characteristic mid-Victorian 0-6-0 it does have distinct possibilities and at least it isn't the version rebuilt with extended smokebox and Belpaire boiler. OO Works models are all-metal, which would make bashing rather a challenge. I'm curious that grey should be £5 more expensive than black.

[Argos]

My father ran off to join the merchant navy at the age of 15 in 1942 to avoid the fate of his elder mates who were conscripted as Beven boys and sent down the pits.

 

I guess it was no questions asked at that point in the war.

 

He told some pretty hair raising tales about the sea worthiness of the merchant fleet, the liberty ships in particular. The modern myth is they were built for 1 crossing. In actuality they were used until they fell apart.

 

My dad always reckoned he never saw a navy ship outside port for his first year. The convoy escort was always "just over the horizon lad...."

 

Bare in mind the standing instruction in a convoy was not to stop or slow down to pick up survivors from sunk or damaged vessels. It must have been a pretty bleak outlook.

 

A Flower class corvette, however small would have been a welcome comfort.

Edited January 9, 2019 by Argos

[Edwardian]

Have the retro-philes of this thread spotted this r-t-r loco https://www.ooworks.co.uk ?

 

I think, given the name of the maker, that it is 00, rather than 21mm gauge, and, to me, it looks like a perfect model for the sort of railway that this thread worships.

 

Noticed it under review in 02/2019 Railway Modeller, which materialised on the news stand today.

 

Not cheap, but nothing seems to be these days!

 

This has come up before: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/?p=2860535.

 

Essentially it seems to be a standard Beyer Peacock design with a McDonnell cab.

 

It would be entirely suitable, I'd suggest, for CA.

 

I think originally they had a slope fronted smokebox front, rather LNWR, but I doubt that it will be easy to modify either the smokebox or the cab given the robust OO Works construction. The grey model is the OO Works version, taken from their website page linked by Nearholmer.

 

A re-paint, in fully lined green WNR, would be entirely possible. Funnily enough, they seem to have worn lined green early in their careers, giving some idea of what a WNR version might look like.

 

I had discounted the model as I expected all would be sold out before the house had sold.  I note that orders are still being taken. Should the Directors of the WNR splash out? 

Edited January 9, 2019 by Edwardian